Healing Your Grieving Heart When Someone You Care About Has Alzheimer S

Navigating the challenging journey that families and friends of Alzheimer’s patients must endure, this heartfelt guide reveals how their struggle is as complex and drawn out as the illness itself. Confronting their natural but difficult process of grieving and mourning, the study covers the inevitable feelings of shock, sadness, anger, guilt, and relief, illustrating the initial reactions people commonly feel from the moment of the dementia’s onset. Healthy and productive ways to acknowledge and express these feelings are suggested along with 100 tips and activities that fulfill the emotional, spiritual, cognitive, physical, and social needs of those who care about someone afflicted with this debilitating disease. Special consideration is also shown for caregivers, whose grief is often complicated by the demanding physical attention that patients require.

Getting older goes hand in hand with losses of many kinds—ending careers, empty nests, illness, the deaths of loved ones—and this book by one of the world's most beloved grief experts helps one acknowledge and mourn the many losses of aging while also offering advice for living better in old age. The 100 practical tips and activities address the emotional, spiritual, cognitive, social, and physical needs of seniors who want to age authentically and gracefully, and each idea also includes a seize-the-day action to live fully and with joy in the present moment. For those who've just entered their 50s or are well on their way to the century mark, this book promises elder-friendly tips for comfort, laughter, and inspiration.

Ginnie Horst Burkholder shares from the heart about caring for a spouse who is slowly slipping away to Lewy body dementia (LBD). Burkholder’s memoir reveals how she handles the constant challenges through humor, love, commitment, and faith. At the same time, she does not gloss over the loss, pain, and loneliness on this emotional roller coaster ride that invaded her marriage and family following her husband’s diagnosis. The book is about the gritty and glorious substances of life—how illness and health, faith and doubt, grief and acceptance all flow together in the river of change. It leads each of us to a greater awareness of our own life experiences. Study questions are included. They are not only a tool for understanding dementia or the role of caregivers but can bring greater self-awareness to every person’s life experience. LBD is not a rare disease. It affects an estimated 1.3 million individuals and their families in the United States. It affected the author Ginnie Horst Burkholder's family before the age of 50. Learn more from the Lewy Body Dementia Association at www.lbda.org. Read more of Ginnie's writing and other Essays on LBD Caregiving by clicking here. A great companion resource to Relentless Goodbye is the book Loving Someone Who Has Dementia: How to Find Hope while Coping with Stress and Grief by Pauline Boss, PhD. Click here for more information.

The Dementia Care Partner's Workbook includes a forward by world-renown dementia educator Teepa Snow, who said, "This resource offers what is so needed in dementia care: a combination of practical, emotional, intellectual, social, and spiritual support for those who have to make the journey. This workbook provides individual family members with greater awareness, knowledge, and skill to improve life, relationships, and care throughout the disease process."

If you're thinking about starting a support group for dementia care partners, this downloadable leader's manual is for you. The Dementia Care Partner's Workbook is a new resource from Companion Press that is both a support group participant's manual and self-study guide for care partners who have a loved one with Alzheimer's disease or another form of dementia. Its ten concise lessons not only walk you through the types, brain biology, and progressive symptoms of dementia but also offer practical tips for managing behaviors, coping with emotional issues, prioritizing self-care, and planning ahead—everything from diagnosis to end-of-life.If you are a medical, mental health, or other healthcare professional wanting to lead a support group for dementia care partners, or a layperson with a heart for those &“on the journey,&” A Leader's Manual for Dementia Care-Partner Support Groups is the comprehensive resource you need. The Manual provides general information about establishing and leading support groups, counseling skills for leaders and co-leaders, how to handle challenging group participants, step-by-step instructions on how to run each of the ten individual weekly meetings (including meeting-specific handouts), and lots of practical advice from co-authors Dr. Edward Shaw, physician, mental health counselor, and former dementia care partner, and Dr. Alan Wolfelt, world-renowned thanatologist, grief counselor, and author. The handouts and worksheets are number coded for easy cross-referencing with the content of The Dementia Care-Partner's Workbook.

Across America and around the world, the five love languages have revitalized relationships and saved marriages from the brink of disaster. Can they also help individuals, couples, and families cope with the devastating diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD)? Coauthors Chapman, Shaw, and Barr give a resounding yes. Their innovative application of the five love languages creates an entirely new way to touch the lives of the five million Americans who have Alzheimer’s, as well as their fifteen million caregivers. At its heart, this book is about how love gently lifts a corner of dementia’s dark curtain to cultivate an emotional connection amid memory loss. This collaborative, groundbreaking work between a healthcare professional, caregiver, and relationship expert will: Provide an overview of the love languages and Alzheimer’s disease, correlate the love languages with the developments of the stages of AD, discuss how both the caregiver and care receiver can apply the love languages, address the challenges and stresses of the caregiver journey, offer personal stories and case studies about maintaining emotional intimacy amidst AD. Keeping Love Alive as Memories Fade is heartfelt and easy to apply, providing gentle, focused help for those feeling overwhelmed by the relational toll of Alzheimer’s. Its principles have already helped hundreds of families, and it can help yours, too.

Renowned author and educator Alan Wolfelt redefines the role of the grief counselor in this guide for caregivers to grieving children. Providing a viable alternative to the limitations of the medical establishment's model for companioning the bereaved, Wolfelt encourages counselors and other caregivers to aspire to a more compassionate philosophy in which the child is the expert of his or her grief—not the counselor or caregiver. The approach outlined in the book argues against treating grief as an illness to be diagnosed and treated but rather for acknowledging it as an event that forever changes a child's worldview. By promoting careful listening and observation, this guide shows caregivers, family members, teachers, and others how to support grieving children and help them grow into healthy adults.

Half of all men and one-third of all women in the United States will develop cancer during their lifetimes, according to the American Cancer Society, and on top of the pain and struggle that patients have to face, a cancer diagnosis can also profoundly affect the lives of their loved ones. Friends and family members who may not know what to do, what to say, or how to help an individual diagnosed with cancer will find guidance and comfort in this book that helps them understand the normal and natural grief their loved one is experiencing. The basic process of grief and mourning is explained, and suggestions are provided for things readers can do to help their friend or family member not only survive, but thrive. Regardless of the type or stage of cancer, the treatment plan, or the prognosis, this compassionate guide will help readers be good companions throughout the journey that is cancer.