Q.  My dad had a stroke four years ago and my mother has been caring for him at home ever since.  His condition is fairly stable, but I’m very concerned about Mom’s emotional state.  I asked her the other day if she thought she might be depressed.  She said she didn’t think ... Read More

Q. My mother has Alzheimer’s, and we both get terribly bored when I visit. What can I do to make our time together more enjoyable? A. Think “playful”. If you try to connect and communicate with your mother as you did before she had Alzheimer’s, your visits could become excruciatingly ... Read More

Q. How do you handle a sibling who always has a hard-luck story and a mom who can’t say no? A. This is a difficult issue, and unfortunately, it is one that occurs with alarming frequency. If an adult child has a well-established pattern of going to a parent to get bailed out of one financial ... Read More

Q. How do I keep love and affection for my mother alive as I am losing her and our relationship to dementia? A.The loss of relationship is one of the greatest challenges of caring for a person with Alzheimer’s or another dementia-related disease. It is excruciatingly difficult to watch as a ... Read More

Q. How can I get my aging parents to fill out end-of-life documents that provide guidance to us kids about what they want such as Advance Directives? A. Conversations about end-of-life choices can be very uncomfortable. None of us like to think about our own potential incapacity or death. Views ... Read More

Q. How do you make aging parents “happy”? How do I contend with all the gripes that nothing is good enough? A. The place to start is with accepting the fact that you are not and never will be powerful enough to make someone else happy. You may do things that please or displease your ... Read More

Q. My parents are beginning to forget certain thing. I believe that some of this is normal for folks in their 80′s. How do you know if it’s Alzheimer’s, and at what point is some level of intervention or medical help needed? A. As we age it is normal to experience a slowing in ... Read More