Written for caregivers

What actually worked, from people doing this at home. The specifics left in: the thirty dollar clock, the tape on the floor, the word that makes it worse.

• 

  Why won’t mom shower?

  Not the clinical answer. What actually worked for people who fought this every week for years.

  6 minute read
• 

  Sundowning: what actually helps at four in the afternoon

  She is fine all day. Around four it starts. Here is what caregivers do about the hardest two hours of the day.

  5 minute read
• 

  He freezes in doorways. What actually gets him moving?

  Freezing of gait in Parkinson’s, and the small physical tricks families use to get through a threshold.

  5 minute read

• Why does mom think I’m stealing from her?

  You are the one she accuses because you are the one who is there. What caregivers do about it, and what makes it worse.

  6 minute read

• Is it okay to lie to someone with dementia?

  Nearly everyone doing this ends up doing it. Here is how caregivers think about it, and where most of them draw the line.

  6 minute read

• He won’t eat. What actually helps.

  Appetite goes, and watching it go is frightening. What caregivers try, and the one symptom that means stop reading and call someone.

  5 minute read

• I am angry at the person I am caring for

  Not frustrated. Angry. At them, at the disease, at the length of it. Almost nobody says this out loud, and almost everybody feels it.

  7 minute read

• Caregiver burnout, and what it actually looks like

  It does not look like crying. It looks like not feeling much, forgetting your own appointments, and a blood pressure reading that surprises the nurse.

  6 minute read

• Respite care: how people actually get a break

  The word covers everything from four hours on a Tuesday to a week while you go to a wedding. Here is where caregivers say the hours actually came from.

  6 minute read
• 

  Clear garbage bags, and where else to look

  Things keep going in the trash and nobody knows why. One change to what you buy makes them findable again, and the rest of this is where they actually turn up.

  5 minute read

• When the dementia seems to get worse overnight

  A sudden change is usually not the disease progressing. It is usually something treatable, and the speed of the change is the clue.

  8 minute read
• 

  Caregiver loneliness, and why being with somebody all day makes it worse

  You are almost never on your own, and that is the part nobody warns you about. This is the loneliness of spending every hour with a person who cannot be company.

  6 minute read

• The family who do not help, and have the most to say about how you do it

  The phone rings when something goes wrong and not otherwise. Why the ones furthest away are the most certain, and what caregivers say actually changed it.

  7 minute read

• When they start phoning people at three in the morning

  The calls to your sister, the calls to 911, the call where they tell somebody you are starving them. What is actually behind it and what caregivers say stopped it.

  7 minute read

• Your friend has dementia and you do not know what to say

  Written for the friend, not the carer. The voicemails that do not make sense, whether to answer them, and what actually helps when you cannot fix any of it.

  6 minute read

Everything here is somebody’s experience of caring for a person at home. It is not medical advice, and Kind Soup is not a medical or emergency service.