There is a shrinking ratio of caregivers to older Americans. Follow our link to the NYT article to learn more about the financial, physical and emotional tolls to these unpaid caregivers and how to help them.
Who Will Care for the Caregivers?
By Dhruv Khullar | New York Times
I should have put his socks back on.
The thought kept nagging me as I finished my clinic notes, replaying the afternoon in my head. My final patient of the day — a man with dementia — was a late addition to the schedule, after his daughter, herself a patient of mine, called to report he hadn’t been himself lately. We scheduled him for the last appointment, so she could join after finishing work across town.
She recounted the subtle changes she’d noticed in her father. He’d been eating less, sleeping more. He was less steady on his feet and seemed uninterested in playing with his grandchildren — an activity that normally filled him with irrepressible joy.
From her purse, she pulled out no fewer than eight pill bottles — each with a dose, time and frequency meticulously labeled. She handed me a handwritten transcript of his other recent appointments: an ophthalmologist, a neurologist, a cardiologist. As I examined him, her phone rang. [Read the entire article]
