Learn about a helpful guidebook for people caring for elderly parents that addresses all the major challenges.
My guest Dr. Leslie Kernisan is a practicing geriatrician and the founder of the popular aging health website and podcast Better Health While Aging. She recently published the book When Your Aging Parent Needs Help to answer the many questions she has received from people struggling to care for their elderly parents. She shares many of the helpful tools and resources included in the book for dealing with our most pressing issues when we become involved in providing care to our older loved ones. Learn more at her website:
www.betterhealthwhileaging.net
This episode includes:
- Why good communication skills are important in caring for our parents
- How to approach a challenging subject (e.g. the COVID vaccine) with reluctant elders
- Remembering to respect what matters to our elders (your goals vs your parents’ goals)
- What to say when the conversation hasn’t gone well
- How to negotiate doctor visits with your parents: what to bring, what to ask
- Self-care tips for caregivers feeling the strain of dealing with parents
- When to let go and accept things as they are instead of trying to be perfect caregivers
- What to do if parents become paranoid and blame you for things
- Steps and tips to slow brain health decline due to Alzheimer’s
Links mentioned in this episode:
- Vital Decisions’ National Healthcare Decisions Day Campaign: Pick a Proxy and Plant it Forward
- Virtual Workshop on Grief with Ben Kintisch of Life Review: The Hospice Musical – April 25th – Learn more here
- Better Health While Aging Podcast
- Book: When Your Aging Parent Needs Help by Leslie Kernisan
- Sign up for the 2021 online reading group A Year of Reading Dangerously at this link
- Support your local bookstore by buying my books on Bookshop and Indiebound: 7 Lessons for Living from the Dying and The Journey from Ego to Soul
- Subscribe to this podcast on Apple, Google, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Stitcher Radio
- Check out the Series I’ve recorded in the past here
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