Care

• Checklist - 15 Questions to Ask When Interviewing an In-home Health Worker on Your Own

  Home health care interview questions. Use these 15 interview questions to find the right home health care worker for your parent or loved one.

• Article - Nursing Homes: A Beginner's Guide

  Nursing Homes: A Beginner's Guide. A free informative guide to help you decide what nursing home is best for your parent.

• Article - Planning Your Parents' Move: A Step-by-Step Guide

  How to help your parents make the move to assisted living or a nursing home. Avoid pitfalls and find the right situation for your parent.

• Article - Assisted Living: A Beginner's Guide

  Assisted Living: A Beginner's Guide. How to choose the right assisted living facility for your parent.

Blog Posts

• Blog Post - 5 Surprising Ways to Use Memories to Help People With Memory Loss

  Reminiscence therapy improves mood and communication in people with Alzheimer's and dementia by prodding deeply-held memories.

• Blog Post - The Adult Diaper Wars: A Call to Arms!

  A Canadian government official's threat to wear diapers triggers open talk of how to keep seniors who wear diapers comfortable and healthy.

• Blog Post - New Test Can Spare Breast Cancer Patients from Chemo

  The new test Oncotype DX spares many women with early stage breast cancer from chemo by revealing which cancers are low risk.

• Blog Post - Alzheimer's Caregivers' #1 Challenge

  A new survey of Alzheimer's caregivers reveals that daily care isn't the worst of it. Grief is.

• Blog Post - Quick Quiz: Should Your Parents Stay at Home or Move?

  Quiz to help adult children figure out whether aging parents can stay at home or should move to retirement communities.

• Blog Post - Overweight Women at Greater Risk for Cancer But Receive Fewer Screenings

  Being overweight is a risk factor for many types of cancer, but new research shows that overweight women are less likely, rather than more likely, to receive recommended screenings.

• Blog Post - It Takes a Neighborhood (Pt. 1)

  Neighbors pitch in to help an isolated elderly neighbor so he can stay in his own home.

• Blog Post - Five Tips for Keeping the Sandwich Together

  Five tips to help sandwich generation members ease the stress of caring for aging parents in their homes.

• Blog Post - Dr. Death Wants Your Vote

  By throwing his hat into the political ring, Jack Kevorkian has stirred renewed debate about doctor-assisted suicide.

• Blog Post - Downward Dog May Keep Elderly Upright

  Recent research reveals Iyengar yoga improves stability and balance in older women, which could lower their risk of falling.

• Blog Post - My dad wants to double-date with me!

  What to do when your elderly dad starts dating -- and he wants to double-date with you and your spouse.

• Blog Post - Caregiving Isn't for Sissies

  Caregiving requires courage, compassion, resourcefulness, and an open heart -- qualities that most of us would use to describe a hero.

• Blog Post - Old Meets New: High-Tech Toys Help Seniors Deal With Diabetes

  A handy list of high-tech gadgets that can help take the hassle out of dealing with diabetes for seniors and their caregivers.

• Blog Post - My parents are begging me for an occasional drink or cigarette -- even though it's against their doctors' orders.

  Advice on whether it's okay for elderly parents, one of whom uses portable oxygen, to occasionally smoke or drink.

• Blog Post - Alzheimer's Meds: Time for a Reality Check?

  The absence of good news about Alzheimer's medications reminds caregivers that learning behavioral therapy is paramount.

• Blog Post - Yelling and Nagging: Not the Way to Keep Someone With Diabetes on Track

  Practical advice on how to help your parent or partner with diabetes comply with health recommendations.

• Blog Post - My mother is gambling away every last penny -- and her financial independence. What should I do?

  Since my father's death two years ago, my 75-year-old...

• Blog Post - Aging Parents and Dental Care: A Life-and-Death Issue

  Regular dental care for your parents can be a matter of life and death.

• Blog Post - Desperately Seeking Senior Care Specialists

  A shortage of senior care doctors concerns baby boomers and their aging parents; find tips on how to locate a geriatric specialist.

• Blog Post - Seven Words of Wisdom for Dealing with Diabetes

  Find seven words of wisdom for dealing with diabetes.

• Blog Post - Insurance Coverage: Denied!

  What do you do when your parent's insurance company denies coverage for the care that his doctor has ordered?

• Blog Post - Dementia Caregiver? 4+ Ways You Can Take a Break

  Ideas for how dementia caregivers can use the arts for stress relief.

• Blog Post - Caregiving: Does it Have to Be This Hard?

  A summary of caregiving in the U.S. in 2008: some statistics and how it got this way

• Blog Post - Use of Restraints in Nursing Homes: Down But Not Out

  The law limits how and when nursing homes can use restraints. What to do if your parent is confined by belts or bed rails.

• Blog Post - A Healthy Gift for National Women's Health Week

  National Women's Health from May 11 to 17 is full of useful health prevention activities on-line and off.

• Blog Post - Help! My mom's in hospice and my sister and I are arguing about her funeral.

  Our mom has said she wants to be cremated "so you don...

• Blog Post - Doctors Don't Seem to Care for Medicare

  Although the vast majority of doctors accept Medicare, many place limits on how many Medicare patients they'll take in their practice because the government reimburses them at a relatively low rate.

• Blog Post - Wanted: Companionship for a Dad with Diabetes

  How to find senior companionship for your aging and ailing parent.

• Blog Post - My Own Last (Online) Wishes

  Facebook users can let friends and family know their final instructions via a new application called My Own Last Wishes.

• Blog Post - Embarrassment Assistance! The Gift of Plain Wrapping

  Buying adult incontinence products online can save your parents from stressful embarrassment.

• Blog Post - Robots and Other High-Tech Solutions Help Seniors Stay at Home

  New high-tech monitoring systems allow seniors to age in place with greater safety and freedom, but also raise privacy concerns.

• Blog Post - Media Focus on Patrick Swayze's Cancer Begs the Real Questions

  The sudden media attention on Patrick Swayze's diagnosis...

• Blog Post - Would You Rather Your Parent Had Dementia or Alzheimer's or Frontotemporal Lobar Degeneration?

  Is "dementia" an outdated word, like "mongoloid" or "cripple"?

• Blog Post - Are You Worried Sick About Your Parent's Heart Disease?

  Caring for someone with heart disease may increase your risk of heart disease and depression. Consider these tips for better heart health.

• Blog Post - The Transformative Nature of Caregiving

  The producer of the PBS documentary Caring for Your Parents talks about the ways eldercare changes families

• Blog Post - The Link Between Diabetes and Alzheimer's

  What to watch for and what you can do.

• Blog Post - In Case of Stroke, Better Call a Neurologist

  New research suggests that stroke patients treated by neurologists have better outcomes.

• Blog Post - Depressed? Try Sleeping It Off

  Research shows insomnia prolongs depression in some elderly people. Tips to help your parent sleep better -- and help her overcome depression.

• Blog Post - What Alzheimer's Caregivers Need Even More Than a Cure

  Alzheimer's caregivers need care resources as urgently as a cure

• Blog Post - Brain-Training 101: Does It Really Help Those With Dementia?

  Brain-fitness games are a huge growth industry, but can they help prevent or reverse dementia?

• Blog Post - Dementia Caregivers: You Really Ought to Talk About It

  New study shows one on one therapy helps reduce the burden on caregivers and their depressive symptoms.

• Blog Post - The Plot Thickens: Another Clue in the Alzheimer's-Diabetes Mystery

  New research may help explain the connection between diabetes and Alzheimer's disease. Plus tips if you suspect your parent with type 2 diabetes has Alzheimer's disease.

• Blog Post - Tune in to PBS for Help and Hope on Caregiving

  A new PBS documentary, "Caring for Your Parents," is Reality TV of the purest form -- recognizing that family members now provide 80% of the eldercare in the United States.

• Blog Post - The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People With Diabetes

  Find advice from self-help writer Stephen R. Covey in a guide for people with type 2 diabetes and their caregivers called The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People with Diabetes.

• Blog Post - I'm not close to my dad's new wife, and that's keeping me from caring for him as much as I'd like to (he has Alzheimer's). How can I step in and help him more?

  What to do when your elderly father's new wife comes between you and him.

• Blog Post - Diabetes Studies: Good News? Bad News? Who Knows?

  How to make sense of drug study findings for people caring for parents with type 2 diabetes.

• Blog Post - Should Cancer Patients Take a Chemo Vacation?

  Most news headlines about cancer treatment trumpet...

• Blog Post - Real Men Can Have Brittle Bones

  Because osteoporosis is underdiagnosed in men, the American College of Physicians issued new guidelines urging doctors to screen men for osteoporosis.

• Blog Post - How can I deal with my mom's anger at me for urging her to move my dad to an Alzheimer's residence, where he fell in love with another woman?

  My mother, who took care of my father through the early...

• Blog Post - New Vocabulary Words for Caregivers

  Thoughts on the power of language to influence our perspective on care-giving for the better.

• Blog Post - It Takes a Neighborhood (Part II)

  Taking care of an elderly neighbor can enrich the lives of everyone involved.

• Blog Post - My mother's growing needs are putting a strain on my marriage, and I find myself wondering which will fall apart first -- her, my marriage, or me. What can I do?

  Since my dad died five years ago, my mother has had...

• Blog Post - My father seems interested in moving in with me -- and I don't want him to.

  At 81, my dad has Parkinson's, three heart stents,...

• Blog Post - Should You Put Type 2 Diabetes to the Test?

  Researchers are asking whether daily self-monitoring is worth the effort and expense.

• Blog Post - Link Between Depression and Heart Disease

  ScienceDaily offers a sneak peek at the findings of...

• Blog Post - My mother has asked not to be resuscitated if she has a medical crisis, but my siblings disagree on what constitutes a medical crisis.

  Before she showed signs of dementia, my mother decided...

• Blog Post - My father's racist and inappropriate remarks have gotten so bad, I don't want to take him out in public.

  How to understand and deal with an elderly parent's racist or offensive remarks.

• Blog Post - After a Stroke: When Words Fail Us

  Creative ways to communicate with someone who has trouble speaking or understanding language.

• Blog Post - Sandwich Generation "Massively Stressed"

  A new study of sandwich generation women, caring for children and aging parents, finds them ill-prepared for the massive stresses of care giving.

• Blog Post - Questions I Wish I'd Asked Mom

  Reflections on a first motherless Mother's Day.

• Blog Post - Call Us Cancer "Carepartners"

  When you're helping someone you love battle cancer, you're right there on the front lines with them.

• Blog Post - Dementia Caregivers: Ready to Make Your Brain a Promise?

  Scary new statistics about Alzheimer's disease and dementia are a wake-up call to caregivers to take better care of themselves.

• Blog Post - Back It Up

  Companies that offer backup childcare or elder care services have more loyal employees, according to a new survey.

• Blog Post - A "Sandwiched" Daughter Says Enough is Enough

  A "sandwich generation" caregiver describes how asking for help saved her sanity — and her family.

Questions & Answers

• Question - How do I gain access to my parent's health records without a durable power of attorney for health care?

  This question has been answered by a Caring.com Expert

• Question - How do I help my elderly mother deal with the loss of her pets?

  When someone moves into assisted living, does he have to give up his pets? If so, what should you do with his pets once he moves into assisted living?

• Question - How do I monitor a caretaker's effectiveness?

  Formal legal arrangements such as powers of attorney or conservatorships may help ensure the best care for an aging relative. If not, the local Adult Protective Services agency may be able to help.

• Question - What do I do when my mother, who has ovarian cancer, expresses resentment about my siblings not coming to visit her enough?

  This question has been answered by a Caring.com Expert

Tips & Reflections

• Tip - The 7-Second Alzheimer's Hug

  As language skills start to fade in mid-Alzheimer's...