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Paula Spencer Scott, Senior Health Writer

Paula Spencer Scott is the author of Surviving Alzheimer's: Practical Tips and Soul-Saving Wisdom for Caregivers and much of the Alzheimer's and caregiving content on Caring.com.

Scott has specialized in women's life-stage concerns (baby care, family care, self-care, elder care) from her first job as an editor at 50 Plus Magazine through stints as a Woman's Day columnist and coauthor of health books with doctors at Harvard, UCLA, Duke, and Arizona State. She's a 2011 Met Life Foundation Journalists in Aging fellow, awarded by the Gerontological Society of America and New American Media, and completed a National Press Foundation's Alzheimer's Disease 2012 fellowship.

In the late 2000s, she lost both her parents, in their 80s, to cancer; her father also had dementia and stroke. "In short order during that phase," she says, "I experienced just about everything that's on this site, from dealing with their illnesses to selling the family home and moving Dad, plus advance directives, end-of-life planning, hospice, death -- and stress."

Follow her on Twitter @PSpencerScott.

Recently Published on Caring.com

Tip: How to Channel Your Anger — Jan 31, 2011
Snapped lately? Whether your target was your loved one or the hapless Starbucks clerk, losing your cool happens to every caregiver. Living with an elder is often that stres...
Tip: How to Make Difficult Discussions Go Smoothly — Jan 31, 2011
Your secret weapon in gaining consensus about an upcoming decision: empathy. Instead of marshaling all your facts and logic to persuade, cajole, or force your loved one, st...
Tip: How to Get Your Loved One to Listen — Jan 31, 2011
Does your loved one seem to ignore what you say half the time? Maybe you're not being heard. Fully one-third of adults over 65 and about half of those over 85 have signifi...
The 7 Deadly Emotions of Caregiving: How to Cope — Jan 01, 2011
Nobody would ever choose a smiley face as the perfect symbolic emoticon for a caregiver. Caregiving for an ailing loved one is just too stressful -- often triggering damagi...
Worried It's Alzheimer's? 8 Symptoms to Watch For — Nov 11, 2010
Applying the word "Alzheimer's" to someone close to you can be uncomfortable, even if the signs, or symptoms, have been adding up for some time. It's much easier to gloss o...
5 Quick Pick-Me-Ups for Caregiver Stress — Apr 20, 2010
Having one of those days? The best antidote to stress and fatigue is to treat yourself well -- even if in small doses. Try these pick-me-ups: 10 minutes to yourself tha...
Activities for Alzheimer's and Dementia Patients — Feb 13, 2010
Keeping busy stimulates the brains of elderly people with dementia while boosting a sense of usefulness and accomplishment. But they lose the ability to select sati...
Caregiver Self Help — Feb 09, 2010
Caregivers who insist on time for themselves within a busy life have more energy and are better able to weather stress. And that allows them to be more reliable to those wh...
What to Do When Someone With Dementia Lashes Out Physically — Jan 20, 2010
Physical aggression -- hitting, biting, scratching, spitting, and otherwise lashing out -- is not uncommon in someone in the later stages of a dementia illness such as Alzh...
8 Things to Do When You First Learn Your Loved One Has Alzheimer's — Oct 02, 2009
Practical steps you can take when you're wondering, "Where do I start?" Let reality sink in. Whether you've suspected the diagnosis for ages or it's come as a shock...