“Through the story of our journey, I hope to inspire you to think, to know that even with Alzheimer’s Disease, the possibilities are limitless. With a clear philosophy and the creation of a strategy, you too can have a roadmap and navigate your loved one’s journey so that they have ‘a most meaningful life.'”

"People are reticent to plan for their end of life, as the process is highly personal and requires us to face our inevitable mortality, triggering fear and negativity. When end of life planning is viewed as being as much for those who care for the patient and will help the patient live their remaining days as they choose, it becomes a great gift."

“In our American culture, where youth and fitness are prized, there is a prevalent, damaging stigma around Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia. We are not a society that likes to focus on illness or death. For that reason, I can attest as a former caregiver that providing dignified care is anything but simple, whether the condition is Alzheimer’s, cancer or something else. Finding the resources, equipment and providers needed requires navigating a maze. We do our best to ignore the fact that every life ends, thereby denying death the dignity that it deserves. More than likely, we all will be faced with each of these issues.”

“When asked her advice to others, she says not to think about age. It isn’t relevant. Her parents were great examples. They never stopped living. Trish’s mom ordered new clothes right up to a few days before she died.”

“You are old when you think you are. My parents’ bodies got old, not their minds. 90% of it is perspective.”

“Trish Laub has chronicled her caregiving journey in three insightful books that work wonderfully when read together. So much is covered here that anyone new to caregiving will gain great insight and knowledge. It’s comforting to have all this information at your fingertips.”

“Now this program is available to the community through sessions held online and within the program’s manual that will be published in the coming year as Blooming Out Of The Rough: a collection of practices that uses symbology myth, story, and spiritual exercises to help you bloom out of adversity instead of becoming a victim to it.”

Guest post by Rev. Lynsie Buteyn

“It is an adjustment for everyone involved when family members review their circumstances and realize that certain factors --such as geographic distance or work schedules --indicate that the safest and best place for their loved one is not at home but in a residential community equipped to meet the person’s care needs and offer the best quality of life.

Although the move can be traumatic for the loved one, it can be equally traumatic for the family members. Often, family members feel guilty and judged as if they are shirking their responsibilities and lacking warmth and compassion. That is not the case. Families need to know these five things.”

“Some caregiving journeys are evolutionary, starting slowly and gradually moving into full-time care. Others are revolutionary, beginning in a single moment during which life changes forever.

In either case, providing the best care requires knowing how to manage the initial crises. At first, there may be two simultaneous crises. One is the crisis of the person who is in need of caregiving as the result of a serious medical situation. The other is the crisis of the caregiver whose life has been presented with numerous challenges from scheduling to finances. It may be necessary to address the crisis of the person requiring care first, and you may feel you don’t have time to properly think through your caregiving crisis. However, the sooner you do it and find a sustainable equilibrium, the more quickly you can move forward to providing the best care possible.”

“I had heard of death with dignity, but honestly I did not know what it was. I had only heard what others said: that it offered a suicide pill, that it was risky to allow people to kill themselves, that there would be no regulation and that it would become too easy to access. I quickly realized that the words chosen were, at minimum, emotional and sometimes escalated to highly charged.”

“During the end-of-life process of each of caregiver Trish Laub’s parents, she came to realize that with a respect for their lives, came specific language and word choices in talking about death.”

"Describing my parents’ deaths as transitioning was not a way for me to avoid saying that they died, but rather the recognition that, as Albert Einstein discovered, “Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another.”