Family Caregiver Division of HHAU

01/17/2025

Great tips from our friends at Aging Well Senior Expos & Seniors Blue Book Utah

Seniors Blue Book is the ultimate senior living care directory - helping seniors find the perfect senior living and home health care . Get started today!

05/19/2023

Ashley Campbell, daughter of the legendary country artist, Glen Campbell, recently showed up on the set of RFD-TV’s “Country’s Family Reunion” set to perform...

03/01/2023

Taking good care of your mental health is an important health priority, especially during stressful times such as the COVID-19 pandemic. We have resources on our website that may help, including our fact sheets on stress, depression, and anxiety. You can also find helpful brochures and fact sheets on the National Institute of Mental Health website.

If you (or someone you know or care about) are in immediate distress you can call, text, or chat the 988 Su***de & Crisis Lifeline, which is now active across the United States. 988 is a new, shorter phone number that will make it easier for people to get mental health crisis services. The old number, 1-800-273-TALK (8255), still works, and it will continue to function indefinitely.

Mental health problems are common. In the United States, they affect about one-fourth of adults in any given year and nearly half of adults at some time during their lives.

02/27/2023

“When managing the disease is too much to do alone, when you’re done with aggressive treatment, you need help to manage the symptoms, and you want to spend every minute making the most of each day – then it’s time to talk about Hospice.

Needing us is not the blessing. Having access to us is. Having us there with you, walking these next months with you so we can help you, your children, and family navigate what is happening and what is to come, then supporting you for a year after as you grieve, remember, and rebuild – that is the blessing.”

Click the link below to read more!

“How is Hospice a good thing?” a prospective client had asked me.

02/26/2023

"Every day a daughter or son somewhere, or a sister or brother or parent, gets the news that a cherished loved one has been diagnosed with a terminal disease. The shock, accompanied by a ferocious sense of foreboding and a powerful dose of premature grieving, can be overwhelming and paralyzing.

Yet we need not be consumed by the depths of despair; and for the ones we love and will lose, it is vital that we climb out of the depths as quickly as possible so they won't fall in themselves."

Click the link below to learn more!

When my father began our phone conversation with the words, "Are you sitting down?" I knew the news to follow would not be good; but I never in my wildest dreams imagined he would tell me my 73-year-old mother was terminally ill...

02/24/2023

As the baby boom generation continues to age, this issue — how to both fairly and amicably split caregiving costs among siblings — will only grow. Roughly 70 percent of people over age 65 will need some form of long-term care before they die, according to an analysis by the Urban Institute. And many have not saved enough for that care.

A 2021 AARP report found three-quarters of the family caregivers surveyed spent an average of $7,200 annually on out-of-pocket costs toward a loved one’s expenses on everything from housing and medication to adult day care.

To view how financial planners and a caregiving specialist advise siblings on how to best handle this matter, click the link below!

Practical ways to approach sharing parents’ long-term care expenses

02/23/2023

Dementia and depression both can be common after age 65. Also, they both impair functional abilities in older adults, albeit in different ways. Still, to an untrained observer, the two conditions may be difficult to differentiate.

Occasionally, even experts find the distinction challenging. Because the two disorders can overlap by chance and because there is more than a chance of co-occurrence between the two disorders, it is best to approach them separately.

Click the link below to learn more!

Parsing the differences between conditions can challenging in older adults.

01/30/2023

We, family caregivers, also need and deserve our own guiding set of principles, our own manifesto: The Fearless Caregiver Manifesto.

Read the article below to learn more!

We family caregivers also need and deserve our own guiding set of principles, our own manifesto: The Fearless Caregiver Manifesto.

01/27/2023

"Family caregiving is commonly viewed as an act of love. So much so that the phrase "caring for a loved one" is practically synonymous with family caregiving. But not every family experience is rooted in love. For example, children who have grown up with tense or even traumatic relationships with their parents may struggle with the expectation that they're supposed to provide care for someone who doesn't care for them." - Next Avenue

Read the article below to learn more!

Setting boundaries is key when determining your role in your parent's care

01/25/2023

"Mental health problems are common. In the United States, they affect about one-fourth of adults in any given year and nearly half of adults at some time during their lives.

According to the World Health Organization, mental illnesses account for more disability in developed countries than any other group of illnesses. Anxiety and mood disorders, such as depression and bipolar disorder, are the most common mental health problems.

Researchers are investigating complementary and integrative health approaches for a variety of mental health problems, including anxiety, depression, and seasonal affective disorder (SAD)."

Read the article below to learn more!

Mental health problems are common. In the United States, they affect about one-fourth of adults in any given year and nearly half of adults at some time during their lives.

01/23/2023

"Abnormal cholesterol and glucose (or blood sugar) levels as early as age 35 may be associated with Alzheimer’s disease risk later in life. These findings, published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia, suggest that people with normal cholesterol and glucose measurements in early through middle adulthood may be less likely to develop Alzheimer’s as older adults." - National Institute on Aging

Read the article below to learn more!

Lipid and glucose levels at midlife are associated with Alzheimer’s risk, a new NIA-funded study shows.

01/19/2023

"Decline in sense of smell is connected to faster buildup of Alzheimer’s disease-related pathology seen in brain scans, according to new research focused on older adults who live outside of nursing homes. The findings provide additional evidence that loss of smell (known as anosmia) is a key early sign of Alzheimer’s-related cognitive impairment and the accumulation of associated harmful proteins, such as amyloid-beta and tau." - Alzheimers.gov

Read the article below for more information!

Decline in sense of smell is connected to faster buildup of Alzheimer’s disease-related pathology seen in brain scans, according to new research focused on older adults who live outside of nursing homes. The findings provide additional evidence that loss of smell (known as anosmia) is a key early ...