Treading Dark Waters - a Column by Ray Burow

Receiving a dementia diagnosis is devastating, both to the person diagnosed and to those around them. Any negative health diagnosis can leave a person wondering what to do next. Surgery or chemotherapy is often the next step for a person diagnosed with cancer. Taking action toward a healthier lifestyle is…

Something as simple as an overnight visitor or a dinner guest can send a person with Alzheimer’s disease into a bit of a tailspin. The person ringing the doorbell might not be a stranger, and they may have been a previous guest. However, to someone battling dementia, the loved one…

During the coronavirus pandemic, many people have posted on social media about their focus on good health via exercise. Turn on the news, and invariably at least one story will mention the importance of staying in shape while sheltering in place. But if given a nickel for every post about…

A wise man once said, “No one by worrying can add one inch to their height.” Constantly worrying about acquiring an admittedly horrible disease may be useless, but it also is common practice for caregivers. Our intimate involvement in the daily processes of a disease, and seeing how it affects…

It helps to have something on the back burner, something to anticipate in the days, weeks, and months ahead. We need something on which to place our concentration, other than COVID-19. Summer solstice is that thing. Not the day so much, but the annual event surrounding it. Alzheimer’s Association Continues…

“As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” –King Solomon This COVID-19 journey has become a long one. Did any of us have an idea it would go this far? I doubt it, and yet here we are. Some of us might be a little worse for…

Turning our attention away from the all-intrusive pandemic (at least from the primary topics surrounding COVID-19), it’s good to take a minute from the turmoil of the virus to engage with something positive. The continual waves of uncertainty that drive COVID-19 may leave something positive in the disease’s painful…

“Gratitude turns what we have into enough.” — Anonymous If you’re like a lot of people, the COVID-19 pandemic is the first thing that comes to mind when you awaken, and possibly the last penetrating thought before bedtime. Though we tire of its bad news, we can’t turn away. Like…

Caregivers are the first line of defense between their loved ones and, well, everything. Like everyone on the planet, our brains are steeped with thoughts of the coronavirus. It’s our job to stand between our loved ones and the communicable disease, but it’s also our responsibility to keep them from…

Caregivers are on the front line in the fight against the new coronavirus. We aren’t facing it down the same way as medical professionals and researchers are, but we are among the enlisted. Seniors and those with compromised immune systems have a higher risk of contracting COVID-19, according to the…