Finding Common Ground

CONFERENCE PROVIDES RESOURCES, TECHNIQUES FOR CAREGIVERS

By Debbie Miller

Posted: November 4, 2009 at 4:21 a.m.

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FAYETTEVILLE — They came looking for answers.

Caregivers wanted to know basics - where to fi nd equipment and supplies, and how to identify resources for an amputee. They also asked the hard questions - how to steer dad away from the shop that’s no longer a safe haven for him, how to convince someone that it’s OK to share the diagnosis with others.

Vernice Smith and Katie Galyean, both of Westville, Okla., joined 75 to 100 others at a caregivers conference in Fayetteville on Oct. 21. Their husbands have Alzheimer’s disease, and they attended the event in hopes of gaining knowledge about the myriad issues they face.

“It’s hard on him; it’s hard on me,” Smith said.

In addition to the concerns about her husband, she’s also cognizant of the need for her to remain healthy.

“My prayer is that I just stay healthy so I can take care of him,” she said.

The Area Agency on Agingof Northwest Arkansas and the Alzheimer’s Association co-sponsored the Fearless Caregiver workshop. Gary Barg, author of“The Fearless Caregiver,” was the keynote speaker for the event.A panel of local health-care experts fielded questions from the audience. Family caregivers and professional caregivers were able to ask questions of representatives from the Area Agency on Aging, the Alzheimer’s Association, Faith in Action, the Schmieding Center for Senior Health and Education, the Office for Studies on Aging at the University of Arkansas and the Washington Regional Clinic for Senior Health.

Barg told audience members to draw on the local resources represented by the panelists and suggested audience members share ideas with each other.

“Each one of you has a piece of the puzzle that the other one needs,” he told caregivers.

There’s also a kinship that caregivers possess, he noted.

“This is your family of choice ... people who get what you are going through,”Barg said.

The author recounted his own experience from the mid-1990s when his mom in Florida was caring for two of his grandparents. Hedetected something in her voice during a phone conversation and decided to leave his routine in Atlanta for a couple of weeks to help her out.

He was overwhelmed by what he discovered as he watched his mother grapple with life-and-death decisions, spend countless hours in phone calls with insurance companies and confront stressful issues night and day.

Toward the end of the two-week period, Barg said to his mom that he was glad he could be there during such an exhausting time. His mom looked at him dumbfounded, he recalled. She said that actually the two weeks had been one of the easier time frames she could remember.

It was an awakening for Barg. He became inspired to become a kind of “caregiver’s caregiver.” He noted that he and his mom had encountered other caregivers who were willing to use their precious time to share information they had found helpful. They decided to start a magazine. Today’s Caregiver magazine debuted July 4, 1995; Barg is editor-inchief. A Web site, caregiver. com, started shortly after the magazine launch, and Barg has conducted Fearless Caregiver conferences across the nation.

He quoted former first lady Rosalynn Carter who has said there are four kinds of people in the world: “those who have been caregivers, those who currently are caregivers, those who will be caregivers, and those who will need caregivers.”

News, Pages 12 on 11/04/2009

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