Mrs. Robson is a 92-year-old widow with Alzheimer’s disease. In her younger years, she was a schoolteacher and raised three children. She and her husband married at 20 years old and enjoyed a 60-year marriage.

She was an avid hiker, gardener and enjoyed reading. She loves her home, which overlooks a nearby park, and she has lived in the same neighbourhood for the past 40 years. Although very independent, Mrs. Robson needs some care and supervision; she can no longer make meals, drive and is a little unsteady to shower by herself. Some of her children’s concerns include Mom getting lost on one of her walks or having a fall in her home.

Before her diagnosis, Mrs. Robson and her children discussed her future and she expressed her desire to stay in her home for as long as possible. Although Mrs. Robson is eligible for home support services through the local health authority, her current income level provides the option for hiring privately.

There are several important decisions seniors and their families face when more help is needed to allow an aging loved one to stay in their home. Hiring a private caregiver to provide home support services and other household management tasks is often at the forefront.

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One of the most common questions we hear from seniors (and family caregivers alike) is, “How do I get someone to help me with bathing, medications or getting dressed in my home?”

There is more than one answer to that question!

For the purpose of simplicity, I’ll start with the program called Home and Community Care. In another column, I’ll discuss why some families or seniors choose to use private pay care providers and tips on hiring the right company or individual.

Home and Community Care of Vancouver Island Health Authority (VIHA — often pronounced VEE-HAH) provides community-based health services to assist individuals with some form of acute or chronic illness and/or physical challenge to remain independent in their home for as long as possible. . . .

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Are you confused about what kind of help you or your aging parent is eligible for in the community?

Don’t worry! You aren’t alone.

Knowing the who, what and how is challenging when you are at the start of any maze. Before entering a maze, it’s helpful to have clues at the start to help find the end.

Let’s say, you think your Mom is showing signs of memory loss but you aren’t sure if it is serious or where to go for an assessment. Although finding out the answer to this question is very important, it only helps with one part of the issue.

Memory loss may be affecting your Mom’s ability to drive, to care for herself physically, to feel safe in her home and it may be causing additional stress if your Dad is caring for her or if she is widow.

Before you walk into the maze, some of the “clues” to gather include:

Mr. Jones is an 83-year-old widower living in his own home. When asked, he’ll tell you he is doing “fair to middling.” He’ll go on to tell you his legs are tired and wobbly and he doesn’t get out as much as he’d used to.

He has a scooter, which gets him to town and back, but his vision is getting worse and he’s not sure how much longer he can safely use it. He likes listening to books on tape and watching sports. He has children but they all live out of town. They worry about him. Mr. Jones has Lifeline, a housekeeper to clean every two weeks, regular meal delivery and relies on friends to help with grocery shopping and other tasks.

Mr. Jones knows that he needs a little more help to stay in his home and is a little worried about his future care needs but doesn’t know where to go to find information or what’s available in his community.

For most of us, holidays go hand in hand with our families.

I don’t know about you, but my family includes a lot of different ages. We have half pints, tweens, teenagers, boomers, grandparents, and up until recently, great-grandparents!

Visiting elders and including them in holiday festivities is a guaranteed way to lift spirits and bring a good dose of happiness in the lives of loved ones.

However, during the normal course of aging, changes in senses, memory loss, illness or mobility can affect the degree to which an aging loved one can engage in holiday celebrations.

Below are some tips for including older adults in festive celebrations.

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Thank you to Steve Hill, Pastoral Care Chaplain at St. Joseph’s Hospital, for bringing his expertise and knowledge on coping with grief.

My fingerprint is unique. So is yours. I cope with grief in my way, in my time. So do you. And, that’s OK.

I have found helpful wisdom in an old Latin phrase, tantum quantum: if something helps, use it; if it doesn’t help, don’t.

When significant loss rips a gaping hole in the fabric of our life, the ways in which we cope during the days, months and years that follow, will largely determine the healing and new life we find — or not.

Some choices, be they actions or thoughts, will lead slowly, imperceptibly towards a future full of hope. We look back later and see through the pain we made a gain, our lives enriched by a deep encounter with the truths of being human.

However, not all choices lead towards healing or fulfilling our deepest desires.

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With trepidation, I enter the long-term care facility.

Bounding up a flight a stairs, I pause before opening the door to the second floor.

The pause is two-fold. I need to search my memory bank for the code to enter the special care unit and secondly, to take a deep breath as I prepare myself emotionally for what’s coming next.

Entering the room, I scan the sea of faces and the Geri-chairs. All of a sudden, I hear a familiar voice.

“I know you!” I walk towards the voice, holding back my tears and give my grandmother the biggest grin I can muster. She starts clapping her hands excitedly and repeats, “I know you and you know me!”

“Hi Nana. It’s Wendy, your granddaughter.”

She opens her arms and she takes me in for a hug.

“Where are you?” she asks.

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Drawing on local expertise, the following column is written by Ruth Barry, a qualified psychotherapist. Ruth works with palliative and bereaved individuals and families referred to the Comox Valley Hospice Society in addition to her local private practice.

Grief is our normal reaction to loss of any kind. Whatever you are feeling is normal and natural for you.

David’s wife Sylvia dies after a five-year-long experience with breast cancer that spreads to her liver and spine, causing pain that requires intensive medication. The pain is controlled but both are exhausted by the experience. When Sylvia dies David is both relieved and devastated. Conflicting feelings are normal and common.

Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, well known for her study of the emotions in the terminally ill – denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance – gets often misunderstood. Many assume these stages only apply to the grieving process. They do not.

How someone feels and how they heal depends on the nature and intensity of the relationship with their loved one, their own personality, and past experiences of loss.

It is more helpful to talk about common responses to grief.

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I like reading the obituaries. It’s the first section I flip to in our local paper.

It’s OK — you can breathe a sigh a relief knowing you aren’t the only one!

Reading obituaries reminds me of my own mortality and allows acknowledgement of the death of people I know.  More importantly, it gives me the opportunity to remember a human being’s life story and often, the legacy they leave behind.

For those family members who’ve lost an elderly parent or relative, an obituary is just one of the many, many ways to manage their grief.

Just recently, my beloved great-uncle Harvey died suddenly at 94 years.

The news of the death of the man we knew affectionately as Unky Harv knocked me off my feet.

That might surprise you. After all, working with seniors for almost 20 years, you might think I’d have the sense to better prepare myself.

Grief is pretty powerful, at times unpredictable and unique to each of us.

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