Dementia, Hospitals, Hospice, and Care

Leslie Kernisan is a practicing geriatrician who writes for the adult children of her patients. The site covers memory, falls, medications, hospital stays and the conversations families avoid, in a voice that assumes you are intelligent and frightened. Her newsletter for people helping older parents is the one we would keep if we could keep only one. Read the pieces on medication review first.

A free weekly letter from a geropsychologist who has taught family caregivers online for years. Each issue takes one behavior or one hard moment and says what to do, in the order to do it. It is practical to the point of scripts. When a parent refuses a shower or accuses you of stealing, this is where the answer is.

A journalism site that covers Alzheimer's and brain health the way a newsroom covers a beat, with reporters, interviews and a weekly newsletter. It is where to check a new drug, a trial, or a headline before you get your hopes up. The Brain Talk interviews with researchers are unusually clear. Skeptical in the right places.

Barbara Karnes wrote the small blue booklet that hospices hand to families, and she has been explaining the dying process for forty years. Her blog answers the questions people are ashamed to ask: how long, what is that sound, should I stay. Nothing on this list is gentler or more direct. Read it before hospice, not after.

Teepa Snow is an occupational therapist whose training method for dementia care is used across the industry. The free monthly journal carries articles and short videos on the hands-on part: how to approach, how to speak, how to help someone stand. It is for the person doing the physical care, not the one managing it. Watch one video and you will handle tomorrow differently.

The national association's caregiving section is organized by stage, which is how the disease is lived. The helpline is staffed around the clock by people who will actually talk you through a night. Use it for the local chapter, the support groups and the safety programs. It is large; go in with a question.