Through Song, a Nurse’s Renewed Connection to An Ailing Mother

Illustration by Barbara Hranilovich for AJN.

Millions of Americans are now acting in some capacity as caregivers for an ailing parent. This month’s Reflections column is by a nurse who describes a moment in time as she helps to care for her home-bound and dying mother. Her mother remains, on occasion, as judgmental and offputting as the mother of her childhood.

But in such cases, there’s little to gain by dwelling on old disappointments and hurts—and in this instance, there are good memories as well.

The common language of song.

These good memories are primarily associated with her mother’s love of and talent for singing. “Moon River and Mom” describes this nurse’s experience of tending her mother’s leg wound as the Meals on Wheels man visits, and what happens afterward when the author prompts her mother to sing. […]

2017-11-03T07:50:46-04:00November 3rd, 2017|family experience, Nursing, nursing stories|0 Comments
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Becoming a Family Caregiver

Photo by Judith E. Bell, via Flickr.

For me, the saga began six years ago, when I offered to help a family member with some spring cleaning. I knew his place was a mess, but attributed this, stereotypically, to a single man’s lack of interest in housekeeping.

When I dove into the work, I was first puzzled and then fearful at what I found: hundreds of pieces of unopened mail, years old, randomly stacked around the apartment; threatening letters from the Internal Revenue Service; correspondence from the city about a tax lien on his condominium. This, in the home of a man who, as an actor and writer, memorized scripts in two languages, had served on the national board of his union, and could solve complicated math problems without using a calculator. Clearly, something was wrong well beyond the state of his apartment.

In AJN’s September original research article, “The Experience of Transitioning to a Caregiving Role for a Family Member with Alzheimer’s Disease or Related Dementia,” Kathleen Czekanski notes that “caregivers often assume the role of caregiving before they quite realize they are doing so.” In this qualitative study, Czekanski set […]

2017-09-01T08:54:00-04:00September 1st, 2017|nursing research|0 Comments
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A Nurse Takes a Fall, and Loses More than Her Mobility

The Reflections essay in the July issue of AJN, “An Inconsolable Loss,” tells the story of a traumatic event that interrupts and forever changes a retired nursing professor’s relationship with her mother, “whose gentle touch and approving smile” she had always craved. Writes author Brenda Kelley Burke:

For a number of years, I’d made daily trips after work to a nursing home to visit my mother . . . .The roles of child and mother were now reversed because of her dementia. I felt acutely aware of the mother–child bond and how it transcends time and circumstance. How could I measure up to this wise and loving woman, who so many years ago would kiss my small feet before she put on my socks and whisper, ‘God, guide them to the safe places’?

But one bitterly cold and snowy night, writes Burke, “like the famous nursery rhyme character, I too had a great fall that left me broken.” Sometimes the seemingly fixed patterns of our lives depend on the most fragile of balances—one change can lead to many others, and suddenly nothing seems the same. […]

2017-07-05T11:03:05-04:00July 5th, 2017|narratives, nursing stories|1 Comment
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Resisting the Rising Tide of Parkinson’s

By Barbara Hranilovich. All rights reserved. By Barbara Hranilovich. All rights reserved.

The Reflections essay in the October issue of AJN is called “After-Dinner Talks.” These are talks with a purpose, a form of physical therapy with high stakes. Writes the author, Minter Krotzer, of her husband’s long struggle with Parkinson’s disease: “Hal always says Parkinson’s is not his identity, and it isn’t, as long as he doesn’t let it claim him, or as long as it doesn’t claim us.”

Here’s an excerpt from the beginning:

‘I’d like you two to have a conversation every night after dinner,’ Hal’s speech therapist said to us.

. . . . Over the years, Hal’s Parkinson’s disease has made him difficult to understand. His vocal cords have restricted movement and it is hard for him to make it to the end of a sentence. He often swallows his last words or they just barely come out. Sometimes he sounds like he is underwater—the words indistinguishable from one another, blurry and pitchless.

But read the short essay, which is free. In just one page it manages to say a lot about chronic illness and the constant, conscious effort it can require of both patients and family members; about a clinician’s good advice; about marriage and communication; and about the power of language to keep us human.—Jacob Molyneux, senior editor.

Illustration by Barbara Hranilovich; all rights reserved.

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2016-11-21T13:03:45-05:00October 13th, 2014|patient engagement, patient experience, Patients|1 Comment
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Questions Dementia Patients Can’t Answer

by Ann Gordon, via Flickr Photo by Ann Gordon, via Flickr

By Amy M. Collins, editor

A few weeks ago I visited my grandmother, who suffers from dementia, at her assisted living home. In her room, my family and I noticed a complicated form with instructions for residents to get their flu vaccination. Residents had to fill it out, sign it, and bring it to the person administering the vaccine on a certain date. For my grandmother, this would be impossible—she can no longer remember what day it is, when or if she has eaten, who she’s spoken to within the last five minutes, or where her room is located.

When this concern was broached with the front desk of the facility, they seemed to be adamant that she needed to have the form with her on the day of vaccination. We could, of course, help her fill it out—but since it had been given directly to my grandmother, who was to say we would have ever learned of it except by chance? And who would make sure she brought it with her on the day of vaccination?

While the facility offers assisted living, they often remark that they are not a “dementia facility.” Looking around, however, one is hard-pressed to find a resident […]

2016-11-21T13:05:26-05:00February 11th, 2014|patient engagement|14 Comments
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Views expressed on the blog are solely those of the authors or persons quoted. They do not necessarily reflect AJN’s views or those of Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams and Wilkins.
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