Almost half of caregivers of loved ones with dementia experience distress: report
TORONTO — For the last five years, Catherine Kelly and her partner have been providing live-in care for her mother, who developed vascular dementia after suffering a stroke in 2008.
As parents of two small children, being caregivers is a 24-7 labour of love — but one that can be exhausting and isolating, concedes Kelly.
Her mother Isabel, now 81, has end-stage dementia, which has advanced to the point where she is essentially unable to speak or move her limbs.
For the first four years, Kelly and her brother had shared the care of their mother, who had been able to travel back and forth between her daughter’s home in Ottawa and her son’s in Halifax every three to five months.