Pam Reese helps avoid Caregiver Burnout by offering live phone support. If the caregiver is feeling stressed or overwhelmed, Pam can help with tested ideas and resources.
I am a registered nurse with 25 years experience managing the clinical operations of skilled nursing, memory care and assisted living facilities. I spent the last 15 years of my career as a partner and Chief Clinical Officer of a skilled nursing and rehabilitation company. My positions were responsible for the ultimate quality of care and services delivered to thousands of patients. Approximately 70% of those patients had a primary or secondary diagnosis of dementia or Alzheimer’s. I developed hundreds of hours of training modules for the caregivers, including certified nursing assistants, nurses and nurse managers. I studied evidence-based processes and implemented quality initiatives to instill a high-level standard of practice. The reality is that the certified and licensed caregivers in controlled professional healthcare settings face challenges and encounter roller coaster emotions on any given day.
It was when my Mom was afflicted with Alzheimer’s that I was personally affected by those challenges. I always viewed myself as an empathetic healthcare professional, but I had an awakening on so many levels. Fortunately, because of my career and knowledge in healthcare, I had numerous resources available to me. I had collaborative relationships with community associations and I was extremely knowledgeable of the Alzheimer’s disease process, I was dementia certified, but in spite of that, transitioning from directing care to giving care was one of my most difficult experiences. I quickly felt a myriad of emotions, starting with denial. I absolutely made excuses as to why my mom continued to forget where she put her keys and her purse. I could explain to myself why those two items might be under her bed, tucked away in the corner of her closet or placed in a random drawer in her bathroom. I made excuses why my mom didn’t make her bed which was a major event as she never missed a day in her life of making her bed. I blamed chronic urinary tract infections for her personality changes and then I blamed the antibiotics that treated it.
It wasn’t until the food mom said she was eating everyday remained untouched in her refrigerator that I forced myself to realize the reality of what could be happening to her. Me and my family journeyed through 9 years of the emotional and physical impacts of having a mom and grandmother with Alzheimer’s, until her death in November 2018. After years of developing industry care standards, healthcare policies and procedures, as well as supervising care delivery, it has clearly become my passion to support and help caregivers delivering homecare to their loved ones.
