Introduction

How are you sleeping at night? Fine. How many times do you get up during the night? Not many. How many times were you up last night? Oh, twelve. It’s just another sleepless night for the Alzheimer care partner.

Providing care for someone with Alzheimer’s disease takes a tremendous toll on the physical and emotional health of the primary care partner, yet many care partners often don't recognize the warning signs, or deny its effects on their health. Many care partners tend to set their own needs aside while caring for the person with Alzheimer's disease and hope that if they don't think about it, the stress might just go away.

In this session we’ll help you understand stress and how it affects your body.  You will develop coping strategies to deal with the stress which results from your role as a care partner and you will learn about the impact of attitude and self-esteem on stress and how important it is to ask for help.

Learning Objectives

When you have completed this session, you will be able to:

• Define stress and how it affects health.
• Describe how to identify signs of stress in the body.
• Identify coping strategies used to reduce and manage stress.
• Understand the impact of attitude and self-esteem on stress.
• Understand the importance of asking for help to maintain physical and mental health.
• Recognize that support services and alternative care options will be necessary to ensure well-being as a care partner.

Work through the various parts of the session at your leisure.  Move from one part to another at your own pace and in the order that makes sense to you, based on your own needs and interests.

Take time to visit the Discussion Forums, where you can post, in a common area, messages to all other community member. It’s a place for you to interact with others and to discuss the topics and ideas introduced throughout this session. 

At any time, you may scroll to the Search bar at the top of the page and type a specific question or topic.