Over several years, Alicia McDonald's aging parents experienced significant mental and physical decline, and she felt there were not enough hours in the day to properly care for them.
“I am a sandwich generation child,” McDonald says. “My son was applying to and transitioning to college while I was working full time. I was taking my parents to their medical appointments, worrying if they were correctly taking their medications and handling their finances. It was overwhelming.”
McDonald initially hired a home health caregiver to visit a few times a week, but as her parents' needs increased, so did the need for daily caregiver support. McDonald cared for her parents in the evenings and on the weekends, and eventually, she began staying overnight when her father would wake throughout the night and wander the house.
According to a report by the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) and the National Alliance for Caregiving, McDonald is just one of the 42 million adults in the U.S. providing unpaid care for a family member or friend aged 50 or older.
Like many in a similar position, McDonald struggled with the decision to move her parents to an assisted living facility. Still, she knew it would be the safest place for them after her mother’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis and her father’s progressive dementia and physical decline.
McDonald found comfort in the experiences of the other family caregivers she met at the MedStar Health Community Caregivers Workshop series held at MedStar Southern Maryland Hospital Center.
“It built a sense of camaraderie for me. You start to see the same people and you see that you're not alone in this,” McDonald says. “I might meet somebody that can help me navigate something else…or they might be helped by something that I've gone through.”
Introduced in 2023, the Community Caregivers Workshop series held four events in 2024.
“The first objective of the series is to educate and empower caregivers in the community to care for their loved ones effectively by providing critical resources, ideally before they are needed,” says Karen Wyche Latham, DNP, vice president and chief nursing officer at MedStar Southern Maryland Hospital Center. “The second objective is to invite community members into the hospital at a non-critical time to help them become comfortable with the environment,” she says.
Each workshop has a different focus, such as understanding and navigating Medicare and Medicaid and how they can benefit family members, learning the differences between hospice and palliative care, and receiving presentations by the Prince George’s County Department of Aging and the Prince George’s County Department of Social Services.
Wyche Latham explains that every patient and caregiver has different needs, and the workshops can help them connect to resources that will be most helpful to their individual challenges. Whether accessing free meals and transportation vouchers or learning about eligibility for home healthcare and cleaning services, these resources can benefit the aging individual and ease the stress on the family caregiver.
“We want to arm families with resources to support them and their loved ones on their caregiver journey,” Wyche Latham says. “Having a more knowledgeable, supported and connected community will ultimately lead to better health outcomes for the community we serve.”
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