There is a mechanism at work in good caregiving that almost no one talks about. It is not a technique. It is not a service. It is not on any care plan. It is this: being known by another person — genuinely, continuingly known — changes the physiology of the person being known. It reduces their stress response. It increases their willingness to engage with their own care. It preserves their sense of self at the point in life when the self is most under threat. Being known is

The number is 125. Well over it, actually — but 125 is where the math lands when you add up the caregiving years carried by the eight women who make up the Trained Loving Care team. It doesn’t look like much on paper. It never does. What it looks like in practice is Jacquelin Fields — who has been caregiving for over 52 years — walking into a difficult care situation and knowing exactly what to do. It looks like Tonia Axelson, who founded TLC and has spent 31 years in this

Tonia Axelson has been a caregiver for 31 years. In that time, she has cared for people with dementia, people at the end of life, people who were difficult, people who were funny, people who were grieving the person they used to be. The difference between caregivers who change the room and those who just complete the task is almost never about skill. It is almost always about the question they are carrying into the room with them. Most of us — trained or untrained, professi

Operational Insights for Elite Caregivers was built on 100 foundational texts covering aging, trauma, family systems, environmental psychology, and what it means to die well. Below are seven of them — the ones that contain ideas practitioners and families cite most often as having changed how they show up. Each one is available to purchase via the link below its summary. All seven are also included in our full Recommended Reading list, which covers all 100 texts organized by

Understanding Changes in Language Skills in Dementia: Insights from an Informative Video Dementia, a condition that affects millions of...

Caring for Your Aging Loved One: Recognizing the Signs and Seeking the Right Elder Care As our loved ones age, it's important to be...