Dementia and Your Caring Role

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  Carer wellness: webinar

  In this webinar, we are joined by Clare Coyle, a Dementia Support Specialist at Dementia Australia. Clare will explain the impacts of providing care to someone with dementia and the importance of self care. You will gain knowledge in: Dementia and its impact on your wellbeing; Strategies to improve and maintain your health and wellbeing; The importance of social connection and support networks
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  Family relationships and dementia

  In this webinar we are joined by Dementia Australia family clinician Jane Smith, who has worked as a family therapist for over twenty years. Jane covers supporting families when it comes to relationships and communication with a diagnosis of dementia. You will gain knowledge in: The impact dementia can have on family relationships and communication, the impact of grief and loss, including that of children and young people and how to continue to remain connected despite the changes that dementia brings.

• Self-care for carers by Dementia Australia

  This page discusses the importance of taking a break from caring, how to organise it and who can help. Caring for someone with dementia can be physically and emotionally tiring and stressful. Families and carers can easily become isolated from social contacts, particularly if they are unable to leave the person they are caring for. Regular breaks mean that you can have a rest, go out, attend to business or go on a holiday.

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  Support for families and carers

  Family members and friends often find themselves in the role of a carer when a loved one is living with dementia. While caring for your loved one can be rewarding, it can also have its tougher days. As you care for someone with dementia, you may not be taking as much care of your own emotional, mental or physical wellbeing. Whether you’re the husband, wife, partner, daughter, son, brother, sister or friend of the person, your relationship will change. Dementia Australia offers support for families and carers so you don’t feel alone.

• The Dementia Guide by Dementia Australia

  Publication Date: 2024; edited 2025

  For people living with dementia, their families and carers. The Dementia Guide is an important resource for any person impacted by any form of dementia, of any age. This resource contains information about the impact dementia may have on a person, the treatment, support and services they may need. It is available to read online, download as a pdf, listen to an audio version or request a print copy.

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  Hold the Moment Podcast by Dementia Australia

  Hold the Moment is a podcast by people living with dementia. Season 1 Episode 7 focuses on families with reflections on the impact of a loved one’s dementia diagnosis and Season 2 Episode 1: The juggling act focuses on one woman's personal story of caring for her parents with dementia.

• Loving Someone Who Has Dementia by Pauline Boss

  Publication Date: 2011

  The book is for caregivers, family members, friends, neighbours as well as educators and professionals—anyone touched by dementia. Dr. Boss helps caregivers find hope in "ambiguous loss"—having a loved one both here while possibly grieving a former version of the relationship. • Outlines seven guidelines to stay resilient while caring for someone who has dementia • Discusses the meaning of relationships with individuals who have a diagnosis of dementia • Offers approaches to understand and cope with the emotional strain of care-giving.The author shows a way to embrace rather than resist the ambiguity in your relationship with someone who has dementia.
• Caring for a Loved One with Dementia by Marguerite Manteau-Rao

  Publication Date: 2016

  In this book, you'll learn how to approach caring with calm, centered presence; respond to your loved one with compassion; and maintain authentic communication, even in the absence of words. Most importantly, you'll discover ways to manage the grief, anger, depression, and other emotions often associated with dementia care, so you can find strength and meaning in each moment you spend with your loved one.
• Being a good carer: An Invaluable Guide to Looking After Others – And Yourself by Amanda Waring

  Publication Date: 2020

  This accessible and detailed guide includes practical tips, checklists for best practice, and case studies from a wide range of carers that addresses solutions to common problems and giving expert advice on how to deliver compassionate and dignified care to older people. It is easy to read and provides anecdotal experience from carers and tips from the experts.
• Caregiving Both Ways by Molly Wisniewski

  Publication Date: 2019

  When a parent, spouse, sibling, or loved one is diagnosed with Alzheimer's or another form of dementia, it can be difficult to know what to do. Your day can spiral into a never-ending series of tasks and attempts to communicate that leave you both frustrated. Instead of burning out, discover a new approach. When your loved one behaves differently than they used to, they're just communicating in a new way. As caregivers, the most important thing we can do is learn that new language.
• Caregiving with Love and Joy by Patricia A. Boswell

  Publication Date: 2022

  When it comes to caring for a loved one with Alzheimer’s disease or dementia, the right caregiving can make all the difference. Here, Patricia Boswell shares structured routines, life hacks, and best practices that are evidence-based and focused on maintaining the highest possible quality of life for the entire family.

• The Unexpected Journey Finding Strength, Hope and Yourself on the Caregiving Path by Emma Heming Willis

  Publication Date: 2025

  The day Emma Heming Willis' husband, Bruce Willis, was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia (FTD), all they were given was a pamphlet and told to check back in a few months. With no hope or direction, Emma walked out of that doctor's appointment frozen with fear, confusion and a sense that her world had just fallen apart. With The Unexpected Journey, Emma has written the book she wishes she'd been handed on the day of Bruce's diagnosis.
• A silent tsunami: Swimming against the tide of my mother's dementia by Anthea Rowan; narrated by Nano Nagle

  Publication Date: 2024

  A Silent Tsunami is a unique combination of memoir and medicine – Rowan forensically examines the development of her mother's illness and explores dementia in a frank but illuminating, lyrical, and moving way. Anthea Rowan writes about her mother's struggles of living with Dementia while interpreting the science that surrounds this devastating illness. Grounded in personal observation, she casts an unflinching eye on the realities of living with a mother who has forgotten her daughter and a determination that her children will not face the same. There is hope here, too. As a portrayal of the relationships we share with our mothers, an examination of their influences on us, as well as asking questions about how illness impacts lives, A Silent Tsunami is a powerful story of family, life, love and loss.
• Travellers to Unimaginable Lands Dementia, Carers and the Hidden Workings of the Mind by Dasha Kiper

  Publication Date: 223

  Dasha Kiper was twenty-five when she first became the live-in carer for a Holocaust survivor with Alzheimer's disease. She soon discovered the emotional strain and challenges of caring for a person whose condition disrupts the rules of time, order and continuity. In Travellers to Unimaginable Lands, Kiper explores the complex and profound psychology of caregiving, illuminating how the healthy brain's biases and intuitions make caring for people with dementia disorders so profoundly and inherently difficult. Blending neuroscience, psychology, philosophy and literature with beautifully-observed case studies, Kiper illuminates the underlying mental mechanisms behind carers' experiences, dispels the myth of the perfect caregiver and, in the process, opens the door to understanding and forgiveness.
• Mother Lode: Confessions of a Reluctant Caregiver by Gretchen Staebler

  Publication Date: 2022

  Gretchen Staebler promises to spend one year in her childhood home caring for her stubborn ninety-six-year-old mother—sort of a middle-aged gap year. Then her mother will move to assisted living and she will return to her own life, their relationship magically having become all she ever longed it to be. Can it be that easy?
• Neither Married nor Single When Your Partner Has Alzheimer's or Other Dementia by David Kirkpatrick

  Publication Date: 2018

  Dr. Kirkpatrick tackles the tough questions about caretaking, grief, loss, love, and sex for those whose partners have dementia. When is the right time to find or even to begin considering a care home for your loved one? How can you navigate the complexities of your changing sexual relationship with an Alzheimer's partner? When is it appropriate for you to consider new relationships?
• Another Cup of Tea Diary of a Dementia Carer

  Publication Date: 2020

  Another Cup of Tea is a book for anyone caring for someone with dementia or Alzheimer's disease. Selected from the diary of a son caring for his Mum in the latter stages of her struggle with vascular dementia. Written often in the midst of long, challenging days and nights. You'll find yourself either laughing, crying or even nodding along in recognition at the ups and downs of their time together. You'll notice how tea often saved the day, how they coped or didn't and perhaps imagine yourself in their shoes, wondering what could happen next and how you'd cope in similar circumstances.
• The Story of My Father by by Sue Miller

  Publication Date: 2014

  In the spring of 1986, Sue Miller found herself more and more deeply involved in caring for her father as he slipped into the grasp of Alzheimer's disease. The Story of My Father is a profound, deeply moving account of her father's final days and her own response to it. With care, restraint and consummate skill, Miller writes of her struggles to be fully with her father in his illness while confronting her own terror of abandonment, and eventually the long, hard work of grieving for him. And through this candid, painful record, she offers a rigorous, compassionate inventory of two lives, a powerful meditation on the variable nature of memory and the difficulty of weaving a truthful narrative from the threads of a dissolving life. This is a truly remarkable book from one of America's best loved authors.
• Feeding My Mother AUDIOBOOK (Includes supplementary content) by Jann Arden

  Publication Date: 2017

  Based on her hugely popular Facebook posts and Instagram photos, Feeding My Mother is a frank, funny, inspirational and piercingly honest account of the transformation in Jann Arden's life that has turned her into the primary "parent" to her mom, who is in the grip of Alzheimer's.
  Jann Arden moved in to a house just across the way from her parents in rural Alberta to be close to them but also so they could be her refuge from the demands of the music business and a performing career. Funny how time works. Since her dad died in 2015, Jann cooks for her mom five or six times a week. Her mom finds comfort in her daughter's kitchen, not just in the delicious food but also just sitting with her as she cooks. And Jann finds some peace in caring for her mom, even as her mom slowly becomes a stranger.

• Carer Gateway

  When contacting Carer Gateway, you will be connected with a Australia-wide network of Carer Gateway service providers. They will talk through what you need and help you to find local services and support to help you.
• Guided Mindfulness Exercises / The Free Mindfulness Project

  Free resources to support your practice of mindfulness.
• Relax the mindful way workbook / South Western Sydney Local Health District

  This workbook is for carers. It is an introduction to the benefits of mindfulness to manage stress. Mindfulness activities are free, quick and easy to learn. This workbook has some examples of mindfulness activities for you to try. The activities are useful for any one. They do not replace counselling, medical treatment or other therapies that a carer may access to support their wellbeing.
• iSupport training program / World Health Organisation

  iSupport is a self-help skills and training programme for carers of people living with dementia. In five modules, iSupport provides education on what dementia is and how to respond to common challenges of caregiving. iSupport is available in several languages.