How can I tell if I should become a caregiver for someone with Alzheimer's?

The only reason you would consider becoming a caregiver is that the other person needs care, and you are the only logical person to provide that care. Why? Because you love them, or because you are committed to them in some profound way, most often through blood or marriage.

And what would that mean for you? I mean, don’t you have your own life to live? How could you become a full-time caregiver?

It would mean giving up a good part of your own life, or taking on this work in addition to whatever you are doing with your own life. Isn’t that asking rather a lot? Indeed it is.

So why would you want to become a caregiver? In truth, nobody wants to be a caregiver. You only do it because you have caregiving thrust upon you, by fate, or circumstance, or by being who you are or what you are at this time in your life.

So how and why is it that you are even considering becoming a caregiver at all, much less, a consummate caregiver? There is no law that says you have to be the one to become the caregiver. You can decide that it is simply not something you can do or want to do, and then you have to find someone else to take on this task—another relative, a friend or a paid care manager.

But you must decide this fairly early on. The fact that you are reading this book seems to indicate that you have made the decision to take on this role. But remember, it is a choice.

You can still change your mind, before it is too late. Given that caregiving can be a very demanding and stressful activity, and given that it can go on over extended periods of time, you wouldn’t want to take on this kind of responsibility except for someone whom you love or to whom you are deeply committed. So for the most part caregivers will provide care only to someone really close to them—a spouse, a sibling, a parent or an in-law.

Occasionally someone will become a caregiver to a really good friend. In any case, a strong commitment to the person for whom you are going to provide care is absolutely necessary.

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