The caregiver's memory desk
In the spring of 2022 my mother called me three times in one afternoon to ask whether I was coming for dinner on Sunday. Each call, she had no memory of the one before. She was 79, still driving, still doing the crossword in pen. I hung up the third time and sat in my car outside the office for a long while.
That was the start of what I now think of as my second job. I am not a nurse or a doctor. I am a daughter with a spreadsheet, a folder of test results, and a lot of opinions about hold music. This site is where I write down what I have learned, partly to keep it straight in my own head and partly because I wish someone had handed me these notes three years ago.
What I write about
Supplements bought online
My mother has a credit card and a tablet, and she sees a lot of ads. More than once a box of memory tablets has shown up at her door. I have learned how to look at those products calmly instead of panicking, and how to handle the refunds when we decide against them.
The headlines
Microplastics in the brain. "Type 3 diabetes." A new study every week. I try to read the actual research behind the scary ones and explain what it found.
The appointments
How to prepare for a memory evaluation, what to bring, what to ask, and how to make sure the doctor hears what is really going on at home.
Where to find real help
If you are new to this, the two places I would start are the National Institute on Aging's caregiving pages, which are practical and free of sales pitches, and the Alzheimer's Association caregiving section, which also runs a 24-hour helpline. I called it at eleven at night once and a kind woman talked me through a bad evening. I have not forgotten it.
About the supplements
I want to be fair here. I am not against supplements, and my mother is an adult who gets to make her own choices. Some ingredients in these products have real research behind them, saffron in particular. What I am against is buying them in a hurry, without checking them against her other medications, and without knowing how to get the money back.
The product that showed up most recently was one of the newer ten-ingredient memory formulas. Before we decided anything, I wanted to know whether Phytomem One is legit and how its refund actually worked, and I found the answers clearer on an independent review site than on the company's own page. I go through what we did in the first article below.
One thing I would tell every caregiver
Write things down, and date them. "Mom asked about Sunday three times on Tuesday." "Got lost driving to the pharmacy on the 14th." Doctors see your parent for twenty minutes. Your notes are the only way they will see the other ten thousand.
Denise Park lives in Columbus, Ohio, and has helped care for her mother since 2022, when her mother's forgetfulness started to change. She writes what she has learned about doctors, supplements and family decisions. She is not a medical professional.