How Siblings Cope When Parents Start to Fail

There comes a time in the life of every family when roles must be reversed and children begin to care for their parents. Research shows that the job of caregiver most often falls to daughters. And those who live geographically closest to their ailing parent shoulder the greater share of the burden.

It is common for siblings to clash about how to care for their parents and even who will do the caregiving. Too often ancient childhood rivalries and slights arise anew just when siblings need each others' support most. When caring for parents, siblings can be the source of both the greatest support and the greatest interpersonal stress.

Having been through this ordeal with my dad not long ago, my sisters and I found that caring for an ailing parent cannot be a one-person job. Even more than the physical strain, the daily mental stress can become burdensome to those doing the caregiving. It's important for siblings to help each other, to take turns providing care so that no one sibling feels overburdened. Even though one sibling may provide primary care, generally because they live closest to the parent, other siblings should fill in so that person is able to take a break periodically.

In our far-flung family several of us either came in regularly on weekends or devoted a week's vacation at a time to give mom and my in-town sister a break. My sister particularly appreciated the opportunity to return to her home and her own life even if just for a weekend. It was an opportunity to renew and return refreshed. For mom, the change of people was like a change of scenery, something exciting and fresh to break up the days.

If your family is facing the caregiver years, I recommend Francine Russo's new book. They're Your Parents, Too! How Siblings Can Survive Their Parents' Aging Without Driving Each Other Crazy.

One last thought. It was not always easy to care for Dad, but it was a rare gift to know him at that time of his life. He was more communicative and more reflective than when he and I were both younger. I heard stories about his childhood and war years that I had never heard before. He shared some of his dreams and disappointments, triumphs and regrets. I got to know a different man than I had known before, a more complete, more complex, far more human being than the Dad I knew growing up. I will always be grateful that I had the opportunity to know that man.

New Book Tells How to Shave Years Off Appearance

There's a new book out -- You: Staying Young -- that is chock full of tips that promise to make you look younger than your age in as little as 90 days. Doctors Michael Roizen and Mehmet Oz culled more than 35,000 medical and scientific studies about aging to find common sense things we can all do to make ourselves look younger than the number of candles on our birthday cake. The doctors champion life choices and activities that can make you feel and look younger than your biological age. They call this your real age.

Popular authors of the You books, Roizen and Oz initiated a new emphasis in proactive health care with their book You: The Owner's Manual. The doctors write a monthly column for Readers' Digest and are co-founders of RealAge.com.

Some of their tips for peeling the years off your real age:

• Floss. Daily flossing and brushing can make you appear 6.4 years younger.
• Lower your blood pressure. People with lower blood pressure (115/75) appear 25 years younger than those with high blood pressure (160/90+).
• Reduce stress. Reducing stress and improving your social network can take 30 years off your real age.
• Take vitamins. Regularly taking vitamins shaves 6 years off your real age.
• Quit smoking. If you quit, you can look 8 years younger.
• Stay active. Just two 20-minutes walks a day will make you appear 5 years younger.

Books That Heal the Soul and Inspire the Spirit

My family is coping with the slow deterioration of my father's health. It is difficult to see the daily loss of physical ability and stamina, the seesawing mental accuity -- here this minute, gone the next -- the struggle to do the simplest tasks. It is challenging to deal with the daily frustration and the anger it engenders in him. It is devastating to watch him dying by inches and to see my mother's look of wistful sadness.

I have found comfort and inspiration in reading about the journeys of those who have traveled this path before me. From time to time we all need inspiration or motivation to cope with a serious illness or face the inevitable end of life's journey. Tried-and-true self-help classics that can help us cope with life's challenges were selected by Doctor Bernie Siegel, author of the best-selling Love,Medicine & Miracles: Lessons Learned About Self-Healing from a Surgeon's Experience with Exceptional Patients and Mary Ann Brussat, co-author of Spiritual Literacy: Reading the Sacred in Everyday Life. I hope these books will inspire you as they have inspired me.

• The Power of PositiveThinking by Norman Vincent Peale. This was my father's "bible" as a young businessman and, ever hopeful that I would learn its lessons, he passed his copy to me when I reached the recalcitrant teen years. The 1952 bestseller offers timeless advice on how to boost your self-esteem and achieve personal fulfillment."Faith in yourself makes good things happen to you," preached Peale.


• Anatomy of an Illness as Perceived by the Patient by Norman Cousins. The 1979 classic self-help book by the Saturday Review editor was the first to explore the powerful connection between mind and body in coping with and fighting serious illness. Cousins "laughed his way out of" a crippling disease by watching Marx Brothers' movies.


• Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, MD, PhD. One of the world's most respected psychiatrists, Frankl's 1959 memoir of his years in Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps shares the coping mechanisms he developed. "Everywhere man is confronted with fate, with the chance of achieving something through his own suffering," Frankl wrote.


• On Death and Dying by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, MD. The first to introduce the universally accepted five stages of grief, Kubler-Ross wrote this guide to the last phase of life in the late 1960s. She chronicles the final days of life and how they affect the dying, their loved ones and caretakers.


• Telling Secrets by Frederick Buechner. Using the fabric and experiences of his own dysfunctional family, Buechner takes readers on his own spiritual journey. His 1991 message is that to heal, you must embrace your total history -- you must peer into the shadows and face the difficult issues and painful memories to achieve spiritual peace.