On this West Virginia Morning, as an alternative to the indoor shopping extravaganza known as Black Friday, a movement called “hashtag opt outside” urges people to get closer to parks, trails, community areas and the joy of being outdoors on that particular day. Randy Yohe took full advantage of the Friday alternative, going on a Blackwater Falls State Park birding hike.
On this West Virginia Morning, as an alternative to the indoor shopping extravaganza known as Black Friday, a movement called “hashtag opt outside” urges people to get closer to parks, trails, community areas and the joy of being outdoors on that particular day. Randy Yohe took full advantage of the Friday alternative, going on a Blackwater Falls State Park birding hike.
Also, in this show, throughout the year, News Director Eric Douglas has been reporting on caring for older parents in a series of stories called “Getting Into Their Reality: Caring for Aging Parents.” Coming into the holidays, when families come together, it might be a good time to pay attention to the signs of the onset of Alzheimer’s and dementia.
Douglas spoke with Teresa Morris, program director for the West Virginia chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association, who outlined the 10 signs to look for.
West Virginia Morning is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting which is solely responsible for its content.
Support for our news bureaus comes from Shepherd University.
Caroline MacGregor is our assistant news director and produced this episode.
Listen to West Virginia Morning weekdays at 7:43 a.m. on WVPB Radio or subscribe to the podcast and never miss an episode. #WVMorning
The holidays can be a stressful time, but dementia can make that even more difficult. For his series, “Getting Into Their Reality: Caring For Aging Parents,” News Director Eric Douglas spoke with Teresa Morris, program director for the West Virginia chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association, to get some ideas for families who are working to include someone with dementia into their celebrations.
The holidays can be a stressful time, but dementia can make that even more difficult.
For his series, “Getting Into Their Reality: Caring For Aging Parents,” News Director Eric Douglas spoke with Teresa Morris, program director for the West Virginia chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association, to get some ideas for families who are working to include someone with dementia into their celebrations.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Douglas: Let’s talk about the holidays. We’ve got Thanksgiving, we’ve got Christmas, we’ve got Hanukkah, we’ve got all kinds of reasons families are together, what should you do? What should a caregiver know? And how to adjust things to help out?
Morris: We know that holidays are challenging for everyone. Then if you throw someone in that who has dementia, I think the biggest thing is we, as caregivers, we have to remember that we have to adjust our expectation of what the time is going to be like. You can still have fun, you can still have a fantastic celebration, but it’s probably not going to be the same. You want to try to check in with the person that has the disease. “How are you doing? Are you okay?” You want to focus on things that bring happiness and letting go of activities that are overwhelming to the person with the disease. My family, at least, our celebrations are loud. That might be something you have to take a look at, and maybe change that a little bit.
Douglas: I remember reading somewhere, somebody talking about not having the whole family over at once or having them come in small groups.
Morris: Those are great ideas, just to try to limit that stimulation, that overstimulation, even if you can somehow have a quiet room. Maybe people at different times go in there to speak to the person with the disease, you just want to try to lower their stress. Because I promise it will lower your stress as well. We also just want to think about keeping the person with the disease on a familiar routine. If they eat lunch every day at noon, then you don’t want to have your dinner at 2 p.m. You want to try to keep that schedule for them and make sure that other family members or people coming in know that mom is having some trouble with her words, finding it might take her longer to answer.
She might not think of the word, but we always want these folks to feel a sense of self throughout the disease. It’s important that we don’t just go, “Oh, mom has Alzheimer’s, she can’t help us anymore.” Don’t put her in a corner, right, because they still want to feel connected. On some level mom probably knows she always makes the mashed potatoes, so just involve her or him as much as you can — maybe they can put the napkins on the table.
Douglas: I think that point of lowering expectations, that yes, this isn’t going to be the way we did it. We’ve done it this way for 20 years.
Morris: You have to take the perspective of the person with the disease. It’s very different than what my or your perspective would be. The person with the disease, they can’t change. They’ve lost the ability to problem solve, to sequence, to even speak sometimes. So it’s on us as caregivers to change our interaction.
On this West Virginia Morning, we learn how a project at WVU studying the environmental effects of acid rain in the Fernow Experimental Forest in Tucker County is inviting local students to participate, and we explore ideas for including loved ones with dementia into holiday celebrations.
On this West Virginia Morning, West Virginia University (WVU) scientists since 1989 have been studying the environmental effects of acid rain in the Fernow Experimental Forest in Tucker County. COVID-19 pandemic restrictions forced the long-term experiment to change in recent years, and researchers are now inviting local students to take part in the project’s next phase. Chris Schulz sat down with WVU biology professor Edward Brzostek to discuss the changes.
Also, in this show, the holidays can be a stressful time, but dementia can make that even more difficult. For his series, “Getting Into Their Reality: Caring For Aging Parents,” News Director Eric Douglas spoke with Teresa Morris, program director for the West Virginia chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association, to get some ideas for families who are working to include someone with dementia into their celebrations.
West Virginia Morning is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting which is solely responsible for its content.
Support for our news bureaus comes from Shepherd University.
Caroline MacGregor produced this episode.
Listen to West Virginia Morning weekdays at 7:43 a.m. on WVPB Radio or subscribe to the podcast and never miss an episode. #WVMorning
Millions of families nationwide find themselves caring for loved ones in their own family. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito experienced those issues as she provided care for her own parents. She recently introduced legislation into the U.S. Senate to help alleviate burdens on caregivers.
Millions of families nationwide find themselves caring for loved ones in their own family. That includes stress and confusion — especially when it comes to dealing with a parent’s finances and the services that are available to them.
U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., experienced those issues as she provided care for her own parents. She recently introduced legislation into the U.S. Senate to help alleviate burdens on caregivers.
The transcript below has been lightly edited for clarity.
Douglas: We’ve both cared for our parents. Let’s just talk about that experience for a second. So you cared for both of your parents, right? I believe I read that it was your mother first. And then your father began to decline? Or do I have that backwards?
Capito: That’s right. My mother really had a longer slope into full out dementia. She became very isolated, worried about losing her mind. It was sad to watch, but dad could kind of compensate and help her and answer the questions time and time again. And then when he slipped, he went much faster. That was in 2010.
Then it began a long slog for me and my brother and sister to have four years of caring for them, having them being cared for, and trying to figure all this out. It began slow, and then it just all of a sudden, almost one day, we’ve got real issues here.
I think that’s what happens in families, when it’s a couple one can kind of compensate or cover up for the other. And then when that person, when your healthy person goes down, you realize all the things that maybe you should have been paying a little bit more attention to.
Douglas: I asked the question because your father was the caregiver for your mother and did all of those things that we’re discussing. And then when he began to decline, then suddenly it fell to the next generation, to our generation, to step up and to provide that care.
Capito: It was challenging for us in that none of the three of us lived right there. You can always go back and look, and I’m sure you’ve done this yourself, could I have addressed this earlier, sooner or better? But you’re doing the best you can. And I think that’s what caregivers all across this nation are doing.
Douglas: Yeah, I’ve certainly gone in my head. Should have done this? Should have changed this sooner?
I’ll be honest with you, when I see information about newly introduced legislation, I generally don’t pay a whole lot of attention to it. I know how many steps it takes to become finished legislation. But tell me about this bill to alleviate the care or the burden on caregivers.
Capito: I think what I realized from my own personal experience, and then once I became sort of known as somebody who has lived this experience, is that going through all the insurance, every time they were admitted to the hospital, you have to get another document to sign, you signed the same document every time, why can’t the X-rays, or the testing be transmitted from one hospital to the next?
You have the burden of trying to figure out how to care best for your parents, but then all of the hurdles that you have to jump through, whether it’s for insurance purposes, or HIPAA, or the refrigerator breaks down, all of these things just come cascading down. And you end up with a lot of difficulties in terms of trying to figure out procedures, forms, communications, eligibility, whether you’re talking about Medicare or Social Security.
I think we could make it easier on caregivers who are trying to face this, to make it more streamlined, or at least have these agencies look at how they could streamline their processes to make it easier.
Douglas: That was one of the things that I struggled with, who do I go to to find out how to care for my mom? It’s very frustrating.
Capito: You are looking at financial data, too. That’s another thing. I mean, that’s different than what this act for caregivers or alleviating barriers for caregivers would do, but financial institutions, I think could help you a lot more in terms of trying to figure out credit card and bank accounts, so that not only do you have, “How am I going to get the health care? How am I going to pay for this?” And if they can’t communicate to you successfully, where is everything? I don’t know about you, but I spent a lot of time trying to unwind and figure out how to do all this.
It was a labor of love for me, but it was extremely time consuming and emotionally draining. And then you’re trying to have your life at the same time. My parents actually got very, very ill in 2014, which was the year I was running my first Senate race, and I’m like, wow, what am I going to do? Finally my mother, in the memory unit, in September of 2014, when my campaign obviously was almost over in November, my mother died.
I remember a campaign meeting that I had the day before she died. And I just looked at my campaign team, and I said, “I can’t do all this. My mother is dying.” I had no idea she was gonna die the next day, but I could see. And I really think my mother was looking in my eyes going, “She’s really tired. I might as well just hang it up. She needs a break.”
Pictured here with her father, the late-Gov. Arch Moore, in 1962. Shelley Moore Capito was one of her father and mother’s caregivers as they struggled with memory loss later in the life.
Photo courtesy of the West Virginia & Regional History Center/WVU Libraries
Douglas: You were in the U.S. House leading up to that, too. You had a full schedule going on with them and living in D.C., or at least commuting back and forth.
A lot of caregivers, just generally speaking, have moved away, we’ve moved all over the country. Families aren’t located within 10 miles of each other anymore. Who do you call? Who do you rely on?
Capito: I have an older brother and a younger sister. They were very helpful, but at the end of the day, one person ends up making those decisions, and that person was me.
Douglas: Why has the system grown to to be such a challenge for caregivers?
Capito: I think a lot of it has to do with people living longer. It’s not all about dementia, it could be broken hips or heart failure, whatever. I think people are living longer. And so I think that presents a challenge because, are they living healthy all the way to the day they die? Of course not. And so I think that’s a challenge. I think our society is much more mobile, as we said, so many people have moved away from home. We have families that maybe 30, 40 years ago, maybe the wife wasn’t working, but we have many more women in the workforce, dual occupation couples.
My mother’s mother had the same issue in the ’60s and ’70s. Once it was unmanageable at home, she went into a nursing home for like eight years. We don’t do that anymore. And because that’s not the modality that’s really the best treatment for certain types of things. I think that’s got some impact on it. And the cost of caring.
If you can’t quit your job and move across the country, which a lot of people do, it becomes very, very hard and you look at the cost and you say to yourself, it’s probably the least costly way to do it. And the best I’m going to feel about is if I just drop out of the workforce for right now and manage this. So I think it’s all kinds of factors like that.
Douglas: Nationwide, there’s 53 million family caregivers, but even in West Virginia, we’re looking at a quarter of a million people in a state of 1.8 million people. That’s kind of astounding. That’s one-in-eight, one-in-seven people in the state is a family caregiver for another 100,000 people who need the care.
Capito: That’s where something like the Credit for Caregiving Act, which is another one we put out, and it’s been out there for a couple years, to try to give some financial relief in the form of a tax credit for family caregivers. You try to attack it that way a little bit to maybe ease the burden. The nice thing about this issue, which is not too nice, but it’s totally bipartisan, and because this has no barriers in terms of how it hits people in terms of their politics, obviously. It’s one of the issues that we can work on together. I’m a big believer in medical research and development of new therapies and earlier treatment and earlier diagnosis.
So all of these things kind of drive me because of my personal experience, not that I hadn’t seen it in other families but until you hit it yourself, you really don’t understand what’s going on. And so that’s why I’ve sort of taken this on as one of my causes that I think we could make a difference on.
Douglas: Any prognostication on the possibility of this, this moving on through and out of committee and onto the floor?
Capito: This is national Family Caregivers Month, so it’s a good month to be talking about it. The bill probably doesn’t have a burden, but we’ll need to attach it onto another bill going through the Health Committee. We’re looking for those opportunities and it has bipartisan co-sponsorships. We’ve just put it out there. So we’ll see what happens. We’ve been trying to look for what we say is a vehicle to get it passed.
On this West Virginia Morning, West Virginia native JC Lasek’s latest play is about a West Virginia family in the 1980s who struggle with the ups and downs of the economy at the time – the coal strikes. It is showing through Nov. 12 at the Raleigh Theatre in Beckley. Briana Heaney sat down with Lasek to talk about the production.
On this West Virginia Morning, West Virginia native JC Lasek’s latest play is about a West Virginia family in the 1980s who struggle with the ups and downs of the economy at the time – the coal strikes. It is showing through Nov. 12 at the Raleigh Theatre in Beckley. Briana Heaney sat down with Lasek to talk about the production.
Also, in this show, millions of families nationwide find themselves caring for loved ones in their own family. That includes stress and confusion — especially when it comes to dealing with a parent’s finances and the services that are available to them.
U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., experienced those issues as she provided care for her own parents. Realizing how big of an issue it is, she recently introduced legislation into the U.S. Senate to help alleviate burdens on caregivers.
For his ongoing series, “Getting Into Their Reality: Caring For Aging Parents,” News Director Eric Douglas discussed the situation and the pending legislation with Capito.
West Virginia Morning is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting which is solely responsible for its content.
Support for our news bureaus comes from Shepherd University.
Eric Douglas produced this episode.
Listen to West Virginia Morning weekdays at 7:43 a.m. on WVPB Radio or subscribe to the podcast and never miss an episode. #WVMorning
This week on Inside Appalachia, we visit with West Virginia trappers to learn about the fur trade in the 21st Century. We also meet a county fair champion who keeps racking up the blue ribbons and has released a cookbook of some of her favorites. And we hear an update on the Mountain Valley Pipeline. Construction has begun again, but some people wonder if it’s even needed.
This week, we visit with West Virginia trappers to learn about the fur trade in the 21st century.
We also meet a county fair champion who keeps racking up the blue ribbons and has released a cookbook of some of her favorites.
And we hear an update on the Mountain Valley Pipeline. Construction has begun again, but some people wonder if it’s even needed.
These stories and more this week, Inside Appalachia.
Before coal or timber, the fur trade was one of Appalachia’s first industries.
Fur trapping flourished for centuries, made fortunes and led to wars and was still lucrative into the last few generations.
Now, most West Virginia fur trappers struggle to earn a living, but some have adapted or found new careers using their particular skills. Folkways Reporter Lauren Griffin brought us the story.
Blue Ribbon-Winning Fair Food
There’s nothing quite like the county fair, where you can pet a goat or get motion sick on the tilt-a-whirl.
A staple of county and state fairs are the annual craft competitions, where the hopeful vie for the coveted blue ribbon.
Few people have been as successful as Russell County, Virginia resident Linda Skeens, who has won hundreds of ribbons, become a social media sensation and released a cookbook featuring some of her winning recipes.
Producer Bill Lynch spoke with her about winning contests and collecting recipes.
Cruising With Vintage Vehicles
For over 50 years, in Roanoke, Virginia, on any given Friday night, you can see modified cars and trucks with neon lights, spinning rims and streamlined spoilers strutting from north to south and back again. And often — you’ll see old timey antique cars out there among them.
Host Mason Adams reported this story in 2020, about a family of mechanics who have spent years developing the skills to get those vintage cars just right.
The Mountain Valley Pipeline Saga Continues
We’ve reported on the Mountain Valley Pipeline for years. Completion of the pipeline has been held up because a federal court keeps throwing out its permits. The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled to allow work to resume again. But some energy analysts question whether the pipeline is even needed.
WVPB’s Curtis Tate spoke with Suzanne Mattei of the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.
Extended Family Pitching In To Care For Dementia Patients
Spouses or adult children typically care for people with dementia, but more and more extended family members are taking on that role. CareEx is a project at the Center for Gerontology at Virginia Tech that studies extended family caregivers in central Appalachia.
WVPB’s Eric Douglas spoke with project coordinator Brandy McCann about their work.
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Our theme music is by Matt Jackfert. Other music this week was provided by the Carolina Chocolate Drops, Sturgill Simpson, Ron Mullennex, Mary Hott and Noam Pikelny.
Bill Lynch is our producer. Zander Aloi is our associate producer. Our executive producer is Eric Douglas. Kelley Libby is our editor. Our audio mixer is Patrick Stephens.
You can send us an email: InsideAppalachia@wvpublic.org.
