If the love of your life had a progressive disease when you met them, would to see it through from love partner, to care partner to caregiver? Today’s Aging GreatFULLy guest did—and wrote the book—her soul’s rite of passage, if you will, describing her journey in Love, Dignity & Parkinson’s: From Care Partner to Caregiver.

You won’t want to miss a single second of this power-hour of enlightYOUment with special guest Terri Pease, Ph.D., an Author, Coach, and Consultant for Spousal Caregivers. When Terri married her husband, diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease before they met, she brought her confidence and a wealth of knowledge and experience to bear on caring for him. Her professional experience has informed her approach to caregiving and to encouraging Parkinson's caregivers to make self-care real, practical, and possible.

Terri Pease is on a mission to educate family members, spouses, and caregivers of those with Parkinson's Disease, Alzheimer's, and other progressive illnesses on how to maintain a sense of self, ease loneliness, and ask for help while taking care of their patient/loved one. Her book, Love, Dignity & Parkinsons, serves as a roadmap and a shepherding hand for those who find themselves in the care partner and/or caregiver role and seeking support and guidance. With more and more people caring for loved ones, her book offers practical information to help family carers every step of the way.

Terri shares how to solicit support from others to thwart the ever-present challenges of loneliness and exhaustion caregivers experience. She shares the difference between self-care and after care, and describes why Parkinson’s is a thief and a two-person condition. She offers important advice for families to support the primary caregiver to help shoulder the burden and prevent caregiver burnout and even discusses the often overlooked conversation of creating caregiver agreements and understandings made with the person carers may find themselves caring for. From beginning to end, Terri offers compassionate and thoughtful advice for anyone who may be caring for another individual.

Terri Pease also offers Calm, Committed and Connected, a recorded Meditation for caregivers, free to listeners, among other resources and guides that help caregivers and family members of those with Parkinson’s Disease. Terri Pease Ph.D. is a highly experienced professional in the social services and healthcare industries who has dedicated her working life to helping people who are facing highly stressful situations. She has trained staff in organizations around the United States on offering supportive, empathic, and effective trauma-informed care to those who need it most. In addition to her work as an author and caregiver advocate, Terri continues to post information, support, and resources. You can connect with her, access her recording meditations and other great work as well as purchase her new book, Love, Dignity & Parkinson’s: From Care Partner to Caregiver, at www.seaburyhouse.com.

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