Gary Barg:
You came out with a position
paper, Averting the Caregiving
Crisis: Why We Must Act Now, two
years ago. I was wondering if you’ve
seen any positive action since the
release of that paper?
Rosalynn
Carter: One thing is the Agency
on Aging has taken it to heart. We
work with the Agency on Aging a lot.
And we have helped develop a program
for those caring for people with
Alzheimer’s in our state, which they
have taken across the country. What
happened was that we got a grant to
provide services to those caring for
people with Alzheimer’s. They don’t
come into an institute or a
university. We’re the only caregiver
program in a university, by the way.
But people don’t come in, so we have
to take the services to their homes.
And so we’ve worked on all twelve
districts in our state. And the
Administration on Aging has adopted
that program. Those are the REACH
Programs. (Resources for Enhancing
Alzheimer’s Caregiver Health) Are
you familiar with the REACH
Programs?
Gary Barg:
Absolutely.
Rosalynn
Carter: When Michelle Obama and
Jill Biden were working with the
Wounded Warriors program,I wrote
Michelle and told her that they had
left out one thing—that all these
people were coming back from wars
with PTSD and traumatic brain
injuries, but also physical
injuries, and somebody was going to
have to take care of them. And
that’s going to go on for a very
long time. And now we’re in the
state of Georgia with the Georgia
National Guard trying to find them.
And this has been very hard because
people in the military don’t want to
admit they have PTSD or are not
capable; they’re afraid that they
will lose their job and be thrown
out of the military. And so we’re
working now like we did with
Alzheimer’s—going into the home to
work with the families to see if we
can get more veterans to realize
that this is a program that is
helpful to them.
Gary Barg:
I think one of the most impressive
things to me about what you’ve been
doing is what I like to call
“Desiloing Caregiving,” where the
different care communities share
their lessons with one another. The
Alzheimer’s community can teach the
veterans community, can teach the
mental health community and so
forth. And the lessons you learn
across the spectrum of caregiving
can only serve to help other
caregivers. Were there lessons
learned between the different
communities?
