FROM THE EDITOR'S PEN /
Hard to Swallow
/
Editorial List
There are so many life altering firsts when it
comes to caring for our loved ones: the first
recognition that something is wrong, the first
medical diagnosis, and the first time that roles
change in your relationships. One of the most
dramatic firsts when my mom was caring for my
grandfather was the first time we heard the word
dysphagia (simply put, the difficulty or inability
to swallow).
Gramp was living with the latter stages of
dementia when his symptoms occurred. I
remember the call the doctor made to Mom on a Friday
when he gave her until Monday to consider whether or
not to place a PEG or feeding tube. We did a
heck of a lot of research that weekend and learned a
lot about how dysphagia affects our loved ones
living with strokes, Huntington’s disease, cognitive
disorders and many other causes.
Since that time, we started to discuss the
challenges of dysphagia at the Fearless Caregiver
Conferences, on caregiver.com, and at least once a
year in a special focus in the pages of
Today’s Caregiver magazine. In fact, the
current issue includes a cover segment on dysphagia.
Dysphagia has become such an important challenge
with so many of our readers that we will be running
articles on swallowing disorders in each of the
magazine’s issues until the end of the year.
Gary Barg
Editor-in-Chief
gary@caregiver.com
