The Grief of Dementia Caretakers

When someone we care for is lost to us through death, we experience grief and we engage in the bereavement rituals that are meaningful to us in our cultures. We gather together at wakes or funerals or celebrations of life. Friends, family, and community members come together to tell stories or engage in prayer. There may be specific rituals around foods, clothing, or activities that allow us to engage in the act of grief as so many have done before.

When we lose someone to dementia, things are very different. We lose the person we knew. We lose the spouse, the friend, the parent, the sibling. Yet a person remains. The grief is complicated. The feelings are complicated. And the rituals and systems we rely on in death-related grief do not translate well to the non-death grief of losing a person to dementia.

There are ways to move through this grief, however. C-CAT is hosting an educational talk that supports people who are caretakers of individuals with dementia. In it, we discuss the specific way that grief often takes place in these cases, we learn a bit about dementia and memory loss, and we go over a few different ways to support the grieving process.

For more information on our Death Education series, check out our events page.