Patty's Place

I would love to hear from you. Send me questions or comments. Caregiving can sneak up on you. One day you’re doing a favor, the next you’re managing medications, appointments, mobility issues, safety at home, and the emotional whiplash of watching a parent change. We sit down with Kim Branch Lucid and Alexander Nuri, co-authors of Survival Guide to Caring for Aging Parents, to talk about what the...

I would love to hear from you. Send me questions or comments. One phone call can change everything: “Your insurance didn’t approve it, so we’re canceling treatment tomorrow.” That moment kicks off a powerful conversation with Tiffany Ovell, a registered nurse, functional medical health coach, and caregiver coach who learns what it really takes to protect a family when the healthcare system gets me...

I would love to hear from you. Send me questions or comments. The parts of dementia caregiving that break you are often the parts nobody wants to describe in polite company. So we decided to talk about them plainly. I’m Lisa, your host of Patty’s Place, and I sit down with author Lisa Berlanga to unpack what dementia care really feels like when you’re overwhelmed, anxious, sleep deprived, and tryi...

I would love to hear from you. Send me questions or comments. Dementia doesn’t announce itself, it sneaks in through small changes until one day you realize nothing feels normal anymore. We sit down with Barbara Lambert, founder of Home to Home for Seniors, to talk through what happens next when your family is suddenly searching for senior care and you have no idea where to begin. We get specific...

I would love to hear from you. Send me questions or comments. We sit down with Kaylee Rizzo and Hattie Finnerty from the Alzheimer’s Association Illinois Chapter to get clear about what dementia is, what Alzheimer’s is, and what early signs should prompt a real medical conversation. We also share practical brain health steps, caregiver support options, and ways to get involved so no one has to nav...

I would love to hear from you. Send me questions or comments. A dementia diagnosis can feel like getting dropped into the middle of a maze with a pamphlet and a long wait until the next appointment. We wanted to close that gap, so we sat down with Grace Walfall, founder of Living with Change, Dementia Consultants, and author of *Preparing with Clarity: Next Steps After Dementia Diagnosis*. Grace i...

I would love to hear from you. Send me questions or comments. Death is the one certainty we all share, and somehow it still blindsides us when we get close to it. We talk with psychologist Dr. Elizabeth Scott about the moment her breast cancer diagnosis turned “someday” into “this could be soon” and why that shock can send us into denial, avoidance, or frantic control. Her book, You’re Going to Di...

I would love to hear from you. Send me questions or comments. Grief can make us tender, but it can also make us sharp. When life breaks open through dementia, caregiving, or death, the pain doesn’t just stay inside our own hearts, it spills into how we treat ourselves and the people around us. I sit down with singer-songwriter Brad Wolf to talk about what it looks like to choose kindness anyway, e...

I would love to hear from you. Send me questions or comments. One phone call can turn a normal day into a maze of grief, paperwork, and decisions you never wanted to make. I sit down with Paula Harris, co-founder of WH Cornerstone Investments and author of Rise Up, a Widow’s Journal and Rise Up, a Grief Journal, to talk about what actually helps when dementia, caregiving, or sudden loss collides w...

I would love to hear from you. Send me questions or comments. The hardest part of dementia caregiving is not always the hands-on care. Sometimes it is the moment you realize the bills are not getting paid, the mail is piling up, and your parent cannot explain what is going on. That is where money stress collides with grief and turns a family crisis into a full-blown scramble for information, acces...

I would love to hear from you. Send me questions or comments. Hospice is one of the most misunderstood words in health care, and that confusion can leave dementia caregivers carrying fear and guilt they never needed to hold. We’re joined by Matt Wolf, hospice chaplain at Lightways Hospice and Serious Illness in Joliet, Illinois, for a real conversation about what chaplains actually do when familie...

I would love to hear from you. Send me questions or comments. A song can do what arguments, reminders, and “just try” sometimes can’t: reach your loved one when dementia has made everything else feel impossible. We sit down with Kelly Willenborg, a brain health gerontologist and the founder of My Memory Works, to talk about why personalized music can spark connection, ease agitation, and bring bac...

I would love to hear from you. Send me questions or comments. Grief can make you feel like you have to be “fine” for everyone else, even when you are falling apart in the quiet moments. We wanted a conversation that cuts through the clichés and actually helps, so we invited Nicolette Vasquez, Team Leader of Grief Support at Lightways Hospice and Serious Illness Care in Joliet, Illinois, to walk wi...

I would love to hear from you. Send me questions or comments. Forgetting a name once can feel like a warning siren, especially if dementia has touched your family. We sit down with Jill Agin, founder of Four Better Minds, to talk about what actually helps brain health as we age and what caregivers can do when they feel helpless watching cognitive changes unfold. Jill explains Cognitive Stimulation...

I would love to hear from you. Send me questions or comments. The worst part of grief is not only the pain, it’s the awkward silence around it. People want to help, but they reach for the same tired lines, and you’re left holding heartbreak while also managing everyone else’s comfort. We talk with Patty Camo Simonson, a peer grief specialist and bereavement professional, about what actually suppor...

I would love to hear from you. Send me questions or comments. Your energy, sleep, and brain might be running on something you barely think about: light. We talk with Sarah Turner, founder and CEO of Sarah Thrive (CERAThrive), about why modern indoor life can create a real “light deficiency,” especially when we miss the red and near-infrared wavelengths our bodies evolved with at sunrise and sunset...

I would love to hear from you. Send me questions or comments. Some days feel so heavy you can’t even tell what you’re feeling, you just know you’re tired. When grief is fresh, when dementia caregiving never really “turns off,” or when life keeps stacking one problem on top of another, it can start to feel like God is far away. We talk about that reality openly and without polishing it up, because...

I would love to hear from you. Send me questions or comments. A planned goodbye sounds impossible until you hear what it actually looks like inside a family that chooses it. We’re joined by Teresa Evans, an author and former ICU nurse, to talk about her book *Choosing to Die* and the final months she spends with her mother in Ontario as her mom pursues medical assistance in dying (MAID). Teresa br...

I would love to hear from you. Send me questions or comments. Loneliness doesn’t always look like being alone. Sometimes it looks like being a caregiver with a full calendar, a heavy heart, and nobody to hand the weight to. I sit down with psychotherapist and writer Carl Nassar, author of The Village Solution, to name the thing so many of us feel but struggle to explain: we’re exhausted because we...

I would love to hear from you. Send me questions or comments. We sit down with Dr. Warren Wong to rethink what dementia care should look like when the goal is love, dignity, and real quality of life for both the person living with memory loss and the caregiver. We share hard truths about emergencies, wandering, and burnout, plus practical ways to build trust and get meaningful support instead of t...

I would love to hear from you. Send me questions or comments. The funeral ends, the messages slow down, and suddenly the calendar becomes the hardest part of grief. We sit down with Kelly Edmondson, founder and CEO of Timely Presence, to talk about what support should look like after the sympathy flowers are gone and real life returns. As a former trauma nurse and now a certified grief counselor,...

I would love to hear from you. Send me questions or comments. Grief gets treated like a single moment, but for caregivers it’s often a long, exhausting season. We sit down with Victoria Volk, certified grief specialist and creator of Grieving Voices, to talk about what actually helps when dementia caregiving, hospice decisions, and anticipatory grief collide. She explains what an end-of-life doula...

I would love to hear from you. Send me questions or comments. Grief can make the world feel smaller overnight, and widowhood can make you wonder who you even are without the person you built your days around. We’re joined by Cindy J. Burns, a grief coach, grief doula, and self-described widow coach, for an honest conversation about what helps when you’re tired of pretending you’re fine and you jus...

I would love to hear from you. Send me questions or comments. Alzheimer’s doesn’t just change memory. It can change time, language, confidence, and the simple feeling of being anchored in the world. We talk with Sam Simon, author of *Dementia Man: An Existential Journey*, and his wife Susan about what it really means to keep choosing life after an Alzheimer’s diagnosis and how to push back on the...

I would love to hear from you. Send me questions or comments. A lot of caregivers learn transfers the hard way: you get through today, you wake up sore tomorrow, and you tell yourself it’s just the price of loving someone. I’m joined by Ben Couch, creator of Eastern Ergonomics and a longtime healthcare educator with decades of martial arts training, to challenge that belief with practical, body-sa...