Working Caregivers: The Invisible Employees

Caring Out Loud: Rosanne Corcoran on Dementia, Daughterhood & Making Caregivers Visible

• Selma Archer & Zack Demopoulos • Season 1 • Episode 21

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Hey folks, Selma and Zack here! In this episode, we sit down with the incredible Rosanne Corcoran—a powerhouse advocate, seasoned dementia caregiver, and host of the Daughterhood the Podcast. Rosanne opens up about her 12-year journey caring for her mom through vascular dementia and how it shaped not only her life but her mission to build a community of support for caregivers everywhere. We dive deep into the challenges working caregivers face and how employers and policymakers can—and should—step up to support them. Rosanne also gives us a peek behind the curtain of Daughterhood, the warm, empowering platform she now leads. We talk about the emotional realities of caregiving, the importance of boundaries, and the life-changing resources that are finally becoming available—like Medicare’s GUIDE program. 

Rosanne Corcoran is the creator and host of "Daughterhood the Podcast: For Caregivers." In addition to her role as a Daughterhood Circle Leader, she serves as Director of Content guiding the organization’s content strategy and ensuring alignment with its mission. Rosanne has extensive experience in caregiving, having been the primary caregiver for her mother, who had vascular dementia, over the course of twelve years and supporting hundreds of family caregivers while facilitating Daughterhood circles. "Daughterhood the Podcast" consistently ranks among the top 10 caregiver podcasts. Rosanne has been featured in prominent media outlets such as CNN Health, Barron's, Next Avenue, and The Philadelphia Inquirer. Recently, she was named one of the 2024 Advocates for Aging by Next Avenue and the American Society on Aging.

 

Episode Highlights:

[1:05] – Kicking off with a heatwave and beach banter
[2:28] – Meet Rosanne Corcoran and her love for thunderstorms
[3:29] – Rosanne shares her caregiving journey and caring for her mom with dementia
[6:09] – The sandwich generation struggle: caring for kids and an aging parent
[9:34] – Real talk on employers, support, and making invisible caregivers visible
[10:51] – What is Daughterhood and why it was created
[12:59] – What “circles” really mean and why they matter more than traditional support groups
[15:03] – From caregiving to caregiver advocate: how Rosanne found her path
[18:17] – How Rosanne’s podcast aims to reach that overwhelmed caregiver in the corner
[19:05] – Favorite guests and moments that made a lasting impact
[24:26] – What employers need to know—and do—to better support caregiving employees
[28:21] – Why dementia caregiving is emotionally unique and deeply challenging
[30:29] – Game-changing Medicare GUIDE program and why Daughterhood is all in
[33:04] – Where to find Rosanne, the podcast, and all things Daughterhood
[34:26] – Final thanks and shout-outs all around

 

Links & Resources:

Connect with Rosanne

🔗 Connect with Rosanne Corcoran on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/rosanne-corcoran

🔗 Connect with Anne Tumlinson on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/anne-tumlinson-3601b14

Daughterhood Resources

🌐 Daughterhood Website: daughterhood.org

🎧 Daughterhood Podcast: daughterhood.org/podcast

 🫶 Join a Daughterhood Circle: daughterhood.org/circles

📺 Video Q&A on Hospice with Barbara Karnes: Watch on YouTube

🧠 Dementia & The GUIDE Program: daughterhood.org/dementia-and-guide

Follow Daughterhood on Social Media

📘 Facebook: facebook.com/daughterhood

Rosanne Corcoran:

And the fact that people don't want to say that they this is what they do. I have a friend who doesn't tell her boss that she's caring for a mom because it's fear. So we have to try to get past that fear. But these are real issues, because this is your job, like, if you don't have your job, what's going to happen? So I understand it. It has to come from the employer. The change needs to come from the top, not from the bottom.

Unknown:

Did you know that in 2020 there were 53 million caregivers in the United States, and by 2025 this number is expected to grow to 62 point 5,000,073% of these caregivers also have a job. They are called Working caregivers, and they are invisible because they don't talk about their caregiving challenges. Working caregivers, the invisible employees is a podcast that will show you how to support working caregivers. Join Selma Archer and Zach demopoulos on the working caregivers the invisible employees podcast as they show you how to support working caregivers.

Zack Demopoulos:

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Welcome to the working caregivers, the invisible employees podcast. So glad that you're joining us, and we thank you for that. My name is Zach tamopoulos, and I'm Selma Archer. What is up? Selma, oh,

Selma:

the heat. The heat is up. It's about 3000 degrees here.

Zack Demopoulos:

Unfortunately, you're not getting any pity from me. In New Jersey, we hit close to 100 the other day, and I we're hot too. We

Selma:

die for close to 100 really, that a long time ago.

Zack Demopoulos:

For those of you out there, well, someone's on the West Coast. I'm on the East Coast. We always love to compare our weather, so just to see what's happening. And I'm glad I'm on the east, and she's glad she's on the west. So welcome. Welcome everybody. And speaking of somebody on the East Coast, we do have a guest here. I can't wait to bring on. Roseanne Corcoran, how are you? Roseanne, welcome.

Rosanne Corcoran:

I'm great. Zach, thank you. It's great to be here with both of you. I'm with you. Selma, 3000 degrees absolutely every day.

Zack Demopoulos:

Wait a minute, Roseanne, you get a little bit of beach breeze. Now, we like to always kind of open up the show here with a maybe something a little personal, trivial that you know. Could you share with us? What's it like to be out on the beach? Maybe some we don't know, or some we do know. Wish we knew, or I don't know,

Rosanne Corcoran:

the weather around the beach. It's one of those things where, if you don't like the weather, wait 20 minutes and it'll get better because of the because of the air from the from the ocean. So it's lovely. I'm a fan of thunderstorms. I love when it pours. So I'm, I'm happy when that happens, but it's, it's just nice to be able to go to the beach and sit and look at the water. I mean, it's, it's the great equalizer of everything. I think, yeah, I

Zack Demopoulos:

agree with you. I think water is relaxing, right? It's got its thing to it. Well, thank you for sharing that. I will send you one of my dogs, because my other dog hates thunderstorms, but the other one goes out and runs around and thinks, I think she's just half half weather woman, I think as my second dog. All right, well, let's get started. We got so much ground to cover, and I've been wanting to meet Roseanne since I started doing research in this business, and she has been doing quite some amazing work with daughterhood, and we're going to hear about that in just a little bit. But first of all, Roseanne, tell us a little bit about your caregiver journey.

Rosanne Corcoran:

I cared for my mother through her 12 year journey with with vascular dementia. Now my mom was the second youngest of 12 children in her family. I am the youngest of my family, and my mother had me when she was 40. So when I was born, I was born into this big Italian family, and I was privy to aging and everything that came with aging. So by the time it was apparent that my mother was having issues, I had been prepared for that. I knew it was going to be something, right, because I had seen it all, and her memory started changing. She had said she thought her memory was changing. And I took that as like, Thank goodness I don't have to bring it up. I don't have to worry about, Hey, Mom, maybe we should talk to somebody. And as we know, with dementia, one of the one of those little things is anosognosia, which is, they forget they have an issue. It kind of plays with your mind. And so we went to her doctor, and her doctor blew her off, because my mother always looked 20 years younger than she was, and she was so vibrant and so personable. And none of her doctors wanted to say, Yeah, Rose, this is something's changing with you. None of them did. So it was a constant struggle trying to get a diagnosis. I never got an official diagnosis from from any of her doctors and my siblings. They didn't want to look at it. They didn't want to see that things were changing, and which I understand and which happens. I mean, how many times do we hear that? Right? You. Don't want to acknowledge what you're seeing. And so it was it was tough. It was really tough. So for the first six years of her dementia, I would run back and forth. So I had children at home. I was working my husband. I had a husband that traveled, and I would run back and forth every day to stay with her, to check on things. And then when I came home, I'd call her another four times. You know, I was labeling her remote controls, and I was counting her pills and all of that. And she had a vasovagal condition where, if she got hot, she would pass out. And this one time, she passed out, and I went down and I scooped her up and I brought her to my house, and I never brought her home. And, you know, that's hard, that's a hard thing to do, yeah, and to deal with, but, and then she lived with us for the next six years until, until her death, yeah. So

Zack Demopoulos:

just a couple of follow up questions. So you were a sandwich generation person? Yes, indeed, caring for children, caring for your mom, working a How did you do that? And B, what advice would you give to somebody who's just getting started in the sandwich generation?

Rosanne Corcoran:

Pick yourself because you matter, because you are as just as important as the person you're caring for, because you have to keep yourself going and fed and watered and, you know, checked on I was a realtor, so it kind of worked in my favor that I didn't have to go to an office every day. If I had to go to an office every day, I don't know what I would have done. I honestly don't I probably would have quit my job. And I did wind up putting my license in escrow, because when we moved my mom in you know, 98% of my business happened at night. Well, if you're caring for someone with dementia, nights aren't the thing that you want to play with. So it was 20 years I was, I was a realtor for 20 years, and I just, I put it, I put it in. And I think, you know, it's very hard for people, for working caregivers, to talk to their employer about what they're doing. And you know that you've heard this all the time, the the fear of not getting your whatever from your boss, whether it's an assignment, whether it's a job, whether it's a promotion, whether it's anything, you keep it to yourself because you don't want them to think that you can't do your job well, you're Karen, but we don't think about that when it comes to parents, but we think about that about adult children caring for their parents. Yeah, so it's very it's a very strange thing. It's it's something that's so needs to be changed, and there has to be a safer place to land, and it has to be safe for employees to be able to care for whoever they're caring for and still have the support from their

Zack Demopoulos:

work. But even raising children and having your mom now living in a house, what that's got to have a significant impact on on your lives. Again, is there something that you would do different if you go back to the younger Roseanne or I just looking for that jam. Don't you have a jam? I know we're all different.

Rosanne Corcoran:

Listen, it is what works for you and for me. Before we moved my mom in, when I had taken her to my house and I and we sat at my kitchen table and I said to my kids and my husband, like, is this what we're going to do? Like, is this? Because this is going to change. It's going to change everything. My oldest was a senior in high school. My youngest was in eighth grade. Again, husband's still traveling, and my girls, they knew they were always involved with my mother, because even before she had any illness of any kind, we would go down there like we're going to stop at my mom's I got to pick this up, or I'm going to drop this or to drop this off, or whatever. So they said to me, if you if, if you don't move her in with us, we're never going to see you, because it was increasing. So, you know, sometimes it's the best, worst choice that you can make, that that you have to make. So that's what we did, and the things that I know now, if I would have known them back in 2015 Yeah, things would have been a little different for me starting with boundaries. You know, where we always start right? Where we always start with caregiving is support and boundaries, and it really would have been much better for me and for my kids and for my husband, if I knew all of that and had the resources that I have now then, so yes, support and boundaries are my two, my two big ones. Zach always,

Selma:

wow. So Roseanne, if you knew then what you know now, would you have reached out to your employer and tried to get the support you needed

Rosanne Corcoran:

with again, what with me? You know, it would be tough, because in real estate, if you're not selling, you're not making so I the only person that was being affected was me. I didn't have a team around. It's not like I was working on a project with other people, if I was still working in an office, if we can transport back even further when I was working in an office, I honestly don't know how to bring that up to say I need more support, but I think the more support would be flexible hours and more leeway in I need to take a lunch, or I need to take a longer lunch, or I need something, or I need to leave early. So those types of things to support that process, I think is what is what would be extremely helpful to caregivers that are working and to have a safe space to know that if I said this to my boss, they're not going to hold it against me, because that's what we hear a lot of, too.

Selma:

So can we talk about the daughterhood for a minute? What it is, why it was created?

Rosanne Corcoran:

Sure. So Ann Tumlinson has worked in the policy field for for years, 30 years now, and when she was working in that she saw that caregivers didn't get the support that they needed throughout, through any any branch in in healthcare. And you know, she would always say, you know, you had your your childhood friends, you had your mother and motherhood friends, but you never had your daughter had friends. You never had people that you could talk to about, you know, I can't get the keys away from my dad, or my mom's not eating, or whatever. So she created daughterhood With that in mind to be able to to provide this place so that caregivers could come together and learn from each other and empower each other. So she started this in 2015 and it started at a local level, in person, and then when the pandemic hit, we switched to virtual. So now all of our circles are online. They're all free. They're virtual. You don't however you want to interact with us is how you interact. If you don't want to put your camera on, you're not to put your camera on. If you want to just talk in the chat, that's fine. If you want to come and just listen, that's fine. So we have two types of circles, which are connection circles, where caregivers can can meet with each other, and we have topic circles which are exactly what they sound like. It's a different topic. So whether it's managing sibling dynamic, or if it's grief, or how to pick a senior senior living options, we even have an after caregiving circle, because as much as caregivers aren't thought of when they're caring, they're thought even less of when they're done caring. So all of the you know, we have 15 to 18 circles a month that you can choose from. And again, like I said, they're all free. You just register and pop in. They're drop ins. If you register and you can't make it, you can't make it, you can't make it, you're a caregiver. We get it. So that's, that's how everything came to be. We're celebrating our 10th year anniversary this year, which is very exciting. It's been 10 years, so it's a lot of caregivers. Yeah, yeah.

Selma:

That. Can you just, can you just explain what you mean by circles?

Rosanne Corcoran:

Yeah, so instead of, instead of, you know, support group, the term support group turns people off, and circles are just, you know, they're, they're friendlier, they're just, it's more complete, you know, you're, you're in a complete circle, and it's softer. It's just, it's a it's a way, it's more of a back and forth than we're going to talk to you. It's more of a connection. And that's where circles, you know, that's where the circle part

Zack Demopoulos:

comes in. Are the topic circles recorded in case somebody misses it.

Rosanne Corcoran:

We're very aware of people's anonymity, if they don't want to be, you know, it's very hard to come into some place and say, you know, I my mother's driving me crazy. I can't wait till she dies. It's very hard to say that to somebody if you don't, if you're not a caregiver, and caregivers will hear that and be like, I get it. I hear you, do, you know? So we do not record to keep everybody, yeah, okay. We do have some special topic circles that we will do, that we do, and we have posted on our YouTube channel. I did a question and answer with Barbara Carnes about hospice, because everybody has a question about hospice. We've done one on preventing dementia. We've done one on boundaries like so there are some that we do record and put up there. Our Guide Circle topic was up there. So it just depends, but not typically no

Zack Demopoulos:

listeners. We'll put all the links in. So no, I know, I know many of you are exercising right now or walking, so we'll put all the links on how to register. And we highly, highly recommend that you check out.or even if you're a male, by the way, a son, right?

Rosanne Corcoran:

Yes, absolutely. Listen. You know. We know that primarily women are the there's more women that care for people than men. However, if you're a man, we welcome you. We welcome you. Yes.

Selma:

So Roseanne, how did you go from after 12 years of caring for your mom to working. Care space. How did you make that transition?

Rosanne Corcoran:

So I found daughterhood in 2015 when I moved my mom in, and I was up at two in the morning out of my head, trying to figure out how I was going to do this. And I found Anne's block, and I read it, and I thought, wow, is she? Has she been here? Is she here? She's

Selma:

not my shoulders fine on you, right?

Rosanne Corcoran:

Wow, what is this? Yeah, so. And I kept true, right? I kept going back to it. I would go back to it because I felt seen. I felt seen, and I felt validated, and I felt like, oh my goodness, she gets this. She gets it. I'm not crazy. I'm this isn't something that I'm imagining. This is really how I feel. Because, again, I was the first of my friends that had gone through this, and so I couldn't talk to anybody, like, can you believe this? Like, is this? So I found the circles, but I couldn't do anything. Because when I first moved my mom in, it was like caregiving. My brother would come if I needed to go to my daughter's whatever, and my sister and that kind of stuff. And I swore the minute I could get a caregiver, I was going to start a group, and that's what I did. So in 2018 I at the end of 2018 I hired somebody, and January of 2019 I started a local daughterhood circle. And that's how that, that's how I came into to daughterhood. And then we would have these circles, and women would come and we'd all be talking. And I kept thinking, boy, why isn't anybody talking about this? And I would try to find more information, and I was like, but it's not, you know, there was practical things, you know, transferring and how to deal, you know, with Medicare and Medicaid and medications and all of that stuff, but nobody was talking about the feelings of this and how hard that is. And I thought, what if? What if we did a podcast? So I asked Anne if we could do a podcast. And I started the podcast in November of 2019 because I wanted to ask people the questions as a caregiver, as a caregiver with her mother in the other room, I wanted to ask these questions, and I wanted to ask the follow up of, Wow, that's a great idea. However, when that doesn't work, what do I do? So that's how that began, and I've been doing it. I've been doing it since 2019 I've been a circle leader and the host of the podcast.

Selma:

So it's safe to say that the caring for your mom influenced the work that you do now absolutely

Rosanne Corcoran:

and it continues to influence the work, because I adored my mother, and I would have done and I did do anything I could for her, and I know not everybody feels that way about who they're caring for, and that it was still the hardest thing I have ever done in my entire life. And I wanted to be able to take this information that I learned and and to be able to talk to people about this and say, Hey, you over there? You know, I know you're in the corner over there, banging your head on the wall, but here's some information. I know that you feel hopeless, I know that you feel sad. I know that you are completely overwhelmed. But here's a little bit of information that can help you. And by the way, you're not alone, and you can do this, and that's what that's my goal with every episode

Zack Demopoulos:

I love that I love that, you know, it's, it's, it's kind of neat. You you've got, you've received quite a bit of benefit from daughterhood early in your caregiver journey, and then you're really giving back big time. I've listened to your shows, and we're going to post a few of them on here, but you're a great host, and I mean that in terms of exactly what you you you just said, you do you help people feel alone as a listener. Thanks. I'm curious, you know, can you talk about maybe a couple of guests that you've had, or topics that you've had that really moved you? I mean, like, shook you, because it's kind of hard to shake us up as caregivers once we've been on that rugged journey. But I'm just, yeah, can you share a couple that really, really impacted you that I'd love to share with the audience?

Rosanne Corcoran:

Yeah. I mean, there's so many wonderful people. They're so their hearts are so kind and and they're so compassionate. And, you know, I was fortunate to talk to Dr Jessica zitter about caregiver burden, and I had spoken to her, and then when my mother was on hospice, we did not have the best experience with hospice. Literally, the day she died, I emailed Dr zitter at three in the morning and said, I don't know what's going on here. I'm not getting the support that I need. She called me, and she actually got on the phone with the hospice organization. We had a three way call. She was amazing. And when my mom passed, I said to her, Listen, would you mind if we did a show about what happens at the end of life? Because it was so disorienting to me. And she said, yeah, absolutely. And I and I did. I called it. It was a question. Answer of what just happened at end of life, and it was something I would never I never forgot. And I thought, you know, I look back on it now, and I think my goodness, what kindness from her number one, but what a great thing to be able to share with other people, because I knew if I felt like that, other people felt like that, yeah, and it's so horrible in that we don't we're not prepared. Even if we're prepared, we're not prepared. And then you start doing all of this, and then whatever happens with hospice and whatever happens in those last days, you're all off balance. So Dr Jessica Zetter definitely Barbara Carnes for hospice too. I mean, you can't get if you want to know about hospice, you talk to Barbara Carnes, and I had her on as a guest, and we did the special Q and A even. And you know, for me, talking to Judy Cornish about dementia was a highlight for me. She wrote because I found in 2015 I also found her book dementia with dignity, or 2017 I found her book dementia with dignity, which was just fantastic, and I've had her on a couple of times. Allison Applebaum, gosh, name of her book escapes me right now. I can't even believe I just blanked. Stand by me. Sorry. It's stand by me. What a great book, what a great book. I finished that book and I thought, oh, gosh, I wish there was more. She's another person, really. She understands it, and she because she works with caregivers. When you work with caregivers every day, you understand that plight, that feeling, and the fact that it's really hard, and everybody is doing the best that they can, but they don't think they're doing the best they can, because they always feel like they're they're missing something, and it really informs how you deal with everybody and how you interact with people. Zach, I could list 15 PK bevel Lisa Gibbons for God's sake. I mean, you know, it just and I'm fortunate that we do bonus episodes with Anne, so I also am on CO hosting with and talking policy with policy people, which is, I mean, it's just, it's, it's the next level for for finding out why we're in these positions and how we got to these positions. So it's just great.

Zack Demopoulos:

I again, I'm a huge fan Roseanne, and I yeah, I'm always like taking notes listening to your show. And if I'm not mistaken, the Selma and I have a newsletter. It comes out twice a month, and we highlight a podcast, we highlight a book, we highlight a video. And I know we've highlighted daughterhood podcast at least twice. I know for sure. Wow, I think. But I think of the other resources that you talked about, if I'm not mistaken, the book that we highlighted this week was Leslie Curtis. And, oh yeah, sure, you guys talked about Dr Curtis and on there, when your aging parent needs help. Yes, I would never know about her or the book. And I look it up, and I certainly want to purchase it, but I want to share it with our audience and our readers. And what a great what a great book.

Rosanne Corcoran:

Listen. She is great. She was one of my most downloaded episodes. It was when your aging parent needs help. And it's her book as well. And she covers everything, absolutely everything, and she does it in such a way where she tell it's the questions and the the answers are so descriptive and helpful. And it's not, you know how sometimes when you read something, you're like, yeah, that's not going to work. It's like, tried and true. It's just great. Just great. Yeah, great information.

Zack Demopoulos:

The reason why we're spending this much time talking about podcasts Roseanne is because working caregivers, which is our thrust, our we advocate for working caregivers. You either don't have time to do the research or look for stuff, or you don't know where to go for research, and so being able to listen to maybe a single podcast with great resources is extremely valuable, plus it comes from credible resources like yourself and you're a learner. You're coming from learned experiences. Have you had an opportunity to talk with work, with working caregivers? Is there maybe? Is there maybe something that from your experiences and conversations with them, that you could share, where maybe employers can maybe do more to help support working caregivers.

Rosanne Corcoran:

Yeah, well, we one of those policy podcasts. We actually spoke with Karen Kavanaugh, who was working at the Rosalind Carter Institute at that time. They have a few reports. There's one called Invisible overtime report, and they had a caregiving module there at the Rosalind Carter, Rosalynn carter.org but what we talked about with her was about, you know, establishing an employee caregiving interest group. So it's almost like you can get everybody together and like, these are our problems. This is what we're dealing with. And. And and talk about that again, you know, it it all circles back to support, right? And to supporting each other. So that is, was, was a very, you know, high on the list. The other thing was taking an inventory of what they do have. Sometimes employers have things that you're not sure of, and sometimes the insurance companies have things that you're not sure of that they can access by working at that company. So those were a couple of things, engaging the leadership, educating employees and Medicare and Medicaid coverage, those types of things, training managers about what to look for in your employees when they're caregiving. Because a lot of times, as we said, it's scary to say, Yeah, I'm caring for my mom. Yeah, I'm caring for my dad, but if you can, you know, like, Can I help you? Is there something I can do to assist you, and is there somebody that I can point you in that direction? Do you know, or even to train the the the managers about what it's like to be a caregiver, because people don't really understand it. And you know, I've had people say to me, before, you took care, you sat there with your mom. How hard is that? How hard is that really? Wow, how hard is that? Yeah, it's not hard at all. Look at my face. It's really easy corrected, don't I, yeah, oh my gosh. So if they don't understand it, they can't appreciate the struggle. And that's with everything, right? But it's especially important with employers. So you know, and then you know, trying to identify where the gaps in the service is, yes, so we're providing this, but our our employees aren't using this. Why? Why aren't they using it? Does it not work? What's missing? What's the missing piece? So those types of things could be very helpful. So on

Selma:

the flip side of that, what? What can employers do? Like you said, your experience of the person saying to you, how hard is that? You sit with your mom, she's sick. You sit with her that life goes on, right? What would you have done, or what steps could you have taken to make yourself more visible, more supported at work,

Rosanne Corcoran:

we all work with people, right? I mean, it depends on your manager. We there are people that are kind, and they get it, and they'll, especially if they've ever been a caregiver, or if somebody that they loved was sick at one time, they have that appreciation. It's the understanding of your challenges. And if that's not there, it's it's very hard, and the fact that people don't want to say that they this is what they do. I have a friend who doesn't tell her boss that she's caring for a mom doesn't say it, and because it's fear. So we have to try to get past that fear. But these are real issues, because this is your job, like, if you don't have your job, what's going to happen? So I understand it. It has to come from the employer. The change needs to come from the top, not from the bottom.

Selma:

Yeah. So just going back you mentioned earlier about dementia, yeah, and we know from the research that dementia cares is really different from any other type of caregiving. Can you just maybe share with us one experience that you faced as a dementia caregiver,

Rosanne Corcoran:

it's hard, because you can't have those conversations. You know, when you're caring for somebody with COPD or with a cancer or you're still able to they're still involved in their own care. You don't have that as much with dementia. You kind of do, depending but you really, you really don't, and there are those times when you have to make the decisions. It's what makes the dementia caregiving so heavy. You're making decisions for somebody else, and you're hoping that you're making the right decision, if you haven't talked about it, and now you're in charge of these decisions. This is pretty heavy stuff, which is why it's so important to make sure your wishes are known and how you want to live, not not do I want antibiotics and water at you know, at end of life, how do I want to live? And you have to have those conversations so everybody is on the same page, but it's really hard for me. It was hard when I wasn't sure if my mother knew who I was, but I always knew she could feel who I was, if that makes sense. So for me, it kind of made it better, because I always brought myself to her, whether she knew me or not. I was bringing I was bringing me and my love for her to her, and that's what she felt, and that's the important thing in dementia caregiving, because they can't you're bringing them your mood, and you need to be aware of that. It's hard because you're you're it, you're the one in charge.

Selma:

Well, that's amazing. I

Zack Demopoulos:

just want to do another plug for daughterhood Again, so I'm like. Help it, but again, it's kind of a one stop shop for our working caregivers or for managers. Because Selma, you just reminded me when you spoke about dementia, I subscribe to daughterhood. I encourage everybody listening to do so. And I received an email not too long ago announcing a great benefit that daughterhood was embracing about Dementia Caregivers. Do you recall that? Can you share a little bit about what that's all about? And why are you sharing that? Why are you guys doing that?

Rosanne Corcoran:

So Medicare started this new program called the guide program, and through Medicare, first of all, Medicare doesn't pay for long term care. Okay? They don't pay for supports. This is a one of a kind program where they provide Dementia Caregivers with education resources and respite, a respite benefit. Okay, so this is, this is game changing for dementia. For Dementia Caregivers, we have pocket we have partnered with pocket RN. It's an organization that basically it's exactly what it sounds like. It's a nurse in your pocket, pocket RN and they have become a certified Medicare provider. So they are nationwide. So there's about 400 Medicare providers across the country that can deliver the guide program, and pocket Rn is one of them. So if you are a dementia caregiver, you call pocket RN, you say, my my care partner, my mother, my father, whoever my neighbor that I'm caring for has dementia. And how do we access this guide program? They walk you through it, they see if you qualify for it, and then you're in and then you have this the ability at two in the morning, which is very helpful to call them, because they have then that's your nurse, right? And say, Listen, mom's up. I don't know what's happening. She's pacing, or she has a fever or whatever, but you have somebody there for you to support you in those moments. Wonderful, game changing. I was one of those people that called an 800 number at two in the morning. And you know when you're when you're trying to explain what's happening, you're trying to explain your person to this person on the other line that you have never met before that has no idea who you are or who your person is. And they're trying to triage, and then they connect you to the next person, and you do it all over again, it's not very helpful. This would be a completely different thing, because they know you and they know your person. You don't need

Zack Demopoulos:

to tell us why daughters embrace it out. We get it just from what you just described. That is

Selma:

yes, yes. I wish I had had that when my mom would have been game changing for sure, yeah, for sure. Yes, this has been wonderful. I mean, Roseanne, you are just a wealth of information. And thank you so much. Your journey is just so amazing. And thank you for sharing with all of us absolutely before you leave, could you tell our audience, how they could find you, your work, your website, your link,

Rosanne Corcoran:

your book, absolutely it's daughterhood.org. Very easy. The podcast lives there. Anne's blogs are there. Our circle calendar is there. It's updated all the time. You can sign up for our newsletter so that you can get updates. Sometimes we add circles or, you know, we try to keep it up to date with what we're hearing. So what are you struggling with? Let's do a circle for that alongside our regular connection circles. But everything, again, is free. It's easy to register just to click, we're on Zoom, easy peasy. And everything's there. You can find everything there. Yep. Awesome. We you know, of course, Facebook and Instagram at daughterhood and daughterhood the podcast.

Zack Demopoulos:

Shout out to Anne tumbleson for the work that she has done, creating this and and allowing you to do a podcast. Shout out to her for doing that too. She's no dummy, and I'm with Selma. We I tell we could talk to you all day, but you were just going to have to circle back to you at some

Rosanne Corcoran:

point. Yes, indeed.

Selma:

And thank you so much for your monthly podcast. You are very well.

Unknown:

Inside joke. There. That was an inside joke. Thank you so much. Roseanne,

Rosanne Corcoran:

you guys are great. Thank you very much.

Unknown:

Thank you for tuning in. Be sure to catch new episodes of working caregivers the invisible employees podcast every other Tuesday. Please also visit our website, invisible employee advocates.com to subscribe to our newsletter, purchase our book and learn more about how we can help you strengthen your workplace to become more supportive of working caregivers you.