April 29, 2026 | GradWell Season 2 View transcript ⚠️ JavaScript is required to view the podcast player. Guests Dr. Amanda Leggett Amanda N. Leggett, PhD, FGSA, is an Associate Professor with tenure in the Institute of Gerontology and Department of Psychology at Wayne State University and Adjunct Professor in the Psychiatry Department at the University of Michigan. She is also faculty in the Michigan Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center. She currently co-leads Michigan’s Dementia Coalition (a state-wide coalition of more than 300 individuals representing more than 65 organizations working together to improve the quality of life for people living with dementia and their families). She recently ended her tenure as Associate Editor of GSA’s Innovation in Aging and is currently on the editorial boards of the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry and Research in Aging. She is a long-time Hospice volunteer. Dr. Courtney Polenick Courtney A. Polenick, Ph.D., is Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and the School of Social Work at the University of Michigan. Dr. Polenick’s research focuses on family relationships and caregiving in the context of complex care needs including dementia and multimorbidity. She is particularly interested in understanding family and social influences in everyday life that shape the health and well-being of older adults and their care partners. Her long-term goal is to inform interventions and policies that mitigate stress and promote resilience among older adults living with complex care needs and their families. Resources Michigan Caregiver Connection Area Agencies on Aging Association of Michigan Maturity Matters Counseling Michigan Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center Alzheimer’s Association | Greater Michigan Chapter Michigan Alzheimer’s Disease Center Michigan Caregiving Elder Care Resources Backup Care Resources Eldercare Locator Washtenaw Support Network for Caregivers Michigan Caregiver Support Groups Caregiving Resources Transcript Sam Hobson: Hey, welcome to GradWell, a limited series podcast that explores various ways the University of Michigan can support its graduate students and their journey to greater wellbeing in our everyday lives, brought to you by Rackham Graduate School. This season, we’ll be talking to members of our academic community whose research intersects various dimensions of wellbeing. I’m Sam Hobson, a PhD candidate and a GSSA in Rackham’s Professional Development and Engagement Office. My fellow grad students, it’s time we start placing as much importance on ourselves as we do our work. You’re worth the effort. Dr. Amanda Leggett: Family is most important and the gift that you are giving to your family member or your friend or whoever it may be that you’re a care partner for is the greatest gift. Sam Hobson: Hello, hello. Today’s resources are Dr. Courtney Polenick and Dr. Amanda Leggett. Dr. Polenick is a professor of psychiatry and social work here at Michigan, and Dr. Leggett is a professor in the Institute of Gerontology and Department of Psychology at Wayne State and adjunct faculty here in the psychiatry department at Michigan. Today, we’re going to be discussing caregiving for the people in our lives with complex care needs. I’m very excited to have y’all with Dr. Leggett, Dr. Polenick, and me today. All right, we’re going to get started. Dr. Courtney Polenick is an associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry and the School of Social Work here at Michigan. Dr. Polenick’s research focuses on family relationships and caregiving in the context of complex care needs, including dementia and multimorbidity. She’s particularly interested in understanding family and social influences in everyday life that shape the health and wellbeing of older adults and their care partners. Her long-term goal is to inform interventions and policies that mitigate stress and promote resilience among older adults living with complex care needs and their families. Dr. Amanda Leggett is an associate professor with tenure in the Institute of Gerontology and Department of Psychology at Wayne State University, and she’s an adjunct professor in the psychiatry department here at Michigan. She’s also faculty in the Michigan Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and currently co-leads Michigan’s Dementia Coalition. She recently ended her tenure as associate editor of GSA’s Innovation in Aging and is currently on the editorial boards of the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry and Research and Aging. She’s also a longtime hospice volunteer. Hi, Dr. Polenick. Hi, Dr. Leggett. Before we get started, can I have you introduce yourselves so that we all know whose voice goes to whom? Dr. Courtney Polenick: Absolutely. So I’m Courtney Polenick. Dr. Amanda Leggett: Hi, everyone. I’m Amanda Leggett. Sam Hobson: Wonderful. Thank you. So to get started, how did you both get into this type of work? Dr. Amanda Leggett: I had grandparents who passed away when I was quite young, so I never really had relationships with older adults in my life. Until high school, when my very first job, aside from babysitting small children, was working as a waitress at an assisted living facility. And I learned really quickly that I was not interested in food services, but that I actually really loved the residents at the assisted living and their stories and everything about that setting I really enjoyed, but also I realized I had a lot of questions around the mental health concerns that were really clearly evident even in the dining hall. And so that inspired me to study psychology of aging, and I was interested in the mental health concerns, the cognitive impairment that I was seeing in that setting. At the same time, I’d always grown up babysitting young children through my church. I worked a lot with the high school and middle school students through the youth group, and I really loved all ages. And I think it was actually intergenerational relationships and the intersections between generations that really first drew me into the study of family caregiving. Dr. Courtney Polenick: So my undergraduate work was actually in music performance and fine arts. It took me a little while to get on this path, but I’d say I was very close growing up with older family members and seeing the challenges that they were facing as they were aging and managing chronic conditions. And this includes especially my grandparents who both lived with chronic health conditions, including dementia and heart disease and diabetes. So they were really managing a lot as a couple. And that was really something that always stuck with me and motivated me as I moved toward thinking about my graduate studies to really learn more about aging and how caregiving impacts families and also thinking about how people in caregiving relationships are often helping one another. So it’s not necessarily just the caregiver providing support, but certainly in the case of my grandparents, my grandfather was the primary caregiver, but he also had his own health issues that really as a couple they helped one another with. So that always really interested me in just learning more about that dynamic and how to better support those couples. Sam Hobson: I think that is a really interesting focus on this type of relationship, the reciprocity of caregiving that I don’t think is necessarily something we talk about or even maybe think about when we think about caregiving. It’s usually one-sided. Why do you think it’s important to hold that focus when we think about caregiving? Dr. Courtney Polenick: Yeah. So I think if we just focus on the caregiver and we’re not thinking about how is the person receiving care also influencing the caregiver and also supporting the caregiver, because we know from our research studies that with couples, and we also do some studies with parents and adult children and caregiving relationships, and really we’re seeing mutual support as the norm in these relationships. So the person receiving support is especially providing a lot of emotional support to the person who is the caregiver or the care partner, but we’re really seeing, especially with older couples, that oftentimes they’re really helping one another manage chronic conditions, even when one of them is living with dementia or more severe impairment, they’re still working together as a team. Sam Hobson: Yeah. I think that this really honors the relationship of this relationship, right? All relationships are reciprocal, or at least they’re supposed to be. And so to recognize this as any other type of relationship that we do have, even though it may look a little different or it may be a lot more stressful at times, doesn’t make it any less of a relationship. Yeah. Dr. Courtney Polenick: Absolutely. Sam Hobson: I appreciate that perspective. Dr. Amanda Leggett: And I think one of the things that has been predominant in our field for a long time, and Dr. Polenick alluded to this is a primary caregiver that we call, quote, unquote, “that one person who has primary responsibility of care.” And I don’t want to speak for Courtney, but I think both of our work pushes against this in a way. She has really been innovating in her research and looking at the dyad. So thinking about these interactions between an individual with dementia say and a spouse or an adult child and really these intersections. And in my work, I’ve been thinking about the family network and saying that actually it’s often not just one individual who’s providing care, but these are whole family systems that are engaging in unique ways. And in my work over the years, I’ve been seeing grandchildren who are college students who are significantly involved in care. It may be a sibling, it may be a daughter-in-law, it may be a niece or a nephew. So a variety, a neighbor or friend even. So I think it’s a little bit of an artificial way of thinking about things to just think about the caregiver in and of themselves when they are a team with the individual for whom they’re providing care or they’re part of a team of other family members or neighbors, friends, paid caregivers who sometimes come in to assist these individuals. So I really like that our work is taking that to the next stage. Sam Hobson: Yes. Just like a leveling up of our understanding of what is actually happening here. And I love the way you find it as a team. You’re right, this is teamwork and teamwork is so special and important and complicated and yet nurturing. Teamwork is so nurturing, right? And so I think it really places so much more value than I think perhaps our cultural notion of being a caregiver and a care receiver sometimes places onto this relationship. Before we continue, can you all define caregiving for us? I want to make sure that we’re on the same page. Dr. Courtney Polenick: Yeah. So I think of caregiving from a very broad perspective. So of course, this is things that we generally think about such as helping with activities of daily living. So these would be things like bathing and dressing, also more complex activities of daily living that are more independent, such as shopping, preparing meals, and managing finances. But also it includes things that we might not always consider caregiving, such as giving someone a ride to a doctor’s appointment, helping with care coordination, and even providing emotional support to the person receiving care. So I really think of it as a broad perspective. And I think it’s important to consider also that a lot of times people don’t really identify with being a caregiver. They might be doing all these tasks, but they really see it more as, I’m just helping my mom or I’m just helping my partner. Dr. Amanda Leggett: Yeah. I actually think that was a beautiful description. I would say maybe something I would add is that it can also look different depending on the care needs of the individual. So for example, someone who has dementia may have unique needs that a caregiver can assist with, or we also like to use the term care partner in our field. Again, alluding towards that teamwork, that it’s a partnership between individuals, but that care partner might be navigating behavioral symptoms or psychological symptoms like apathy or agitation in someone with dementia or in someone who has cancer, it may be very different medical care tasks that are involved. So it can really vary from individual to individual what that definition is, but I think that description was perfect. Sam Hobson: Dr. Polenick, you said that some people are engaging in caregiving, care partnering without labeling themselves as such. Do you think it’s important to apply that label to oneself? What do we gain or lose with that label? Why do you think people don’t necessarily see or want to see themselves perhaps in that role or to label themselves as such? Dr. Courtney Polenick: Yeah, that’s such a great question. So I like to emphasize in the studies that we do, it’s really more about the support role that you have in helping your person that you’re supporting manage chronic illness or dementia. So I think really more emphasizing the supportive nature of the role as opposed to assigning the caregiver label is something that I think is more important and more productive as well in working with families. Dr. Amanda Leggett: Yeah, I agree. It’s an excellent question. I think something that could be positive from identifying in such a way could be, for example, certain states have policies where there may be a tax break for caregivers or there may be access to services like adult day or respite care or things like this that come with that identification of that definition. So I think sometimes being able to identify in that way can enable the access to specific resources. And I think it’s a universal term. So if you are looking for support, if you are looking for educational materials or whatever it may be, going to the internet and using that terminology can turn up a lot of results. So I guess I’m thinking from a resources seeking perspective, being able to utilize that terminology may be important, but in terms of how an individual identifies themself, I don’t know that it matters as much. And I agree that it may be really more about that support and that role than really about the term that I use to define what I’m doing. Sam Hobson: That makes sense that it’s more about the essence of it than the qualification of it. Do you think that there could be any, I don’t want to say negatives, but perhaps not positives about identifying with that label. I’m thinking, could it put more stress on a person to apply that to their situation rather than like, “I’m the spouse, this is what we do.” Dr. Courtney Polenick: Yeah, I wonder, I think that sometimes caregiver can have a negative connotation and that I’m just in this role where I’m supporting you, but you’re not actively participating in that relationship. So I think I could see situations where potentially that could be perceived from being labeled as a caregiver. Sam Hobson: Because they don’t yet know of y’all’s more expansive definition of what it means to be a caregiver. Dr. Amanda Leggett: Also, I think for decades, the research in caregiving has really centered around the stress process. And so sometimes that term is almost synonymous with the experience of stress, whereas many people thrive in the role, report many positive aspects of being a care partner. And so I could see where sometimes caregiving can take on a stress context. I think something else that I was reflecting on with your question, which I want to think more about because it was a really good one, but I think a lot of workplaces, just as an example, are not where they need to be in terms of supporting care partners. I think a lot of workplaces have policies around childcare, for example, and parental leave, but aren’t always as well equipped to support individuals who may be caring for an older friend or relative. And so I wonder if some people aren’t always disclosing those things because those things aren’t supported or recognized fully in their workplaces, which is an issue. Sam Hobson: Mm-hmm. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. We understand the process of caregiving for children and that they have these needs and it’s our responsibility to fulfill these needs, but it’s not within our cultural understanding, I think, to be able to apply the need for support to somebody of our age or older. Why do you think that is? Is it just because adults are supposed to be independent and therefore they’re… Particularly I would say in our individualistic society, this idea of being in a team or a dyad or a family unit is just not emphasized particularly in the workspace unless you’re talking about a young child who cannot meet their needs on their own. Dr. Amanda Leggett: It’s a relatively historically newer area, right? There’s always been parents raising children, but it’s really been in the past century, even less than that, that we have older adults who are aging into the later years with chronic disease. And so, I mean, it has been a long time now, but historically a shorter time than child raising. And so sometimes I think we just haven’t quite woken up to the reality of the fact that now older adults are outnumbering younger people. We’re having a demographic shift and people are living long lives with chronic disease, and that just wasn’t the case 50, 75 years ago. So that’s one thought that comes to mind. Sam Hobson: Yeah, that makes sense. We’ve danced around this a little bit, but how do you think caregiving for somebody who has complex care needs such as dementia differs from other types of caregiving? Dr. Amanda Leggett: So there’s a variety of attributes about dementia that are unique, and we use dementia as an umbrella term for a variety of diseases, of which Alzheimer’s disease would be the most common type that people would likely have heard of. But generally with dementia, we’re seeing progressive cognitive decline. So often we think of memory first, but that can be other facets of cognition, executive function, for example, decision making. Often that’s something that can happen early is challenges with making complex decisions, for example, or navigating, finding your way home if you haven’t been somewhere before, something like this, and that it’s progressive. It doesn’t get better. With some types of dementia, there’s good days and bad days, but with other chronic conditions, that’s distinct, this progressive cognitive decline. Another thing that is relatively distinct with dementia as well is the behavioral and psychological symptoms I think I mentioned earlier. So not everyone experiences every one of these symptoms. Some people may not experience them, some may experience them in a more intense way, but these can be really challenging, everything from sleep impairment to aggression, right? So take a mild mannered mother all of your life who all of a sudden is being physically aggressive with you. That can be really challenging. Or cognitively your mother looks at you and doesn’t remember your name. These are things that are distinct to the diseases that fall under the dementia umbrella that require specific caregiving attributes. Yeah. It’s this challenge of seeing this person change progressively over time and adapting to how you interact with them, giving them reminders, different things that go along with that cognitive piece, but then also managing the functional decline and the behavioral or emotional aspects as well. So many of those attributes are distinct from caring for someone who’s just undergoing normal healthy aging or someone who has say cardiovascular disease or cancer or something like this. Dr. Courtney Polenick: And I think really the only thing I would add to that is just a little bit more about thinking about how dementia caregiving impacts the quality and the nature of the relationship between the caregiver and the care receiver. So gradually you’re seeing less and less reciprocity or mutuality in that relationship. And I think that can be really, really challenging. So if that’s your parent or your spouse, just having to interact differently with that person and just seeing a change in the dynamic in the relationship can be really challenging versus supporting somebody with a physical condition where you’re not having that cognitive component. Sam Hobson: For a relationship that you thought had expectations to look one way, to look a different way, and to continue to shape and change and adapt and transform, it feels like a lot. It feels like a lot to navigate the waters with, right? That they’re changing, so we’re changing and us is changing as well. Dr. Courtney Polenick: Yeah, absolutely. And I think we often underestimate the emotional impact of caregiving. Sam Hobson: Yeah. Dr. Courtney Polenick: We think about caregiver burden, but I think just observing the person that you’re supporting going through changes and progressively having more difficulty with things that they could do easily before. I think that’s an aspect of caregiving that I don’t think we study enough, but it really does impact wellbeing, I think, in caregivers. Dr. Amanda Leggett: We often think of grief after someone has passed, but there may be some bereavement that occurs even beforehand. Sam Hobson: Mm-hmm. Mm. Dr. Courtney Polenick: Yeah, like an anticipatory grief. Dr. Amanda Leggett: Mm-hmm. Sam Hobson: Yeah. Yeah. Or even just grieving the relationship as it changes, right? The person who was no longer. And I think your emphasis on grief makes a lot of sense and is really important for this process, right? And we don’t, as a culture, teach each other how to grieve, particularly in the moment, right? Yeah. It feels like it can be quite heavy if it’s not something that we anticipate is going to be necessary for this care partner and caregiving journey that we’re about to go on, that grief is going to be a component. And it makes sense, right? That it will be and it must be. And we have very little practices culturally to be able to apply to that, particularly for somebody who’s still living. Can y’all explain what your research is about? I know we’ve, again, danced around it, but I’d love for us to get to dive in more specifically into what your research is and what you’ve found. Dr. Courtney Polenick: Yeah. So my research focuses on family relationships and caregiving in the context of complex care needs, such as dementia, as we’ve talked a little bit about today, and also managing multiple chronic conditions, which can be more complex because you often have many different self-management strategies that you have to engage in in order to maintain your health in those circumstances versus just having one condition that you’re managing. And I’m very interested in understanding how people living with chronic conditions and their caregivers or care partners influence one another’s health and wellbeing. So my current studies have a focus on incorporating daily smartphone surveys where people are asked three times a day to report on their daily mood, their activities, their stress levels, positive things that happened that day, so those sorts of things. And also having them wear ambulatory monitors such as wrist activity monitors that are similar to Fitbits so we can really get some objective data on their physical activity and their sleep. And really with that and the data that we get from the surveys, we can get a better understanding of how people living with chronic illness and their care partners are affecting one another in the context of daily life as they’re actually living it. That’s the focus of my current work. And just as an example, we found that daily positive and stressful events reported both by people living with dementia and their care partners are associated with psychological wellbeing and important health behaviors within that caregiving relationship, including physical activity and sleep. So in addition to influencing your own outcomes, we’re also seeing that people are influencing the other individual’s outcomes within these relationships. Dr. Amanda Leggett: In my work, I have two focuses that are… I view them as somewhat intertwined, but similarly, my work has predominantly looked at dementia family caregiving. One of the things that I look at is a concept I call caregiving style. And so caregiving style, I describe this as cognitive and behavioral approaches that family caregivers utilize when they’re managing stressful challenges in care. So I often frame this for people who aren’t familiar with dementia caregiving, you may be familiar with parenting. You either are a parent or have had a parent. And so decades and decades ago, there was this core psychological theory on parenting styles where we can group parents into different profiles based on their responsiveness, their discipline, their love that they’re showing to their children and how these profiles map onto outcomes for children. And so not to equate parenting and caregiving as being the same, but methodologically similarly, we’re interested in whether we could group profiles of family caregivers based on their approaches to managing caregiving challenges. And so in my work, we have developed profiles of caregiving styles with the long-term goal of being able to think about how we tailor or target caregiving interventions or supports in alignment with how someone is navigating care. Because I think a lot of interventions in our field have been, okay, you’re a family caregiver, you qualify. And there’s some challenges with that. Not all caregivers are stressed, not all caregivers are maybe ready to jump right into an intervention. And so it provides a little bit more person-centered approach towards hopefully meeting caregivers where they are in their caregiving approach and navigating care that way. Some of the findings that we have across this area of work, we find a caregiving style that’s a little more rigid, a little bit less adaptable, that tends to behaviorally manage care with frustration and helplessness, you may not be surprised is reporting more stress. And even physiologically, we see that through cortisol levels versus a caregiving style that alluding to some of what we’ve been talking about is engaging more in teamwork and really partnering with the individual with dementia feels more natural mastery and positive affect and managing care is reporting significantly less stress. My other area, as I alluded to earlier, is trying to get beyond just the idea of a primary caregiver and to gain a better understanding of these caregiving networks or teams that surround individuals with dementia. How are these groups functioning to provide care? And then how is that corresponding with outcomes for individuals with dementia? And so just like briefly, we’re seeing all shapes and sizes of networks. So it’s very interesting. We see large networks that are functioning psychosocially well and large networks where there’s too many chefs in the kitchen and it’s not functioning well. So yeah, we’re still really digging into this and exploring these different dynamics, but we are beginning to see that how a network is functioning does correspond with outcomes like health services utilization and wellbeing. Sam Hobson: I appreciate your focus on the nuance. I would never have thought, but it makes total sense that caregiving is different for different people. And therefore, what does that mean for the people, for the relationship? Do you find that one’s caregiving style is obviously affected by the caregiver, but does the care receiver have influence over the caregiving style that they receive? Dr. Amanda Leggett: That’s a great question. So yes, we do tend to find, for example, that at different stages of disease or when an individual with dementia has certain symptoms, it is more likely to evoke particular responses. And so we do see that style can change depending on where someone is in their caregiving process. So as an example, I described the style that is more rigid and expressing more frustration and even anger in care. We do tend to see that in caregivers who are caring for individuals that report more behavioral and psychological symptoms of disease. And so these are really challenging symptoms to manage and navigate. And so sometimes they evoke more maladaptive care responses. At the same time, some of the elements of this concept we think are trait-like as opposed to state-like. So I think some things are more subject to change and modification and some things may be aligned with things like personality that are a little bit more stable in individuals. But yes, I think we see these approaches changing over time. For example, I often hear caregivers saying, “I’ve developed this skillset, but it took me seven years.” So our goal is how can we not wait for seven years of caregiving to elapse before we develop this adaptive skillset? Can we take someone who’s really in the meat of care earlier on and through intervention or support, trying to help them develop maybe a more adaptive skillset? Sam Hobson: I really love that. I know that the very beginnings are so hard and it’s such an adjustment that one has to make and come to terms with, and then also recognize that a change within themself has to happen in order to show up differently for this person. And support in that time for the how I know can just take a weight off of what is already a very weighty circumstance and experience. Yeah. Doctors, what do you think is the most important thing that graduate student caregivers should know? Dr. Amanda Leggett: I think one thing to know is to be patient with yourself. Everybody has a different timeline. Some people start really fast and get slow. Some people start really slow and get fast. There’s bumps along the way for everyone and family is most important and the gift that you are giving to your family member or your friend or whoever it may be that you’re a care partner for is the greatest gift. I think it’s important that your advisor, your mentors, your professors, to be honest with them of your situation and what you’re going through. And I’m hopeful that they will be very understanding of that. But I think the most important thing to know is be patient with yourself that it’s really easy to play the self-comparison game and say, “Well, these other people in my graduate cohort are doing X, Y, Z and I’m doing A, B, C.” And that’s okay. That’s okay. We’re all going to have different strengths. We’re all going to have different career paths and you’re building what you’re building and maybe your care partner role is giving you research questions or ideas or challenging you in ways to think about your work in a different way. And so that’s my immediate thought. Dr. Courtney Polenick: Just to add to that, I think also it’s really important for graduate students who are going through caregiving while they’re in graduate school, just to really know that you’re not meant to do this alone. It’s so important to reach out to people who can provide support to you, both with caregiving and also just your emotional things that you’re going through to just have someone to talk to and share what’s going on. And I agree, it’s really important to make sure that your professors also know about your situation. And this is important because if they know that you’re balancing caregiving with your graduate studies, they can better support you in terms of any flexibility you might need in terms of completing your assignments and keeping up with coursework and finishing your dissertation, whatever stage that you’re at. So I think just really making sure that you’re reaching out and communicating to people so that they can best support you is really important. Sam Hobson: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Upfront communication as soon as possible, as often as possible, I think can help create a team of… Like you said, we’re not doing this alone. And so not communicating then makes you even more in the corner alone doing this all rather than- Dr. Courtney Polenick: Right, right. And then possibly your professors could think that you’re not taking school seriously or any number of things. So I think it really is so important to let them know what all that you’re balancing and you’re managing. Sam Hobson: Yeah. Yeah. I also want to honor the… I know that that can be a hard and scary conversation to navigate. So I get it. I get it. I get the hesitation, the trepidation, and also I understand how important it is. How much of a non-negotiable is it particularly in this role that it’s got to be? So yeah. And Dr. Leggett, what I really appreciated about your description was that what I heard from it was purpose, that you’re not in this role by accident, right? That it could lead you to where you’re meant to be going. And that could perhaps, I think, help with maybe the resistance, particularly at the beginning of, this isn’t what I thought life is going to look like. And I know that it’s hard, but the reframing of perhaps this is exactly where I’m meant to be and this is exactly how this journey of mine is supposed to look, even though it doesn’t look like anybody else’s, but I’m not like anybody else. And so I really liked that you brought in that perhaps this is leading you to exactly where you’re meant to be. And you didn’t have to know where that was before this. Yeah. So if a graduate student here were interested in strengthening their wellbeing as a caregiver, where should they go? What should they do? Dr. Amanda Leggett: So many places. I would say specific to Michigan, so if you’re a University of Michigan graduate student listening, there’s a wonderful new resource called the Michigan Caregiver Connection. You can Google MI for Michigan. So not M-Y, MY, but M-I for Michigan, Michigan Caregiver Connection. This is a new resource that was developed by the AAAs all across the state of Michigan, so the Area Agencies on Aging. And they’ve developed this website where at the county level, you can find vetted educational resources and also specific to your community resources to support care partners. So whether it’s support groups or paid care or respite care or all different types of services and supports that are offered in your county and your community, you can learn about that on that website. It’s really a tremendous new resource. It just came out in the fall. And the AAAs in general, go there or call over there. And that’s a big part of who they are and what they do is hearing your story and pointing you towards resources that can be specific to you in the area in which you live. Another resource I’ve been recommending a lot lately of a close colleague who actually is on faculty at University of Michigan in the School of Social Work, but she also has a new practice called Maturity Matters Counseling. So if you think that some one-on-one counseling on issues around caregiving or aging could be useful for you, this is a practice that’s local to Ann Arbor that has licensed therapists that are specifically trained in supporting mental health and wellbeing around issues of aging and care. So if it might be helpful to have that one-on-one, that’s a new practice I’m aware of that can be really supportive. Dr. Courtney Polenick: For people who are supporting someone living with dementia, we have a wonderful Michigan Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at the University of Michigan. So definitely check out our website. There are a lot of resources and support programs for caregivers. So absolutely, that’s a great resource to check out. Also, the Michigan Alzheimer’s Association has a really great website and a lot of resources, including support groups and just general talks. Also, the Michigan Alzheimer’s Disease Center has educational talks as well and events. So those are definitely two organizations that I would recommend. Dr. Amanda Leggett: One more thing I thought of, if we go back to even the beginning, like let’s say you are with your family member and they get this new diagnosis and it’s your world changes, one thing I wish people knew is the role of social workers. So maybe some of you are graduate students in social work and thank you for the wonderful work that you’re doing. But if not, I think oftentimes people can go to a primary care setting or a medical specialist, get a diagnosis, and they might be told, “Okay, we’ll see you at this follow-up.” Or “We’ll see you in a certain amount of time.” And families can often go home and feel a bit lost on what are my next steps? What do I need to do? What is this going to look like? And many medical practices have social workers on staff that can really provide assistance in care planning or pointing you towards local resources or just thinking about navigating care issues. And so if that’s not automatically presented to you in the medical setting, I would request that. Say, “Hey, is there a social worker that I can speak with that could offer me some guidance on supports that may be useful for me?” Sam Hobson: Thank you so much. Before we go, do y’all have anything else you’d like to share? Dr. Courtney Polenick: I would say that in terms of thinking about the most important aspects of a positive relationship between the caregiver or care partner and the care receiver, we found in our work that really just appreciating one another and enjoying the opportunity to spend more time together is something that people often mention. So we have a study where we have people who recently started living together where it’s an adult child and a parent living with dementia and we ask them about how that transition to living together and the caregiving relationship has impacted the relationship, both what’s been positive and what’s been challenging. And they do mention that, but it’s just a unique opportunity to just spend more time together and have something that they wouldn’t necessarily have done otherwise. So people mention that quite a bit. Also, our research participants have mentioned just maintaining a close and supportive pre-caregiving relationship. So really drawing on those strengths as well has been something that has come up in our research. And another thing too, especially with our couples, they often mention just keeping a sense of humor and having fun during the day in addition to thinking about things like managing the chronic condition that the person has and also just having a positive outlook and keeping a positive perspective has also been mentioned as being really beneficial for the relationship. Sam Hobson: Positive outlooks are hard though, especially when we’re in tough times, right? At times that feel tough. Dr. Courtney Polenick: Yeah. Sam Hobson: Do you have any tips or tricks for how we can perhaps find a little glimmer of positivity throughout the caregiving day? Dr. Courtney Polenick: Yeah. I think just find some things that you can enjoy together. It could be watching a TV show. It could be listening to music I think is really meaningful for a lot of people. So really just finding one thing that you can focus on that makes you feel good and something that you can enjoy with a person that you’re supporting as well. Dr. Amanda Leggett: Going on a walk together, physical activity enhances wellbeing in both ways. So if that’s possible for someone’s physical abilities, being able to get outside and in nature or going for a walk together, I think those can be really important things too. And then sometimes it’s okay to take a break. So I would say also, yeah, even if a relationship is really strong and positive, sometimes we do need also to be with ourselves. And so there are resources available that can support that, whether it’s like a respite program or a paid care or even just asking a friend or family member or a neighbor to come over and spend some time for an hour or so while you do whatever you need to do to make sure you’re caring for yourself. I think that’s important too, to care for yourself so that you can also really maintain that supportive relationship. Sam Hobson: Thank you. Thank you. Those are, I think, really necessary reminders for folks in caregiving, care partnering positions. So I appreciate all that y’all have shared with us today. Thank you so much for your time and your wisdom and just your presence here with us today. Dr. Amanda Leggett: My pleasure. Dr. Courtney Polenick: Of course. Thanks for having us. Sam Hobson: Okay. Here are a few takeaways for your wellbeing journey. One, viewing the caregiving relationship as one of care partnering and teamwork can open up the potential for positive wellbeing for everyone involved. Two, you don’t need to identify as a caregiver to be a caregiver. However, that terminology will help you in seeking resources. So use it when it makes sense for you. Three, make sure to be patient with yourself and to communicate your circumstances as early and as often as possible. They deserve to be honored by everyone in your orbit and communicating them early will likely help life go a bit smoother. And four, my caregiving grad students, it is okay to not be okay. I know how hard caregiving can be in grad school, how lonely and overwhelming it can feel at times, but you are not an island. You are not meant to do this alone. It’s vital that you get the support that you need. So seek it out and ask for it. It’s there for you. And speaking of resources that are there for you, please check out our website for all of the resources mentioned in this episode at rackham.umich@edu/GradWell. You can reach out to the doctors with any questions you have at LeggetA, L-E-G-G-E-T-T-A, @wayne.edu and CPolenick, C-P-O-L-E-N-I-C, @umich.edu. You can contact us about the podcast at [email protected]. And that is a wrap for my time with GradWell. Thank you so much for taking this wellbeing journey with me. I really hope that these past two seasons together have brought you a good amount of guidance, a whole lot of clarity, and a little bit of hope for the rest of your time in grad school. I know that this graduate journey that we’ve chosen is a tough one, but I believe that if you continue to honor all that you are, grad school can be a chapter of immense growth and alignment. So please never stop experimenting with your life. Keep trying new things, keep asking for what you need, and keep giving yourself more grace than you think you deserve because my fellow grad students, you’re worth the effort. Hey, hardworking grad student. Thank you for dreaming into GradWell. I hope you can take something away from this episode with you. If you like what you heard, be sure to write a review, like, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. For more information, check us out on social@umichGradSchool.
