Denise Brown

You run a software update at 3 a.m. in the Emergency Room while your father, who just fell at home, has a CT scan.

Your colleagues shows up to work on Tuesday after learning on Monday that his spouse’s cancer has spread to a terminal state. His spouse agreed to receive hospice services.

Your manager requests an all-hands-on-deck meeting to announce he needs to take a leave of absence to organize care for his sibling who has long COVID.

Our work life now includes our life’s… Show more

You run a software update at 3 a.m. in the Emergency Room while your father, who just fell at home, has a CT scan.

Your colleagues shows up to work on Tuesday after learning on Monday that his spouse’s cancer has spread to a terminal state. His spouse agreed to receive hospice services.

Your manager requests an all-hands-on-deck meeting to announce he needs to take a leave of absence to organize care for his sibling who has long COVID.

Our work life now includes our life’s work – caring for a family member with a chronic illness or disease or injury. How do we make room for both experiences in the workplace? How do we take time during our work day to manage our stress and worries? How do we console our colleagues who grieve?

A Workbook for Your Workplace Wellness shares tools to help you manage your experiences as an employee, a co-worker and a family caregiver. Show less

“The Caregiving Years" gives you a map to find your answers to the questions we ask during our caregiving experience: Why me? Why now? What now?

With the handbook, you gain a trusted companion that understands the caregiving experience. Denise walks with you through an entire caregiving experience, supporting you through your stumbles with an ever-ready steady.

Because caring for a family member or friend can be so complicated, the handbook provides simple coping strategies… Show more

“The Caregiving Years" gives you a map to find your answers to the questions we ask during our caregiving experience: Why me? Why now? What now?

With the handbook, you gain a trusted companion that understands the caregiving experience. Denise walks with you through an entire caregiving experience, supporting you through your stumbles with an ever-ready steady.

Because caring for a family member or friend can be so complicated, the handbook provides simple coping strategies, wrapped in a keyword and a purpose, for each stage. As you move through the stages, you’ll add more keywords which then become your go-to actions during times of stress, worry and frustration.

Armed with the handbook's insights, you’ll be as proactive as you can to be as ready as possible for what’s next. You'll also receive confidence that will help silence your doubts and second-guessing. Finally, you’ll be encouraged to create memories now which will comfort you later.

Denise originally developed the stages of caregiving in 1997. Since then, she regularly updates and revises the concept to ensure its relevance for today's family caregivers. The book's ninth edition offers additional insights and actions to take given our fragmented health care system. Denise has presented the workshop, The Caregiving Years, at conferences in the United States and Canada.

Reader reviews:

“Absolutely terrific. You really have captured the stages well, very very well… This is a fabulous resource for caregivers.”

“Your book, The Caregiving Years, helped me enormously. It would have saved me substantial stress had I had it at the beginning of these fours years of 24-hours a day caregiving to my husband! THANK YOU! It is a masterpiece and I’ve recommended it for other hard-pressed caregivers and those who are about to become ‘and dread it’. I tell them if they are armed with the knowledge and know-how from this book, they will be enabled to handle it.” Show less

What’s it like to manage a 24/7 online caregiving community, help two aging parents and host a National Caregiving Conference?

The short story: It was hard.

The longer story: The lessons I learned became the book I just released, “Healing Words: Soothing Strategies for Your Caregiving Fatigues.” I share what can help us when we get tired of the guilt, discouragement and bad luck.