They say it takes a village and when it comes to caregiving for a family member with dementia, sometimes it takes a big family.

Lana-Michele and her dad, Reynold—or Ren as everyone calls him—live on a ranch by a lake in rural BC with her grown-up sons. Some of her siblings recently moved to the area to be closer. She considers herself lucky to have family support and to be able to afford extra care for Ron.

Her story is about the pressure to create the best life for an aging parent and finding the right balance between encouragement and acceptance.

This 2025 podcast series is made possible by the generosity and creativity of the participants in Mariko Sakamoto's research project, and by the University of Victoria, with support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and with Scholar Award funding from Michael Smith Health Research BC/Alzheimer Society of BC.

Go to CalltoMindPodcast.com to see storyteller photos, read episode transcriptions and learn more about our research project.

Host: Mariko Sakamoto, assistant professor of nursing, University of Victoria

Producer: Jenni Schine

Sound designer: David Parfit

Executive producer: Suzanne Ahearne

This is Call to Mind, audio diaries of love and

memory loss. I'm Mariko Sakamoto, assistant professor of

nursing at the University of Victoria, and host of Call to

Mind. This podcast series is a deep dive into the experiences

of caregivers. It's about the importance of being heard and

being listened to. Here we bring you intimate audio diaries

recorded by caregivers of family members living with Alzheimer's

and other forms of dementia.

Lana-Michele: I think we always have to live our best life, no

matter what that is, just we have the moment and we gottta

make the most of it.

They say it takes a village, and when it

comes to caregiving for a family member with dementia, sometimes

it takes a big family. Lana, Michelle and her dad, Ren, live

on a ranch by a lake in rural BC, with her large family. She

considers herself lucky to have family support and be able to

afford extra care for Ren. Lana Michelle's story is about the

pressure to create the best life for an aging parent and finding

the right balance between encouragement and acceptance.

Lana-Michele: I am caregiver for my father Ren. He's been living

with me in my suite for the last three and a half, nearly four

years after suffering multiple injuries in a car accident. He

spent a month in the hospital, nine days of that intensive care

in an induced coma, very unsure whether he was going to survive

or not. At the time, we didn't realize how much his memory loss

had progressed. He's always been a forgetful kind of person, and

so when he had had some weird episodes of not being able to

find his way and being forgetful, we didn't pay too

much attention to that. After coming to live with me, it

became apparent that there was more going on than his physical

injuries. And then he had a brain scan and a

neuropsychological assessment and there was definitely signs

of Alzheimer's present. He was diagnosed with vascular-related

dementia as well as Alzheimer's.

[Horse whinnies] So this morning, I'm working on getting

him up. I'm going to go down and check on him now and just see if

he's had any success in staying out of bed this time, I usually

have to go down half a dozen times. And we got his music on,

we're gonna try and see if he's up. So checking in with dad.

Dad, you're doing okay? You getting ready?

Right? It's pool day today. Tuesday.

Lana-Michele: Okay? So yeah, not a lot of progress. He's up, but

he is hasn't, hasn't got his clothes on, or hasn't made the

next jump that he needs to make. So he really does enjoy himself

once he gets up and moving. It's just a real hard, slow challenge

in the morning.

My father, Ren was an educated man. He was a elementary school

teacher until the age of 70, when he was forced into

retirement. So yeah, he's had a busy, productive life. Always

been involved in social causes and the political scene. Think

it was really frustrating for him to lose that independence

after his car accident. So we're living in the moment with him.

[Horse whinnies and hear footsteps walking outside] We

live rurally. We are up in the mountains a little bit. So we

have a little horse ranch. Here we have animals, my four grown

kids. They all live at home here with me. Still. When they're

home, they're very active, and they help out with their Papa

quite a bit. [Background sound of dishes clattering and family

table sounds continues through next clip.]

yeah, we are doing what we can to get him out there, get him

active. He's sleeping more and more. It's a bit of a struggle

and sometimes a bit of an argument getting up in the

morning. Today, he got up a little bit quicker knowing he

had someone coming to get him at 10. He wasn't as bothered by me

getting him up and bugging him as he says. But when we don't

have any scheduled activity, it's almost impossible to get

him out of bed. So that's been our struggle lately, is trying

to get him up and trying to get him moving, trying to use that

brain and use that body, which is riddled with arthritis. So

he's got that compounding the effects of the Alzheimer's and

the dementia. So we're trying to battle that and trying to give

lots of opportunity to engage him in different things. One of

his favorite things is eating. So we can usually get him up if

there's a meal ready. And he also really loves music.

It's been a bit of a struggle today. The weather hasn't been

great, and there's nothing scheduled for for Ren, my dad,

to do so he is struggling to get out of bed and stay out of bed,

so it's been a slow day for for me. Overall, this week has been

a pretty good week. He was able to get out with his care aide,

which was really good for me, because it allowed me to get

away and do some self care myself and spend the day with my

family and my kids, and we went rock climbing. So that was

awesome. And then dad got to his aqua therapy on Tuesday, which

is always a good thing. Today's been a struggle, but I have to

remember that the rest of the week was pretty good. It's been

hard for me to to get a real idea of what to expect. I think

everybody's different, but sounds like vascular dementia

and Alzheimer's can can affect the person quite differently,

and he's got the both of them. So, yeah, just trying to try to

figure out, I spend a great deal of time trying to think of

things for him to do and hope that he's living his best life

and happy, and I know it's important for him to remember

birthdays and things like that, so trying to remember birthdays

for him, for myself, and get him to make phone calls. And

sometimes I'm forgetting about my own life, it seems. But you

know, it's okay. It's that that's okay because I I'm in a

situation that hasn't really affected my life, my day to day,

as much as it would somebody who had to move away to care for a

friend or a family member, he's come here to live with me in my

life, and we've tried to incorporate as much of that to

suit him. You know, I was self employed, and my schedule is

flexible, and so it's been okay, especially with the addition of

his care aide and my sisters, who moved from their locations

to be closer to us so they could help out as well. We're really

fortunate. Dad's really fortunate. He's got a lot of

people love him and and the family's really stepped up.

Brother and sister come up to see him and spend time with him,

yeah, day by day, got to remember day by day, and gotta

just be thankful for what we are able to do. And just takes a

couple smiles from him, so.

We had a busy day around the ranch here, lots of different

people coming and going and tried to get my dad engaged

somehow in some of the things that were going on. Just was

frustrating, because every time we got him up, as soon as I

turned my back and went to do something else and came back to

check on him, he was back in bed sleeping again. So really

frustrating day. It's not unusual when he doesn't have

things to do, he tends to just sneak back to bed again. Just

doesn't seem to be too engaged in things that he normally used

to be. doing his own thing with gardening, reading the book.

None of those things seem to happen anymore. You'll get up

and watch some news, but that's about the extent of what he'll

do. And if somebody's around to play crib, he'll he'll jump to

that opportunity. That seems to still entice him into

participating. So yeah, bit of a frustrating day. I worry that

maybe he'd be better in some kind of an environment where he

had other people to engage with more often. But then I worry

about that too, because I'm afraid that if he ends up in a

care home, he'll forget us all. So may

be it's a bit selfish, but that's what I've been told, is

that to try to keep him in his family and normal surroundings

as long as we can, because typically, it's not unusual for

people to lose their memory faster when they end up in care

home situations. I don't know if that's 100% true, but that's

what I've heard from from others. So he seems to enjoy

being here. I'm just going to do a check in and see if that's

changed or what other thoughts he has. I.

[Sound of TV News] Hey, Dad, OK if I just turn the TV off for a

minute, just so we can check in with each other.

Yeah [News turns off]

Lana-Michele: You having a snack?

Yeah? No. What's up?

Lana-Michele: I just wanted to check in. We were checking in

earlier about just health and you being here, and what, what

you've been involved in, and that sort of thing. So just

checking in with you

Haven't been involved much,

Lana-Michele: yeah. So what kinds of things would you like

to be involved in?

Being kind of interesting to find out what was involved in

politics up there.

Lana-Michele: So you'd like to get involved in politics?

Well, I'd like to find out more about it up here. Just find

out who's involved and what point of view they have, all

that kind of stuff.

Lana-Michele: Okay.

There just 23 NDPers up here, but it's a rural area, so

probably fewer NDP

Lana-Michele: Dad's still really focused on his previous

interests. Of course, wanting to get on the NDP campaign. He's a

lifer NDP. He used to be very involved in his area, but he's

unable to formulate lists and follow through with jobs, so he

wasn't able to do that anymore. So we're maybe just trying to

keep him updated in current news. Kamloops is not an NDP

town, so it's hard for him to get connected in even a small

way up here.

Okay, so aside from politics, what other things?

That's a good place to start doing so,

Lana-Michele: But in terms of keeping you healthy and keeping

you moving, what kinds of things would be beneficial?

Anybody around here do curling?

Lana-Michele: Well, not this time of year, but there is

curling, yeah. Right now, actually, the seniors group that

we went to down at Riverside Park that play games and crib

and things, they're actually doing some lawn bowling. You

used to bowl right?

Something to look into all right.

Lana-Michele: What about just like day to day? Like things

that like are a little bit easier to do on a regular basis,

because you need to be active every day.Yeah. So we've talked

about that quite a bit, but we seem to be having a hard time

getting getting that going.

Just leave the garden tools outside my window when I spot

them I'll figure out okay, this time.

Lana-Michele: He's brought up gardening again, wanting to do

more gardening. So I'm trying to get his carry to maybe focus

just one of her days that she's here, if the weather cooperates,

doing a little bit of gardening. Independently, he just doesn't

do it. So it's kind of sad. He looks out the window and says he

wants to do these things, but unless I'm there doing it,

essentially, he he doesn't get it done. So we're kind of stuck

on rewind and restart with that conversation. So that's another

thing that came out of our check-in discussion.

I'm gonna head to bed. It's 10 to 10, so I'll check in.

I've given you your night beds already. You're just gonna watch

a bit of news and then head to bed.

Yep, have a good sleep.

Yeah, you too. A proper sleep so you get up at nine o'clock.

Okay. Okay. Can I down? Do you want me to turn the news back

on. [TV news sound and then door shuts.]

Yeah, it would be really hard if you were on your own trying to

Lana-Michele: I find myself thinking about my dad. He does

do this, I'm really fortunate that I have my family. He gets a

come across as this, but it hasn't progressed that far. But

look on his face when he's standing in a space and doesn't

quite know what's going on or why he's there, and it's just a

look of confusion, not distress, particularly, but confusion. And

if you check in with family members and people who know him,

then when he sees somebody he recognizes, he just lights up.

Sense of relief on his on his face, yeah. And he tries to, he

or if you have a conversation with him within the first minute

tries to just kind of go along with things. Doesn't complain.

He doesn't really, I think he's in, in denial a little bit about

the Alzheimer's, or, I'm not even sure if that's the right

or so, you can tell that he's a lot farther along than than

way to put it. I'm not sure. I'm not sure what's going on, you

know? And I guess so long as he's happy to be there, and he's

meets the eye, initially. Things are are progressing, and we keep

in the moment, he's still willing to get out and do

things, and I know that that's not the experience that some of

my other friends and other family members have had with

being told that there's just no way of knowing. They can't

their loved ones with Alzheimer's. I guess mentally,

it's quite fatiguing to be taking in all different kinds of

predict a timeline and and things like that. Just been

things at once. So his stamina is actually not very good. You

can see a change to his face, he kind of shuts down after a

while. He really needs to close his eyes and go to sleep and

thinking a lot more about that. I have to say, my dad doesn't

rest. After a while, he just can't take in any anymore. And

honestly, he doesn't remember anything that's not really

initiate anything. Everything is prompted. Sometimes he's really

exactly in the moment. As soon as we start another sentence, or

we move into a different room or location as we're driving, he

has to keep asking me where we're going, what we're doing,

it is neat to hear his sense of humor, though. But as far as his

because I guess the scene is changing. He just he cannot

remember where we're going and what we're doing, I can repeat

it sometimes just over and over and over and over again with

day to day stuff goes, he doesn't get out of bed if he

even less than a minute in between. So he's not really, you

know, as high functioning as he might appear at the beginning.

isn't prompted. He doesn't get dressed, he doesn't do anything

And some of the things we do with him. Maybe some people

might think it's a bit much, but so far, he seems to be loving

without being prompted. I kind of feel that frustration. It's

the moment and living in the moment, and we're gonna just

keep doing that until it looks like it's something that he he

just can't manage anymore, and we'll break things down into

just hard to see somebody who was fiercely independent, kind

little smaller pieces, I think. But until then, we'll, we'll

keep on living, I guess, as much as we can so,,, because there

of wait for your lead all the time.

will come a day when that stops, and that's going to be really

sad for everybody.

He's just very confused. But honestly, when I think back,

what sparked it was when he woke up. I didn't have his

whiteboards organized. I hadn't got them ready yet with the

dates and times and his schedule and what he was up to for the

day, where he was all those kinds of things details on his

whiteboard. So when he woke up, he went to the bathroom earlier

than he normally would get up. And I came down to do that, and

he was already in the bathroom. So he looked around and he had

no idea where he was. He I asked him how he was feeling, and he

said he was very confused. I said, about what? And he said, I

don't know where I am. And I said, Well, Dad, you're you're

at home, you're in your bathroom, at home, at your home.

And he said, I live here.? And I said, Yeah, like you, you live

in the suite in my home. You've lived here for four years. And

he said, four years, I've lived here four years? And he was

quite shocked by that. So we sat down and went over the story of

his accident and how he came to be here, and he takes it all in

stride. He doesn't, you know, seem to be distraught when we

talk about that stuff. It's the first time he didn't say he he

has not got dementia. Anytime I've mentioned it before, he

says he thinks people are wrong. he just has a memory problem.

So,that was a new thing. He was realizing that he was quite

confused, and there must be a reason for it, and he accepted

the fact that he's been diagnosed with Alzheimer's and

dementia, and he seemed to just accept that. But I do now

Really would be nice to see some more well rounded, inclusive

realize how much he depends on these notes and the whiteboard

for sure. If it's not there, he he has no idea what's going on.

It's a bit crazy for me to kind of just get in my head. I just

can't believe that he cannot know these things. It's just

bizarre. Dementia is bizarre.

ways of dealing and living with dementia. It's only going to

increase in our population, being that we have quite an

aging population, and it would be nice to have some more things

developed in helping us all understand and go through this,

because I think it's going to be a big part of a lot of people's

lives. So caregivers have a lot on their plate. I've learned

that and yeah, I'm just really fortunate that my father has the

resources available to him to to live his best life out. I don't

know when things are going to change drastically. I definitely

see signs that things are progressing and his independence

is becoming less and less. I see that frustration for him, but

for the most part, he just seems to go with the flow, like just

go with what's going on. And I see the fight in him going away.

He doesn't have that same drive to to get things done and to be

involved. He sort of sits, takes a back seat. He's still willing

to do things, but he he will not take any initiative. It just

just doesn't happen. Someone's going to make it happen for him.

He's got a good network and a good support team, so he's

lucky, and I wish that could be the way it was for everybody.

It's something that we all are going to be facing with our

loved ones. Possibly it could be happening to ourselves down the

road. So I think it's important to understand it's important to

help the people around us understand it, and I think it's

important to be clear now, when we all are of sound minds and

motivated enough to maybe make it known to the people in our

lives how we'd like to see our journeys go if this happens to

us, you know what kinds of things we'd like to do, if at

all possible.

Since her last recording, Lana-Michele and her

family continue to support Ren at home on the ranch. They enjoy

adventuring outdoors as much as they can.

Family caregivers are the lifeblood of the healthcare

system for people with dementia. By 2030, it's expected the

number of people living with dementia in Canada will be close

to a million. This journey is different for everyone, whether

you're a caregiver or know someone living with dementia, we

hope this podcast series gives you a deeper understanding of

the family caregiving experience.

This series is part of a research project that explores

storytelling, different ways of listening and the power of being

heard. It's made possible by the University of Victoria, with

funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council

to see storyteller photos, access episode transcriptions

and learn more about our research project, go to our

website, at call to mindpodcast.com. And for

caregiver resources and to find local supports and services, go

to alzheimer.ca.T

his podcast series was produced by Jenny Schine. Sound Design by

David Parfit. Executive Producer, Suzanne Ahearne. And

I'm Mariko Sakamoto, assistant professor of nursing and a

research affiliate with the Institute on Aging and Lifelong

Health at the University of Victoria. Thanks to other

members of our podcast team, including research coordinator

Paulina Santaella, and our research assistants Cole

Tamburri and Cynthia McDowell. Technical support, Bruce

Devereux and Mendel Skulski. The founder of the Call to Mind

podcast is Debra Sheets, professor emerita of nursing at

UVic. And of course, I want to thank all the research

participants who generously shared their time, stories and

experiences as part of this project.