Caregiving is relentless. It is exhausting beyond belief and caregivers need a break. Adult Day Programs (AKA Adult Day Care) are a way for people to get a break.  They can drop their loved one off in a safe environment.

I spoke with Lisa Tyburski from The Glenner Centers which offers Adult Day Programs AKA Adult Daycare Center from their 3 locations in San Diego. Lisa shared with me the powerful story about how The Glenner started. It was founded in 1982 by Dr. Glenner and his wife Joy. Dr. Glenner was a researcher at the UCSD school of medicine. He was working to advance research in the Alzheimer’s field. One night around midnight, he and his wife Joy received a phone call from the husband of one of Dr. Glenner’s Alzheimers patients. The husband, who had been a caregiver to his wife was frantic. He was absolutely at the end of his rope and he had a loaded gun in his hand. He was going to murder his wife and commit suicide. Dr. Glenner knew he needed to come up with a solution to help the caregivers.

You can go to work, run errands, take a nap, or whatever you need to do to tend to the other areas of your life.  You know that your loved one is being taken care of.

The Glenner Centers provides brain-stimulating activities. This can also help with sundowner's syndrome in the evenings.  Some of these activities include:

* Singing and music

* Listening to and discussing current events

* Animals brought in from the Humane Society

* Socializing

I had NO idea these places existed and I had to learn more.

Have a care giver?  No problem, you can still use Adult Day Programs (AKA Adult Day Care).

Things Lisa says you should look for when looking into an Adult Day Programs (AKA Adult Day Care):

* Do they specialize in dementia if your loved one has dementia?

* What is the staff to participant ratio?

* How many total participants in the center on any given day. You may want to look for a smaller center for more personalized experience

* Do they have a nurse on staff and ask if they can manage medications?

If you would like to contact Lisa or The Glenner Centers you can email [email protected] or [email protected] and the website is www.glenner.org

The freebie for this episode is ABC's of Dementia which you can get by going to http://RockYourRetirement.com/abc

Special Thanks to:

* Angie Strehlow who helps us get great guests that help us with our retirement lifestyle while keeping everything on track…and helps with these show notes!

* Les Briney, my husband, and Danny Ozment of Emerald City Pro who edits the show and makes my guests and me sound terrific

* Lesinda Tubalado who helps keep the website up to date

* Henry Shapiro, host of Retired Excited that airs on Fridays

* YOU for telling your friends about the show, leaving comments below, and sharing episodes you really like on Facebook.

This post on Retirement Lifestyle first appeared on http://RockYourRetirement.com