Alzheimer’s caregiver: ‘You can’t prepare yourself for when the person you love forgets who you are’

Jonesboro, Arkansas – One Jonesboro woman’s husband was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease when he was in his late 50s, coinciding with the onset of the illness in her mother.

On March 15, the Alzheimer’s Association released its annual report. Almost 11 million Americans supplied unpaid care for those suffering from Alzheimer’s and dementia in 2022, the report claims.

Before her mother passed away from the illness in 2019, Molly Simpson of Jonesboro served as both her mother’s and her husband’s primary caretaker. In 2016, Bob Simpson, her husband, received a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease.

Simpson characterized providing care as physically, intellectually, and emotionally taxing.

“Whether it’s taking care of repairs or working in the yard, paying the bills, doing the taxes, or helping them dress, everything falls on the caregiver, and on top of that, it’s such an emotional situation,” Simpson said.

The report states Alzheimer’s caregivers worked “more than 18 billion hours, which were valued at $340 billion.”