Caregiver stress has a way of derailing your best-laid plans. Like many people whose elderly parents fall ill, Jennifer Beard found herself catapulted into a caregiving role a couple of years ago, when her mother was sent home from the hospital with a feeding tube.
Beard, an associate professor of global health at the Boston University School of Public Health, was living in Boston; her mother was in Ohio. While her mom wanted to live independently, she couldn’t manage the feeding tube on her own, and Beard had no choice but to step in.
