Carmen Burns
Carmen Burns is a fulltime caregiver to her mother Carole, who suffers from dementia. Specifically, Frontal Temporal Dementia. Her world changed in 2012 when she realized something wasn’t quite right with her mom. She moved both her mom and stepdad, David closer to her so she could help them out more and hopefully find the cause of her mom’s poor judgement and forgetfulness. In 2014 Carmen’s mom was diagnosed with Frontal Temporal Dementia, an uncurable, terminal, progressive disease. Not long after the diagnosis it was also discovered that her stepdad also had dementia (although never clinically diagnosed). It wasn’t long before Carmen was caring for both of her parent’s trying to navigate through the unpredictable world of dementia with little support. Carmen quit a full-time job in 2016 once her mom came to live with her, when it was determined that her stepdad would have to be moved to a long-term care facility. Sadly, he passed away February 11, 2018.
