Meet William Linares, Caregiver and Grandson

When William Linares came home from college at UC Berkley for the holidays four years ago, he realized that his grandmother’s memory loss was getting worse. Not only was she forgetting to turn off the stove, but she would forget that she had already cooked dinner.

A relative had been helping to care for his grandmother while he was away at school, so he returned to Berkley hoping to finish out his last year. But back at school, he began receiving text alerts notifying him about his grandmother’s more frequent trips to the ER.

That's when William quit school and came home to care for his grandmother – a role that took on new meaning when he realized that she could no longer be on her own.

“My grandmother had always walked to the market near by.  But when she started taking more than an hour to get home, I knew she was getting lost and it wasn’t safe for her to go by herself,” William recounted.

That’s when he took on the challenging role of becoming a full-time family caregiver. Fortunately, on a routine appointment to his grandmother’s geriatrician at UCLA, he was referred to WISE & Healthy Aging's Adult Day Center – and soon started bringing her twice a week to “Somos Amigos,” (We are Friends), a program for Spanish speakers in various phases of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.

“I saw that she really enjoyed going to WISE and getting to socialize with others,” said William. “I wasn’t on my own anymore and knowing that I could bring her in, was such a huge support. I was able to get some time to myself.”

In October, William’s grandmother passed away.

Reflecting on his loss, William says that "without WISE I wouldn’t have been able to take care of my grandmother as well."