Care Partner Month 2025

Whether you are newly navigating Parkinson’s disease (PD) or have been a care partner for a long time, the Care Partner Guide is specifically designed for you.
The guide is organized around five care partner wellness keys with strategies to help you:
Build your support network.
Balance daily caregiving with self-care.
Strengthen relationship dynamics.
Work as a team to manage PD.
Plan for the future.
In addition to practical tips, you will find encouraging insights from other care partners, as well as activities, worksheets and important resources to support your journey.

Join the Parkinson’s Foundation for “Caring with Confidence,” a virtual gathering focused on the evolving roles, boundaries, and identities that shape the care partner experience. Whether you’re new to caregiving or have supported someone through many seasons of Parkinson’s, this webinar offers connection, insights, and practical reflections.

Need immediate support? Staffed by nurses, social workers and therapists, the free Helpline is available to answer caregiver questions and concerns. Just call 1-800-473-4636.

The Parkinson’s Foundation Care Partner Program is a series of self-paced online courses designed with care partners in mind.  This course is recommended for anyone caring for someone living with PD, including spouses, partners, parents, children, friends or other family members. They encourage you to use this program in the way that best suits your needs and your schedule. Start with the course that you’re most interested in and progress through the others as you feel you are able.

In November, the Parkinson’s Foundation joins organizations across the country to honor care partners for National Family Caregivers Month.

Parkinson’s Foundation Mindfulness Monday program offers this brief, free course on staying resilience as a care partner.

Download this guidebook from Lonnie Ali, wife of Muhammad Ali. This guide provides information on maintaining friendship, taking care of yourself and more.

Whether you are the spouse, partner, child, parent, sibling, or friend of your person with Parkinson’s, you are an invaluable part of their team. Your role as a care partner will evolve throughout the years, but in each stage, it is essential to equip yourself with tools, advice, strategies, and support to ensure that you and your loved one live well. Davis Phinney Foundation designed a new Every Victory Counts® Manual for Care Partners to give you just that.

These worksheets can help you stay organized in your daily life as a care partner for someone at any stage of Parkinson’s disease.

Looking for inspiration? These stories are written by those in the Parkinson’s disease community who are helping bring awareness to this life-changing disease.

Also, find out how to share your story.

Often times as a care partner to someone with Parkinson’s, you need a solution to a problem, but you don’t have hours on end to search for it. That’s what this toolbox from the Davis Phinney Foundation is all about. It includes a few worksheets, a few apps, a few websites and a few nuggets of wisdom from people who have been caring for someone with Parkinson’s for long enough to know how valuable time is. And how time-consuming and emotionally and physically taxing being a care partner can be when you don’t have the formal training or resources you need.

Educating your children about your diagnosis of PD can be challenging. However, the APDA hopes to make this easier with this cartoon.

In this podcast, a care partner relates her journey with her husband, who received a PD diagnosis at age 51. She tells about her initial shock and fears and how she came to terms with the disease, and about their journey together, using information and knowledge to help them deal with changing situations.

Life does not stop with a Parkinson’s disease (PD) diagnosis — but PD and its symptoms change over time, as will your role as a care partner. Your challenges and experiences will be unique. However, you are not alone.
The most important thing to remember is that the person you are taking care of is only doing as well as you are; if you do not take care of yourself, you will not be able to take care of your loved one.

Access for a list of Parkinson’s Support Groups and Caregiver Support Groups across Florida.

Join online discussion groups where you can connect with others who are sharing similar experiences to you and your loved one.

Being a care partner to someone with Parkinson disease often involves taking care of the immediate while thinking ahead to the future. In this previously recorded webinar from the PMD Alliance, experts discuss symptoms and planning needs, ways to proactively manage the most challenging aspects of caregiving and how to utilize the Roadmap to Care.

If you could use some extra support as a care partner, please join the Davis Phinney Foundation for our monthly Care Partner Meetup.