Anita Charlot answered a phone call from her mother during a snowstorm in 2020. Her mom was in a car, and she did not know how to get home.
Charlot’s mother was later diagnosed with dementia, and she became her caregiver. The woman she described as fiercely independent, who always took care of her own business, was no longer in a position to do so and did not completely understand why.
Charlot details her experience as her mother’s caregiver, and her unique way to cope with the responsibility by using artificial intelligence in her new book “Boo, How Do I Get Home?”
“This story isn’t just for me; it’s bigger than me,” Charlot said. “It’s not just a memoir, but it’s also a practical guide to help people not only understand or realize that it’s possible for them to grow through this, but also, there were a lot of things I didn’t know.”
The book launched on Nov. 3, her mother’s 93rd birthday, and the beginning of National Family Caregivers Month.
“I know my mom was always someone that wanted to share her experiences with people. She was the lady at church that all the parents would call and say, ‘What do I do? How do I handle this?’” Charlot said. “My mom would be that word of wisdom, so to launch this book on her birthday was not just for me, but it was also for her.”
When her mother was first diagnosed, she began to use ChatGPT to do research on what dementia was and help answer questions when people were not available. Six years later, she has developed a whole team of AI agents through different platforms with “Donna” her AI “Chief of Staff.”
She uses these agents to help manage scheduling of doctors appointments, researching and preparation for those appointments, medications, and an outlet for her own frustrations. It became a “safe space” and she was able to vent without “hurting peoples feelings in the process.
“There’s nothing personal there. It’s just information, and so sometimes finding that information and getting access to that information on your own, it allows you not to burden your family members and for you to have some place to put that frustration and not ruin your family relationships as a result of it,” Charlot said.
Having the agents frees up her time by handling tasks she would have had to do herself, so she is able to spend more time with her mother completely focused on her.
She said being a caregiver takes a lot and can be very heavy while everyone looks to her to be strong. But everyone has moments when the strength falters. She encourages anyone going through a similar experience to also find a human support system whether that is a therapist or a community group.
At the end of the day, she realized AI could be the solution for a lot of things, but she “couldn’t use AI to heal my mom of dementia.”
She took her pain and put it into her passion for storytelling and helping others. She said writing is her therapy, and this book was another outlet for her.
“Once this book was launched, I felt such a big sense of peace, like oh, someone else is going to get this in their hands, and they’re not going to struggle for six years like I did to get to this point,” Charlot said.
More information on the book, Charlot and her new business in the world of AI can be found on her website.