“Her work is both practical and sacred, as much about teaching a wife how to dress and groom her agitated husband as about giving that same woman the privacy to grieve,” said annual dinner chair Karen Gotting-Smith, as she introduced Barbara Moscowitz at the Schwartz Center’s Annual Dinner on November 1.

Moscowitz, a social worker at Massachusetts General Hospital with a specialty in Alzheimer’s disease, received the Schwartz Center Compassionate Caregiver Award. More than 110 healthcare workers, ranging from direct-care professionals to social workers to physicians, were nominated for the award.

As Schwartz Center Executive Director Julie Rosen put it: “Barbara saves lives not through her skill with a scalpel, but through her ability to help families find their way – educating them about this perplexing disease, helping them connect with the loved ones who no longer recognize them, and showing them how to use this disease as a way to repair and renew frayed family bonds.”

In accepting the award, “the tiny social worker with the big heart” as one patient called her, talked about how Ken Schwartz’s idea of caring for the “whole being,” resonated deeply with her. “[That includes] the social, spiritual, cultural and familial context of one’s life,” said Barbara. “We must know the patient’s story in order to connect and weave important relationships, traditions and beliefs into our interactions with the patient.”

Barbara spoke about how difficult and heartbreaking it is when a family member is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.  “How does one take the car keys away from an independent father or explain to mother why the stove must be disconnected? How do you bathe someone who is afraid of water and react when a parent or spouse no longer recognizes family?” she asked.

While a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s can become a family tragedy, she said, there can be hope, and caregivers can play a huge role by partnering with families to help them find their way.  Echoing a major theme of the Schwartz Center’s work, Barbara stated: “There is no technological substitute for a human connection. There is not substitute for compassion.”