Abstract
Among the challenges in dementia care is providing assistance to caregivers so that they can remain healthy and able to care for their family member and take the time to care for self. Adult daughters can exert a significant degree of control over their own health and are inclined to do so if self-care and self-efficacy are perceive as of greater importance than perceived barriers and burden. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the factors that may assist adult daughters in taking care of self while taking care of their cognitively impaired mothers. This study used Heideggerian hermeneutic phenomenology as the method for interpreting the research question, do adult daughters who care for their cognitively impaired mothers care for self. The constitutive pattern identified was Doing-while-waiting from the three interpreted themes: Doing things-doing something, Place and space, and Waiting on-holding-on. By experiencing waiting the adults daughters experienced compassion energy by being present with compassion, identifying patterns to intentionally know what needs to be done to care for their mothers and this is how they expressed caring for self.