Career
She began medical studies in 1941, which she interrupted during the war to work as a nurse Temporarily she was a housewife. In 1956 she continued her medical studies, graduating in 1960.
From 1960 to 1968 she worked as a medical assistant and in 1968 she opened her medical practice in Meckenheim near Bonn.
Carstens was by profession a doctor of medicine, and she maintained her practice throughout her husband"s tenure as president She was a strong advocate of naturopathy and homeopathy, and in 1982 the Carstens established the Carstens-Foundation (Carstens-Stiftung) – a major funder of alternative medicine research in Europe.
She was widowed in 1992. After she had retired from public life in 2009, she lived in a sanitarium in Bonn.