If you are caring for an aging parent or other elderly loved one, this book could be a wonderful and valuable resource for you and your family. The task of being a caregiver can be extremely difficult, especially when you may be second guessing your decisions and actions. Fortunately Virginia Morris has written this wonderful, practical, and easy to read guide to help you with every aspect of caring for your aging parent, taking care of yourself, and you family.
How to Care for Aging Parents by Virginia Morris, with a foreword by Robert N. Butler, M.D.
This guide, aimed at the “Sandwich Generation,” provides a road map to assist adult children in caring for their aging parents. Combining personal experience with expertise in healthcare and social and political issues, Morris has produced a thoroughly researched, well-organized, and comprehensive manual. Chapters follow in logical progression, yet they can stand alone and be read on an “as-needed” basis. The topics covered include the concrete, practical areas such as home care, finances, nursing homes/hospitals, legal issues, and medical/safety concerns as well as the psychosocial areas of handling emotions, dealing with death and dying, sibling conflicts, and spiritual needs. In her discussions, Morris adds useful details such as a suggested list of things to pack for the hospital. Support for the caregiver as well as to the elderly person is covered. Sprinkled throughout the text are agencies, phone numbers, and other reference information.
Reader Review by TRay:
“As we venture into this new and unknown territory – taking care to those whom we always depended on to take care of us – this is the first, second and only book you need. In a gentle and humorous way, Ms. Morris guides you through all of the aspects of this unknown road including the medical, legal, mental, physical, etc. Maybe my favorite chapter is the one in which Ms. Morris insists that you make sure of taking care of yourself first. I saw Ms. Morris on “Oprah” and bought the book for my “first parent”. Now the book comes out “bigger, better, and improved” for my second parent. Strange to think that a book can be such a gift to our real lives. I can not recommend this book more strongly.”
How to Care for Aging Parents: A Complete Guide
has been featured on:
- The CBS Morning Show
- CNN
- NPR
- Good Morning America
- Ladies’ Home Journal
- Oprah Winfrey Show
- Also Winner of the Best Books for Life Award Selection of the Rodale Book Club
To find more information or to purchase this book click the following link:
- “Wow! My God! Tears of joy! Reassurance. [These are] some of the thoughts and feelings I experienced when I began reading your book. I feel like you wrote this book just for me.”— Wilmington, North Carolina
- “What a fantastic book!! So much good advice and sources for more information. How to Care for Aging Parents is one of those books that should be on almost everyone’s bookshelf.”— Lombard, Illinois
- “Thank you for writing this book. Your practical suggestions are great, and the emotional help is as important, and sometimes even more valuable. I have recommended it to many people.”— Henderson, Nevada
- “I want to thank you for writing such a wonderful book. I don’t know how I got along without it for so long.”— Silver Spring, MD
- “Indispensable!” — AARP
- “One of the most insightful books on this subject.”— Chicago Tribune
- “Full of insight and great coping strategies for any situation.”— New York Daily News
- “A thoroughly researched, well-organized, and comprehensive manual.”— Library Journal
- “A well-written, sensitive, comprehensive guide . . . A book you can refer to again and again.“— Burlington Free Press
- “The best resource manual of its kind . . . it touches on reality, not just cold information. Facts are brought to life by the author’s compassion and wisdom.”— Providence Journal-Bulletin
- “Brimming with useful advice.”— New Choices magazine
- “A compassionate guide of encyclopedic proportion.”— The Washington Post
- “A work of great value, written with sensitivity and wisdom . . . it fulfills an obvious need better than anything I’ve seen.”— Sherwin B. Nuland, M.D., Author of How We Die
- “This is a tremendous work . . . truly excellent. It will be a great help to many people.”— Ronald Miller, M.D., medical director, Geriatric Assessment Center at Yale New Haven Hospital
- “How to Care for Aging Parents is well-researched and comprehensive . . . a practical resource that can be of enormous assistance to contemporary older persons as well as to Baby Boomers and the generations that follow.”— Robert N. Butler, M.D., Founder National Institute on Aging
How to Care For Aging Parents
FOREWORD
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1 — GET READY, GET SET
Talking to Your Parents about Tough Issues
Gathering Essential Documents
Organizing Your Own Life
Caring from Afar
CHAPTER 2 — YOUR PARENT AND YOU
Adapting to New Roles
Knowing When to Intervene
Resolving Old Struggles
Managing Day-to-Day
CHAPTER 3 — CARING FOR THE CAREGIVER
Setting Limits
Emotional Minefields; Guilt, Anger and Depression
Support Groups
Gaining a Healthy Mindset: Friends, Laughter and Tranquillity
CHAPTER 4 — DOCTOR DO’S AND DON’TS
Rx for the Elderly
A Geriatric Assessment
Finding a Good Doctor
Being an Informed Advocate
CHAPTER 5 — THE BODY IMPERFECT Part 1
Vision and Hearing
Insomnia
Overmedication
Alcohol
Temperature Regulation
Dehydration
TLC for Skin, Legs and Feet
CHAPTER 6 — THE BODY IMPERFECT Part 2
Osteoporosis and Arthritis
Incontinence
Digestive Disorders
Depression
Delirium
Anxiety
CHAPTER 7 — ON THE FIFTH FLOOR
Entering the Hospital
Questions about Tests, Treatments and Surgery
Dealing with Hospital Staff
Your Role as Advocate
Preparing for Discharge
CHAPTER 8 — TIPS FOR DAILY LIVING
Steps to a Safer Home
Bathing and Dressing
Eating Right
Setting Up the Bedroom
A Question of Driving
The Importance of Exercise
Quality of Life
CHAPTER 9 — GETTING HELP
Community and Home-Care Services
What’s Available and How to Find It
Companions
Meal Programs
Transportation
Senior Centers
Adult Daycare
Home Health Aides and Nurses
Geriatric Care Managers
Hiring and Overseeing Workers
Respite Care
CHAPTER 10 — HOME AWAY FROM HOME
When It’s Time to Move
Should Dad Move In?
Shared Housing
Senior Apartments
Assisted-Living Homes
Continuing-Care Retirement Communities
CHAPTER 11 — A GOOD NURSING HOME
Making the Decision
What to Look for in a Nursing Home
Getting In
A Plan of Care
Moving Day and Beyond
Your Role as Visitor and Advocate
Getting Adjusted
CHAPTER 12 — THE INNER CIRCLE
Sharing the Care with Siblings
A Family Meeting
Spouses
The Sandwich Generation: Aging Parents and Young Children
Balancing Career and Caregiving
CHAPTER 13 — PAYING THE WAY
Talking About Money
What Medicare and Medicaid Really Cover
Medigap and Long-Term-Care Insurance
Financial Planning
Homes as Collateral
Tax Tips
Hiring Financial and Legal Counsel
CHAPTER 14 — THE LEGAL ISSUES
Wills
Power of Attorney
Advance Directives
Guardianship
Estate Planning
Probate
Dividing the Estate
CHAPTER 15 — THE AGING BRAIN
What Is Normal?
Dementia
Getting Tested
Alzheimer’s Disease: What to Expect
Mini-Strokes
Treating Dementia
Planning for the Future
CHAPTER 16 — LIVING WITH DEMENTIA
Helping Yourself: A Clear Perspective and a Little Humor
Helping Your Parent: Simplicity, Routines and Diversions
Tips for Eating, Dressing, Communicating and More
Coping with Special Problems
CHAPTER 17 — IN THE END
Broaching the Subject of Death
Caring for Your Parent in the Hospital
Choosing Hospice Care
Medical Treatment: When Enough Is Enough
Making Advance Directives Stick
Saying Good-Bye
The Face of Death
CHAPTER 18 – CODA — GOOD GRIEF
The Necessity of Mourning
The Surviving Parent
Growing from Grief
APPENDIX A
State Units on Aging and Long-Term-Care Ombudsmen
APPENDIX B
Yellow Pages of Useful Organizations
APPENDIX C
A Patient’s Bill of Rights
APPENDIX D
The ABCs of Diet
APPENDIX E
Catalogs: Where to Find What
APPENDIX F
Checklist for Touring a Nursing Home; A Resident’s Bill of Rights
APPENDIX G
Funerals and Burials
CLICK HERE to learn more or to purchase – How to Care For Aging Parents
If you have already read this book please leave your comments below and tell us what you thought.
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Great tips! Work is something I struggle with all the time. I think I might use some of your advice.
I have recently started to like the work that I am doing. It’s becoming my project, and I like devoting myself to it
this is very good, lot of knowlage, am organized a group to prevent caregivers burnout in aging parent, and it gives me issues to work with, will happy if you can sent me more activity worshop information to performe with my group.
How can I get my siblings to help more and visit our Mother more in the Nursing Home?
They both live closer that I do.
I have done everything for the last 17 years since my Father died and they do very little.
I ask and ask and all I get are their excuses. Their lives are uninterrupted.
The Nursing home calls me when she falls because I am the “responsible party” even though my brother and sister live 2 blocks from the nursing home and I live in another town 15 miles away.
Hello,
I don’t know if I have a quick answer for you. We went through the same situation that you described. I do know that you have a heart of gold. It seems like it will never end. It will and when it does all the blessings you have shown your Mother will be stored up in heaven. This may not seem like a practical answer but it worked for my wife’s sibling.
Pray for you siblings that their hearts be softened to see your Mother’s needs as retribution for all of her blessings that were given to them by her. It does them no good to have to be prodded into serving your Mother. Find it in you heart to forgive them and pray they may hear what you will surely hear, “Well done my good and faithful servant.
Sincerely,
Tom Bills
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