Replete with the powerful words of experienced caregivers, "Dementia Caregivers Share Their Stories" is an essential guidebook for anyone who must attend to the needs of a loved one suffering from Alzheimer's disease or another form of dementia. In these pages, members of caregivers' support groups - representing twenty-six families and a variety of professions and income levels - speak candidly about the challenges they have faced at every step in the caregiving process, from recognizing early symptoms of dementia to dealing with its advanced stages.

Highlighting the ingenuity and resourcefulness of caregivers, the book brims with inspirational stories, practical advice, and creative approaches to problem-solving. Among the issues addressed are:

Becoming a caregiver, whether for a spouse or parent
Dealing with the personality changes caused by dementia, from anxiety and paranoia to hallucinations and impulsive behavior
Keeping dementia sufferers meaningfully involved in life
Handling the emotions and stresses of caregiving
Seeking help through support groups and other sources, including medical professionals, clergy, and other family members The authors, who have both been caregivers themselves, augment their interviewees' stories with connective commentary and their own personal stories. A useful resource section is included to refer readers to associations and help-lines.

"The Chicago Sun Times" praises ""Into the Blue" is Susan Edsall's fascinating chronicle of the fight to get her father back into his beloved Big Sky...an engagingly readable testament to an everyday courage....Salted with hilarious memories of Edsall family life, peppered with touching reminiscences of flight with her father, [Edsall] mixes the positive with the painful until it's not only palatable but also poignant."
Three years ago, Susan Edsall's father, a rebuilder and pilot of antique airplanes, suffered a devastating stroke that left him unable to read, write, speak, tell time, understand the alphabet---or fly. The doctors told Susan the best her family could hope for was that he would learn to play checkers. Susan knew if her dad couldn't fly, he'd just as soon not breathe, so she chose another path. Battling the pessimistic conclusion of the experts---and her own looming fears---she and her sister, Sharon, aka the Blister Sisters, decided to take matters into their own hands. With no medical training but double doses of determination, they bushwhacked their own rehab program and got their father back behind the controls of his beloved open-cockpit biplane and into the air.
Susan Edsall's "Into the Blue" is a powerful family memoir about two feisty sisters from Montana who bring their father back to life---and discover themselves in the process. Inspiring, gritty, and often hilarious, it's also the story of anyone who has ever fought back from a dire prognosis to pursue a cherished dream.

Ask Americans what concerns them most, and the answer invariably will be the cost and quality of their health care. That is, if they have coverage at all. And yet, aside from short-lived effort on behalf of universal health care by Hillary Clinton during the beginning of the Clinton administration, the average American has no idea what can be done. Though there have been numerous publications on health care reform over the last few years, most have been academically oriented, targeted to a professional audience, and too technical and confusing for the average person. Dr. Fouad Michael, a hugely successful physician, who retired at the peak of his career to work for health care reform, outlines clearly and concisely how our present system of health care operates, the reasons it doesn't work, and the best possible solution. This book speaks to the reader on a level and in language that he or she can understand. Dr. Michael brings a unique perspective to the problem with his bicultural knowledge, having worked in two different types of medical care systems, Egypt and the US. Back in Egypt, he experienced firsthand the socialist revolution of the sixties and studied and practiced medicine in a national health care system with all its flows and ambitions. He practiced medicine in the US for more than three decades and witnessed the transformation from the fee-for-service system to the managed care revolution. Over the years, his interest in health care reform developed hand in hand with his own experience. Dr. Michael takes the reader through the failings of the fee-for-service and the managed care systems, using countless examples of his own patients' experiences, ones that the reader will easily identify with. He then outlines the solution: a single payer system modeled on the five principles of the Canadian system, which would serve as a basis for a US model.

Today's HMOs come into a great deal of criticism, yet few people understand their inner workings. This book describes how they operate and why they elicit such criticism. Written with the general public in mind, it gives an overview of the current situation, a history of the HMO industry and how they function, how the federal government got involved, how and why the early models failed, how the large for-profit HMOs entered the picture and how they work, and their impact on the national health care scene. It also presents recommendations on what should be done to provide consumer protection. Finally, it gives users and potential users recommendations, and physicians and other health care provider's recommendations, before becoming involved with HMOs.

In 1999 Anne Morrow Lindbergh, the famed aviator and author, moved from her home in Connecticut to the farm in Vermont where her daughter, Reeve, and Reeve's family live. Mrs. Lindbergh was in her nineties and had been rendered nearly speechless years earlier by a series of small strokes that also left her frail and dependent on others for her care. As an accomplished author who had learned to write in part by reading her mother's many books, Reeve was deeply saddened and frustrated by her inability to communicate with her mother, a woman long recognized in her family and throughout the world as a gifted communicator.

No More Words is a moving and compassionate memoir of the final seventeen months of Reeve's mother's life. Reeve writes with great sensitivity and sympathy for her mother's plight, while also analyzing her own conflicting feelings. Anyone who has had to care for an elderly parent disabled by Alzheimer's or stroke will understand immediately the heartache and anguish Reeve suffered and will find comfort in her story.

According to the Alzheimer's Association, one in ten persons over sixty-five and nearly half of those over eighty-five have Alzheimer's disease. Today, 4 million Americans have Alzheimer's disease. In a national survey, 19 million Americans said they have a family member with the ailment, and 37 million said they knew someone who had it. But when Rosette Teitel found herself in the role of caregiver to her ailing husband, she could find no books that answered her practical needs: How do you give a 170-pound man a shower? How do you pick him up when he falls? What should you anticipate as the disease progresses? What support networks are available? When is it time to consider a nursing home and how do you find one?

While many Alzheimer's disease books focus on the disease and the patient, Teitel draws on her own experience -- as well as that of a clinical psychologist, a coordinator of an Alzheimer's program at a community center, members of the Alzheimer's Foundation, a research psychologist, an elder-law attorney, and a neurologist -- to tackle subjects rarely dealt with in other self-help books. Teitel covers topics such as managing the expenses of long-term care through Medicaid, estate planning, and preparing for the patient's death and the loss of someone whose daily survival has been at the center of one's existence. The chapters deal with background information on diagnosis, treatment, and the progression of the disease; the physical and emotional changes and resources involved with the day-to-day caregiving; support networks; nursing homes; finances; death of the patient; grief, mourning, and life after the patient's death; and interviews with children caring for parents withAlzheimer's disease. In addition, Teitel provides a helpful list of frequently asked questions, scheduling and memory aids, and websites where readers can find resources.

A comprehensive guide on how to be a chief partner in your health care team, and how to prepare for a medical office visit to receive world class care. Includes a lifetime preventative health care guide for newborns, children and adults.

Whether you or someone close to you has received a terminal diagnosis -- this period of time can be a final gift.

Guidance for the patient

You've been terminally diagnosed, and you need advice to help you make the best of the situation and the time you have left. Here's guidance, including:
-- Emotional adjustment
-- Medical care
-- Hospital vs. home care
-- Legal and financial arrangements
-- Saying goodbye

Support for the caregiver

As a caregiver to someone who is terminally ill, you can be a guiding light. June's practical advice for the caregiver's role will simplify the process. Some helpful topics are:
-- Honest communication
-- Listening skills
-- Physical support
-- Caring for yourself -- avoiding burnout
-- Final arrangements

These first-person accounts portray, with thoughtfulness and clarity, a wide range of caregiver experiences: the possibility of deepening relationships; the opportunity for forgiveness; the ability to reach out and to look within to find strength; the sorrow of watching a parent grow old; and the chance to say goodbye.

Taking Care of Finances While Taking Care of a Loved One

Caregivers face a unique set of challenges, including managing money matters. This indispensable new guide provides a sound action plan for overcoming this formidable hurdle, offering practical information, helpful tips, and invaluable advice on how to successfully juggle personal finances with the cost of caring for a loved one.

"A clear map through the many mazes of caregiving issues, with information on how they will affect the caregiver, the care recipient, and their families. Guidance, good counsel, and help for all caregivers, from those thinking about caregiving to those just starting and those who are veterans." —Louise G. Fradkin, cofounder, Children of Aging Parents.

"If you find yourself in the role of caregiver to a loved one, The Cost of Caring is an excellent tool. Not only do the authors go through the ABCs of what you need to do and when, they provide you with specific resources that can help you each step of the way. I will highly recommend it to my clients." —Mark Spangler, CFP, Former Chairman of the Board, National Association of Personal Financial Advisors.

When this book was first published by Johns Hopkins University Press in 1994, the US health care system was in crisis. In the decade or so since the situation has become worse. Weissman (medicine and health care policy, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School) and Epstein (health policy and management, Harvard U. School of Public

An indispensable guide to every aspect of at-home care This thoroughly practical guide details the daily routines and unique concerns that are essential to quality at-home care of people with AIDS. From setting up a safe and comfortable environment to making medical and legal choices and solving emotional problems, each vital issue is covered in depth. Every caregiver and person with AIDS will benefit from this supportive, comprehensive resource.

• Detailed information on protecting against infection
• Concise instructions for both ambulatory and bedridden patients
• How to administer intravenous feedings and medication
• Appendices covering lab tests, alternative therapies, and the latest experimental drugs
• The differences between caring for men and women with AIDS
• Tips for caregivers on maintaining their own health and well-being

Five years after the publication of Eldercare 101, it's time to update and revise this important toolbox of critical resources and guidance that assists families and eldercare professionals with the navigation of the advanced aging of loved ones and/or clients based on the Six Pillars of Aging WellbeingTM. In this second edition, Mary Jo Saavedra adds salient new content that reflects the ever-changing landscape of aging in today's culturally-shifting, technological, and pandemic world. The book's online resources have been updated and supplemented with many new tech products on the market that support elders, including Saavedra's forthcoming holistic digital platform. Eldercare 101, Updated Edition will include input from six returning collabroators and twenty new contributors, ensuring that this essential content is up-to-date and accurate.

Namaste Care is a therapeutic approach to caring for those living with advanced dementia, focused on improving their quality of life through a simple, soothing and rewarding process. This step-by-step guide is for anyone looking to translate the principles of the Namaste Care approach successfully and professionally into a home or care setting, with an emphasis on the value of volunteers in the community in implementing this. The Namaste Care approach is focussed on giving comfort and pleasure to people with advanced dementia through sensory stimulation, especially the use of touch, and this book provides extensive guidance on every stage of the process, including harnessing community interest, recruiting and training volunteers, and managing pain and discomfort. In a time of ever-growing strain on healthcare resources, this practical guide is a timely reminder of the power and value of informal care and compassionate communities in helping to care better for people with dementia, and is essential reading for carers, professionals and family members.

As the average lifespan increases, so does the number of living generations, a recipe for some potentially complex family issues. This book offers therapeutic strategies to navigate the unique dynamics and experiences of today's aging families, from the "sandwich generation" and caregiver burdens to divorce, bereavement, and much more.