“A useful, step-by-step guide for anyone new to caring for those with Alzheimer’s.” —Library Journal H.O.P.E. for the Alzheimer’s Journey equips Alzheimer’s caregivers with knowledge, tools, and advice for their difficult road ahead. Author Carol B. Amos incorporates her own experience—including her family’s email correspondence illustrating how they coped during this particular challenge. Amos also introduces The Caregiving Principle™: a simple approach that provides a deeper understanding of a person with Alzheimer’s disease and a framework for the caregiver’s role. She provides examples of how The Caregiving Principle™ helped her connect with her mother. H.O.P.E. for the Alzheimer’s Journey encourages caregivers to take care for themselves and provides inspiration for a less stressful, more rewarding journey.
Family caregiving affects millions of Americans every day, in all walks of life. At least 17.7 million individuals in the United States are caregivers of an older adult with a health or functional limitation. The nation's family caregivers provide the lion's share of long-term care for our older adult population. They are also central to older adults' access to and receipt of health care and community-based social services. Yet the need to recognize and support caregivers is among the least appreciated challenges facing the aging U.S. population. Families Caring for an Aging America examines the prevalence and nature of family caregiving of older adults and the available evidence on the effectiveness of programs, supports, and other interventions designed to support family caregivers. This report also assesses and recommends policies to address the needs of family caregivers and to minimize the barriers that they encounter in trying to meet the needs of older adults.
Our world is currently experiencing a global Caregiving Crisis. If you, like so many others, are increasingly concerned about your loved one's needs as they age, then ask yourself the following questions: How does your loved one see their life playing out? Where do they want to live as they age (in their own home vs. assisted living)? What kind of health do they aspire to be in? What kinds of activities do they want to engage in? If and when your loved one can no longer live independently, what is their preference (i.e., paid in-home help, assisted living or nursing facility)? Is their preference realistic considering their financial situation, and if not, what are the feasible alternatives? The Caregiving Journey goes far beyond the basics of wills and logistical funeral plans-basics many people have in place (especially where children are involved). Rather, you'll be guided and supported to create a well-thought-out plan for those three, five or even 10 or more years when your loved one needs your help because they can no longer live on their own. With the inspiration, practical steps, support, and tools provided inside these pages, you'll be well-equipped to guide your family members and loved ones to the end of their lives with love, ease and grace.Bringing together her 30+ years as a professional market analyst and her personal experience as a live-in caregiver for her mom, author Debbie Howard has integrated her experiences-along with the journeys of over 200 other caregivers-into this book to help you choose your best way forward. Learn more at www.theCaregivingJourney.com.
In "Embracing the Heart of Caregiving: A Compassionate Guide for Dementia Care", retired registered nurse and caregiver Rae A. Stonehouse offers a beacon of hope, understanding, and practical advice for anyone navigating the complex journey of caring for a loved one with dementia. Drawing from over 40 years of experience in psychiatry and mental health nursing, as well as his personal experience caring for his wife with frontal lobe dementia, Stonehouse provides a compassionate and insightful roadmap for the dementia caregiving journey. With empathy and wisdom, he explores the emotional terrain of becoming a caregiver, the importance of early detection and personalized care, strategies for effective communication and managing challenging behaviors, and the profound impact dementia has on families. This comprehensive guide covers essential topics such as understanding the types and stages of dementia, creating a safe and supportive home environment, navigating legal and financial planning, and prioritizing self-care for the caregiver. Stonehouse emphasizes a person-centered approach, offering guidance on how to tailor care to the unique needs, abilities and life history of the individual. Woven throughout are Stonehouse's own reflections as a caregiver, offering a deeply personal perspective on love, loss, resilience and finding moments of joy amidst the challenges. He reminds us that while the road ahead may be difficult, it can also unveil the unbreakable bonds and profound depths of the human heart. More than just an informational guide, "Embracing the Heart of Caregiving" offers a compassionate voice of support and a gentle reminder that no one walks this path alone. It serves as an invaluable companion for family members and caregivers, health professionals, and anyone seeking to provide the best possible care for a person living with dementia.
Are you already on the caregiving journey with aging parents? Or perhaps you are wondering—and worrying about—what care your parents may need as they get older? You are not alone! No matter where you are on your caregiving journey, You, Your Parent, and Your Caregiving Journey: Strategies, Resources, and Inspiration to Guide the Way will provide you with a new, more positive way to think about your parents’ aging process. And it will give you tools, practical strategies, and inspiration that you can use at every stage in the journey. You, Your Parent, and Your Caregiving Journey guides you through five important “Waypoints” of caregiving, offering information, skills, and proven strategies on how to: • Understand aging in a new way, one that enhances the quality of your parent’s latter years; • Have the conversations and do the preparations that will make your journey easier; • Assess and ensure your parent’s safety; • Make decisions with your parent about the best living options; • Deal with the changes associated with dementia; and • Stay healthy and happy throughout your caregiving journey. This book will help you be a more effective, more compassionate, and less stressed caregiver. Even more, it will help you see that your caregiving journey will be worth the taking. “One of the best books on caregiving that I’ve seen” –Teresa DeAnni, MA, Boulder County Area Agency on Aging “A must-read for those who are looking for companionship and support through this journey” –Karen Fingerman, PhD, Research Director, Center on Aging and Population Sciences A portion of the proceeds from this book will go to organizations that support caregivers.
The story of one woman’s struggle to care for her seriously ill husband—and a revealing look at the role unpaid family caregivers play in a society that fails to provide them with structural support. Already Toast shows how all-consuming caregiving can be, how difficult it is to find support, and how the social and literary narratives that have long locked women into providing emotional labor also keep them in unpaid caregiving roles. When Kate Washington and her husband, Brad, learned that he had cancer, they were a young couple: professionals with ascending careers, parents to two small children. Brad’s diagnosis stripped those identities away: he became a patient and she his caregiver. Brad’s cancer quickly turned aggressive, necessitating a stem-cell transplant that triggered a massive infection, robbing him of his eyesight and nearly of his life. Kate acted as his full-time aide to keep him alive, coordinating his treatments, making doctors’ appointments, calling insurance companies, filling dozens of prescriptions, cleaning commodes, administering IV drugs. She became so burned out that, when she took an online quiz on caregiver self-care, her result cheerily declared: “You’re already toast!” Through it all, she felt profoundly alone, but, as she later learned, she was in fact one of millions: an invisible army of family caregivers working every day in America, their unpaid labor keeping our troubled healthcare system afloat. Because our culture both romanticizes and erases the realities of care work, few caregivers have shared their stories publicly. As the baby-boom generation ages, the number of family caregivers will continue to grow. Readable, relatable, timely, and often raw, Already Toast—with its clear call for paying and supporting family caregivers—is a crucial intervention in that conversation, bringing together personal experience with deep research to give voice to those tasked with the overlooked, vital work of caring for the seriously ill.
A loved one’s terminal illness diagnosis can be terrifying. If we hold onto that fear and carry it into a caregiving role, we will be left exhausted, ill-equipped to cope, and feeling powerless. What’s more, we will find it extremely difficult to be the supportive, comforting presence our loved one needs—and the caring friend we need to be to ourselves to process our grief. Through personal memoir, the author shares how allowing fear to rule her experience of her mother’s illness and death resulted in great difficulty coping. Several years later, when her husband of twenty-one years received the devastating news that he had terminal cancer, she was determined to approach this caregiving experience with love rather than fear. Through self-love and self-care practices, she learned how to manage her emotions, develop resilience, and be fully present to experience the joy and beauty of their final chapter together as well as process the pain of his passing. For the Caregiver will show you how to access the greatest source of strength and power available to you—that found within. You will learn how to practice self-care and self-love through mindfulness, self-talk, meditation, journaling, and movement exercises. By allowing love to empower you, you will gain strong coping skills that will enable you not only get through this difficult time, but to be fully present to enjoy the precious time remaining with your loved one.
Linda Abbit, founder of Tender Loving Eldercare and a veteran of the caregiving industry, shares her advice on taking care of an older parent or loved one and how to handle everything that goes along with this dramatic life change. Being a caregiver can be a difficult role. It requires patience, tenderness, selflessness, and hard work. Providing care for someone, whether it’s a parent, a loved one, or as a professional requires a high level of self-love and self-care. But while it may be a rewarding experience to care for a loved one, the emotional and physical stress of caregiving can lead to burnout and exhaustion—causing caregivers to put themselves and their own well-being in the background. How can you fulfill your role as a caregiver without losing yourself? Conscious Caregiver teaches you how to navigate caring for your loved one, whether it’s full-time in-house caregiving or hiring support from outside services. With information on how to talk to your loved ones about the situation, handle the emotional stress, stay financially secure, and take the time to care for yourself, this guide can help you care for your loved one and yourself at the same time.
What if we flip the script on what it means to be a caregiver? Today, there are more than forty million family caregivers in the United States alone. Every one of them is searching for ways to approach this unique challenge. Positive Caregiving offers an alternative, affirming perspective to the overwhelmingly negative story surrounding caring for an older adult. This book combines principles of positive psychology, mindfulness, reminiscence therapy, and lifestyle medicine. Yet, the simple activity ideas within are designed to immerse caregivers in gratitude, empathy, forgiveness, love, and awe. Positive Caregiving encourages us to make the most of the caregiving experience. You'll learn how to: • Connect with your care partner • Foster positive emotions • Engage in activities that are both enjoyable and meaningful • Turn challenges into opportunities for connection and growth Positive Caregiving focuses on the emotional journey and personal growth inherent in the caregiving experience, helping caregivers embrace, celebrate, and honor this critical role in modern society.
Meet Beige. Beige is reliable, practical, sensible, and safe. Beige doesn’t put up a fuss; it follows the rules, blends in, doesn’t want to stand out. Now meet Magenta. Magenta is rich, dynamic, loud, sometimes garish, and not easily overlooked. Society has decidedly beige expectations when it comes to aging, and the intrinsic danger of beige and its many practical aspects is that it precludes creative thinking. Creative thinking is critical in avoiding a beige aging journey. Be Brave. Lose the Beige! Finding Your Sass after Sixty encourages women to trot out their inner magenta and defy those beige expectations. Be Brave. Lose the Beige! started as a blog and morphed into a movement. This movement gently pokes fun at ageist rules and expectations. It says “yes” when the rest of the world keeps saying “no.” In these pages, Liz Kitchens chronicles how creative thinking helped her cope with empty nest syndrome, navigate sex over sixty, transition from being outtasight to literally being out-of-sight . . . and so much more. The stories and creative techniques outlined in this book are guaranteed to introduce color, sass, and a lightness of spirit into your later years. Are you ready to start coloring outside the lines, even if a few pesky rules get trampled in the process?
