The Little Guide To Eldercare

Becoming an elderly requires us to make new life decisions. Sometimes these decisions can feel overwhelming, but you are not alone. This book is here to provide you with some great options and resources, and to remind you that so many others are also going through similar situations.

Becoming an elderly requires us to make new life decisions. Sometimes these decisions can feel overwhelming, but you are not alone. This book is here to provide you with some great options and resources, and to remind you that so many others are also going through similar situations.

A USA Today BESTSELLER! "Informative. Complete. And practical. This book will guide family caregivers through the surprisingly complex world of senior care." —MEHMET OZ, M.D., New York Times bestselling coauthor of YOU: The Owner's Manual: The Complete All-in-One Care Guide Choosing the best care for your aging parents and other seniors in your life is not only complex, with multiple options available, it's also highly personal and often emotional. This essential resource—written by the founders of Home Instead Senior Care, the world's largest provider of nonmedical care for seniors—guides you through a comprehensive range of things to consider, step by step, so you can make better informed decisions and be confident that the senior in your life is receiving the best care possible. Checklists and diagnostics will help you: Decide if at-home care is the right choice for you and your loved ones Evaluate the pros and cons of retirement communities, adult care centers, nonmedical caregivers, assisted living facilities, nursing homes, and hospice Determine the costs of senior care options and find helpful support networks "This is not just another book about caring for aging parents. It's a great reference you'll use again and again. Stages doesn't shy away from the hard questions. Rather, it shows you how to confront them."—SUZANNE MINTZ, President/CEO, National Family Caregivers Association "Recognizing that there is no one-size-fits-all solution, this salient volume compassionately addresses a full range of hard-to-discuss subjects."--PUBLISHERS WEEKLY All of the authors' profits from the sale of this book will be donated to the Home Instead Senior Care Foundation. Paul and Lori Hogan founded Home Instead Senior Care in 1994. Now with 850 offices in 15 countries, Home Instead is recognized as a global leader and authority on senior care. Visit them at www.stagesofseniorcare.com.

Combining expert knowledge and first-hand experience, a noted elder care researcher confronts the long-distance care of her own mother. For millions of Americans caregiving is the “new normal.” For Laura Katz Olson, a respected researcher of long-term care for the aging, Elder Care Journey chronicles the disruption of her world and how it is upended by the ever-increasing long-distance needs of her own mother. A healthy, Senior Olympics medal winner, Olson’s mother is slowly and steadily incapacitated by Parkinson’s disease and a gradual loss of vision. Thrust into a long-distance caregiving role, Olson finds her previous academic notions about assisting a frail parent increasingly at odds with the reality of the lived experience. In a narrative full of “ah-ha!” moments, tears, sighs, and outrage that will be familiar to many, Olson opens a window into the nursing home and home care industries that consume much in the way of taxpayer dollars, but often fail to deliver quality care. Olson’s personal story vividly demonstrates not only the overwhelming bureaucratic barriers faced by care-dependent seniors but also their beleaguered adult children’s attempts to ensure their parents’ health, safety, and well-being. “After losing two siblings, Laura Katz Olson is left singularly responsible for her physically active and lively mother, Dorothy, a thousand miles away, both young at heart and eagerly bicycling everywhere, but increasingly limited by the normal process of aging. Being an expert on aging and health care, Olson is at first confident as she tries to let her mother ‘age in place.’ More than anyone, she believes, she should know what to do. Shuttling between Florida and Pennsylvania, Olson settles into a crushing routine, and with each visit she finds incremental downward change in her mother’s health. Pulled by daughterly guilt at times, but also a wellspring of love, Olson is frank about the resentment she sometimes experiences. “With a unique perspective that links the systemic flaws in our policy approach to elder care to real-world experience, Olson exposes the challenges we all face or are likely to face. More than a personal story, but nevertheless an extremely compelling one, the book should be read by those confounded and frustrated, and by those without direct knowledge of what quietly repeats itself millions of times a day.” — Miriam Laugesen, Department of Health Policy and Management, Columbia University “In Elder Care Journey, Laura Olson tells the riveting story of helping her aging, disabled mother navigate the system of long-term services and supports. A renowned scholar of aging and long-term care policy, Dr. Olson was nevertheless unprepared for the daily frustrations involved in confronting a bewildering array of obstacles, deceptions, burdensome and repetitive procedures and paperwork, and catch-22s, ranging from the annoying to the downright dangerous. She shows how well-intentioned policies can fall far short of meeting people’s needs, especially for those in greatest need, in a system based on fragmented interests and private-sector profit maximization. Combining scholarly expertise with personal experience, she ends the book with a detailed but highly accessible analysis of the long-term care system and how it could be improved to the benefit of both taxpayers and beneficiaries. This book is a compelling read for policymakers and for students and scholars of health care and social welfare policy, highly recommended for undergraduate and graduate courses. The author’s experiences also provide helpful advice to caregivers on what to expect and how to deal with it, as well as reassurance that they are not alone.” — Christine L. Day, University of New Orleans “If a society is judged by how well it treats its most vulnerable members, Laura Katz Olson, a prominent health policy scholar, demonstrates that we have a long way to go in how we serve frail and disabled elders in need of long-term services and supports at the end of their lives. Olson develops a compelling narrative that describes the subtle and not-so-subtle indignities imposed on elders and their caregivers navigating the complex maze of health and social service systems at their hour of greatest need. Even an expert such as Olson struggled in light of the challenges posed by these impediments. “By connecting her own personal journey to the larger societal challenges within which her struggles are embedded, Olson makes a significant contribution to the literature that should be required reading for scholars, practitioners, and policymakers looking to advance the welfare of the nation’s most vulnerable citizens.” — Edward Alan Miller, author of Block Granting Medicaid: A Model for 21st Century Medicaid Reform? “This page-turner is at once a tender tale of a daughter’s devotion and a stinging indictment of the hugely complex and wholly inadequate American long-term care system. That an elder-care expert can barely navigate the Byzantine web of public and private insurance and services for her disabled mother is alarming enough. Truly horrific are the system’s shortcomings and the increasing role that for-profit providers play, fleecing and even abusing their customers. A startling wake-up call.” — Andrea Louise Campbell, author of Trapped in America’s Safety Net: One Family’s Struggle

Working Daughter provides a roadmap for women trying to navigate caring for aging parents and their careers. Using the author’s own experiences as a prime example, it’s ideal for readers who want straight talk and real advice about the challenges and rewards of eldercare while managing a career and family.

"Includes free access to download forms kit"--cover.

An easy-to-understand guide for caregivers in a post-pandemic world who are adapting to the rapidly changing lifestyles and care needs of elders. The care and wellbeing of our seniors is paramount as we move out of the worst phase of Covid 19 and back to a more stable landscape, that is still subject to the vagaries of aging, illness, and capabilities. This Updated edition of Eldercare 101 has been expanded to include pandemic lessons, climate change impact on senior housing and relocation, new medical and technological advancements, new housing trends, multigenerational living, Zoom memorials, brain health, legal needs when you have no children or family, isolation and more. Using her Six Pillars of Aging Wellbeing™ framework, Mary Jo Saavedra and a variety of expert contributors explore the needs, desires, realistic circumstances, opportunities for healthy and safe aging, and end of life care … something we all need to think about at some time or another.

As the elderly live longer and health care becomes more complex and expensive, the personal and financial burden placed on families attempting to care for an aging parent is greater than ever. Dr. Linda Rhodes has decades of experience in assisting families to navigate this often treacherous road; and she has her own personal story to tell. This mix of professional wisdom and warm personal insight makes The Essential Guide® to Caring for Aging Parents the perfect guide for anyone in need of an authoritative yet supportive voice to help an elderly parent not only live with dignity, but thrive. Dr. Rhodes shares with readers loads of advice garnered from her years as the Secretary of Aging for the state of Pennsylvania, as well as her own personal story of dealing with her parents' situation, often over long distances.

With over 12,500 American's turning fifty every day, it's no surprise that by 2015 those aged fifty and older will represent forty-five percent of the population. With facts like that, there has never been a greater time to learn about the decisions that need to be made as Americans age. A simple and easy-to-use guide filled with resources and checklists, this invaluable new manual provides readers with all the essential information needed for seniors to navigate the processes and decisions that come with aging. A comprehensive manual and essential resource, the guide also serves as a fundamental organizational tool that communicates all personal information and relevant wishes in a clear, concise, and simplified format. A perfect tool for seniors, veterans, the disabled, and their caregivers, this remarkable new guide is a comprehensive walkthrough of the various stages of aging. ElderCare Simplified: A Comprehensive Manual to Guide You Through the Stages of Aging is a priceless new instructional guide by Susan H. Little and Rose K. Traub that is targeted toward seniors, veterans, the disabled, and their caregivers. Filled with important information about the aging process, this unique guide covers every step of the way in an easy-to-understand and highly comprehensive manner. Written in a comforting and compassionate tone, the guide does wonders to ease the uncertainty and stress that are associated with aging. Written as an inexpensive and informative guide to help seniors as well as caregivers, ElderCare Simplified is a must read for anyone dealing with elderly or disabled loved ones. Recognizing the need for easily accessible and valuable information, this priceless guide compiles all of the hard-learned lessons of caregiving and aging into one all-encompassing resource that helps everyone from seniors to loved ones. With a noble cause and endless compassion, ElderCare Simplified is a must-own resource for anyone who has to face the decisions and realities of aging or caregiving. With a friendship spanning over thirty years, Traub and Little have each become the primary caregivers for their own parents and in-laws, and both learned that caregiving alone is a full-time job. With both of them possessing careers, children, and husbands, time and time again they relied on each other for emotional support as well as valuable information. Necessity drove them to learn the ins and outs of elder services, medical services, and hospice services. As they learned more, they began to see the need to share this knowledge with others in an effort to help people gain the direction they need in order to plan for the future. Traub has held various corporate managerial and sales positions and is currently employed by Hospice. She has worked as the fund development director and is the community access liaison. Little has a master's in educational leadership and retired after thirty-four years in public education as a teacher and assistant principal.

A large portion of America's baby boomers will face the unprecedented challenge of caring for parents and other aged relatives at a time when average life spans have grown longer than ever before in history. "Financing Eldercare" addresses this issue, offering advice on how to estimate and meet financial needs for eldercare, how to provide for elders' everyday needs, how to cope with illnesses, and more. Resource Appendix included.