Aging with Care: Your Guide to Hiring and Managing Caregivers at Home

Finding the right fit to match aging adults with the best caregiver to assist them in their home can be fraught with challenge. In today’s pressurized world, the process involves overstressed family members and a shortage of great caregivers. So many adult children are seeking a helping hand and a friendly, experienced voice to guide them through this emotionally charged rite of passage.

Aging with Care: Your Guide to Hiring and Managing Caregivers in the Home, takes a personal, professional, and sometimes humorous approach to the challenges, benefits, pitfalls and problems of hiring in-home caregivers. Here, two geriatric care experts explore the essential credentials and experience a home caregiver should have, pitfalls to avoid, hiring options and managing costs, and the decisions that go into finding the right fit for your loved one to be able to age in place. Sharing stories and insights from interviews with caregivers and elders, as well as industry experts, they walk you through the ins and outs, and provide you with the tools necessary to making the best care choices you can for the ones you love.

Amanda Lambert is an Aging Life Care Professional, and Certified Care Manager who has worked for over 25 years in elder related services. She has worked in mental health, home health, and most recently care management and consultation. She is co-author with Leslie Eckford of Beating the Senior Blues: How to Feel Better and Enjoy Life Again. She is certified as an Advanced Aging Life Care Specialist through the Aging Life Care Association (formerly the National Academy of Geriatric Care Managers); a nationally certified Master Guardian; and a Care Manager Certified issued by the National Academy of Certified Care Managers. Amanda and Leslie have a website, Mindfulaging.com, where they post observations and articles on caregiving and policy, aging research, assisted living, technology, healthy aging, and the global challenges associated with taking care of elders. Amanda has presented to numerous professional groups through the years on a wide variety of topics. Amanda has been the chairperson of the Utah Gerontological Society; on the board of trustees of the oldest non-profit assisted living community in Utah, The Sarah Daft Home, and served on numerous other committees that advocate for elders. Amanda received an Outstanding Achievement Award from the State of Utah Division of Aging and Adult Services for her work in protecting the rights and safety of vulnerable adults.

Leslie Eckford is a licensed clinical social worker and registered nurse who has focused most of her practice on Geriatric Mental Health in inpatient geriatric hospital units and in community mental health centers. She is the co-author with Amanda Lambert of Beating the Senior Blues: How to Feel Better and Enjoy Life Again. Leslie has worked with geriatric mental health care teams including at the University of Arizona and the University of Virginia Medical Centers managing the treatment of psychiatric illnesses. Leslie has been a speaker in the community about topics affecting the lives of older adults including: Suicide in the Elderly, Resiliency and Aging, Issues of Intimacy in Older Years, and Hoarding.