Caring for Yourself While Caring for Your Aging Parents: How to Help, How to Survive

A completely revised edition of this guidebook for adult children who care for aging parents, with new information on nursing homes and an updated resource section.

This helpful, compassionate guide for individuals who are involved in caring for aging parents, (and for those who see caretaking in their future) centers on the emotional stresses and needs of caregivers, while at the sametime addressing all the practical issues they are likely to confront. Claire Berman--drawing on her own experiences, the experiences of many other adult children, and interviews with specialists in geriatrics--discusses the wide range of emotions that can accompany caregiving.

Caring for Yourself, While Caring for Your Aging Parents provides the confidence and practical tools necessary to balance the needs of the parent and the caregiver. Berman provides an invaluable safety net for those going through a difficult time and emphasizes that the caregiver safeguard his or her own physical and emotional health to avoid becoming the burned-out "second patient. Berman shows how to choose dedication over martyrdom and self-preservation over selflessness. There is also sensible advice on common dilemmas caregivers encounter, including those involving adult day-care, in-home care, support groups, sibling tension, and marital conflicts.

Completely revised with a new chapter on nursing homes, as well as updated statistics and resources throughout, CARING FOR YOURSELF WHILE CARING FOR YOUR AGING PARENTS shows readers that there is much they can do to help themselves and their parents through the stressful and humbling challenges that so many of us face today.

Claire Berman, a widely published author of books and articles, specializes in writing about the emotional dimensions of relationships. Her other books include Making it as a Stepparent and The Golden Craddle. She has appeared on national and local television and radio programs to promote her books.