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

A guide for children of aging parents addresses such issues as guilt, long-distance caregiving, and monetary concerns

Berman (Making It as a Stepparent) here offers an empathetic guide to caring for elderly parents. Drawing from personal experience, research and anecdotal reports, she cogently addresses the emotional and physical problems involved, all the while emphasizing the importance of caring for oneself. Following the overview delivered in introductory chapters, Berman examines such specific areas as financing, trying to care for needy parents long-distance, sharing the care among siblings and coping with loss. Keeping a clear eye on the emotional component, which is inevitably involved in decisions in which children become responsible for their parents, Berman delivers sensible advice and practical help. Appendices include a Caregiver's Bill of Rights; lists of support organizations, including state departments on aging, with addresses and phone numbers; a bibliography; and a suggested reading list.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Caregiving for an aging individual evokes an emotional roller coaster of feelings and needs in the caregiver, all of which call for recognition and resolution. Through an expert weave of personal stories, her own experience, and expert advice from others, author Berman (Making It As a Stepparent, Carol, 1992) speaks directly to the emotional, practical, and financial aspects of caregiving. Berman writes in an easy-to-read and -relate-to style. Among the topics she looks at in this unique emotional resource are communication, boundary-setting, attention to the caregiver's needs, the guilt involved in long-distance caregiving, sibling stress, decision-making, loss and grief, the nursing home dilemma, and the future picture for caregivers. She provides a listing of helpful resources, a caregiver bill of rights, and a suggested bibliography. This is truly a one-of-a-kind book, with practical suggestions aimed at validating and supporting the caregiver's emotional coping mechanisms. Highly recommended for general collections.?Linda Malone, Walter Reed Hospice, Newport News, Va.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

We are becoming a nation of caregivers, half of whom are over age 65; three-quarters are women. Berman's book is an invaluable safety net for adult children who care for aging parents. She uses personal experience, case histories, and interviews with geriatric professionals to blaze a trail for those who are "childing" (not really "parenting" ) mom or dad. The book provides the confidence and practical tools needed to balance the needs of the parent and the caregiver. Berman is adamant that the latter safeguard his or her own physical and emotional health to avoid becoming the burned-out "second patient." Whether the motive for care is affection, obligation, reciprocity, or an attempt to buy love or inherit money, Berman shows how to choose dedication over martyrdom, self-preservation over selflessness. There is also practical advice on adult day-care, in-home care, support groups, sibling tension, marital conflicts, and the dreaded nursing home decision. Berman's book is a subtle reminder that caregiving is a valuable learning experience, because some day the ones cared for will be us. Patricia Hassler