The Caregiver's Path To Compassionate Decision Making: Making Choices For Those Who Can't (Home Nursing Caring) [Paperback]

Viki Kind (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2010

Winner of the 2011 Caregiver Friendly Award --Today's Caregiver magazine

Wouldn't it be a relief to know you are making the right decisions and doing right by the person in your care? Whether you have a loved one who can't make his or her own decisions or you are a healthcare professional, you know how difficult--even heartbreaking--it can be to make decisions for others. Feeling confident that you're made the right decision would be a welcome relief from the worry and guilt you may be feeling.

The Caregiver's Path to Compassionate Decision Making offers tools and techniques that will limit your frustration and fears and help you make informed, respectful decisions. Extremely practical, yet also heartfelt, the book offers:

• Four adaptable tools that make decision making a simple, step-by-step process
• Guidlines to help you determine if your loved one or patient can make decisions, who should make the decisions, and how to make better decisions
• Questions to use in almost any medical or quality-of-life situation that will help you gather all of the information you need
• Techniques for improving communication between patients, families and caregivers

''Kind, a clinical bioethicist, shares tools and strategies in this step-by-step guide for making health-care choices for those who can't. She clarifies complex and sensitive matters by stripping away extraneous questions that frequently distract caregivers and decision makers from key considerations to what Kind identifies as core questions concerning the individual patient's decisional capacity, past and present communication abilities, and developmental and mental stages. Kind's detailed approach is anchored to what she calls the Best Interest Standard for the patient. Designed not as a recipe or prescription but rather as a process to help readers think their ways through difficult decisions, Kind's guide encourages careful, methodical, and informed thought, and to that end, it contains flowcharts, case studies, personal anecdotes, and gridlike frameworks for decision making organized by useful categories. With an index, list of references, and appendix materials, including a glossary and key forms, Kind provides solid advice for anyone faced with some of life's most challenging and important dilemmas.'' --Whitney Scott, Booklist magazine

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Kind, a clinical bioethicist, shares tools and strategies in this step-by-step guide for making health-care choices for those who can’t. She clarifies complex and sensitive matters by stripping away extraneous questions that frequently distract caregivers and decision makers from key considerations to what Kind identifies as core questions concerning the individual patient’s decisional capacity, past and present communication abilities, and developmental and mental stages. Kind’s detailed approach is anchored to what she calls the Best Interest Standard for the patient. Designed not as a recipe or prescription but rather as a process to help readers think their ways through difficult decisions, Kind’s guide encourages careful, methodical, and informed thought, and to that end, it contains flowcharts, case studies, personal anecdotes, and gridlike frameworks for decision making organized by useful categories. With an index, list of references, and appendix materials, including a glossary and key forms, Kind provides solid advice for anyone faced with some of life’s most challenging and important dilemmas. --Whitney Scott

About the Author

Viki Kind, MA, is a clinical bioethicist, medical educator, and hospice volunteer. She is a renowned lecturer, who inspires healthcare professionals throughout the United States to have integrity and compassion and teaches them techniques to improve communication about end-of-life care. She is the co-creator of the nationally distributed DVD, The Trusted Advisor: Relate, Respect and Respond, which focuses on improving the senior patient's medical experience. Patients, families, and healthcare professionals have come to rely on Viki's practical approach to dealing with challenging healthcare dilemmas.

Viki provides bioethics consultation and support for many hospitals in the Los Angeles area. She is also a member of the Los Angeles County Bar Association's Bioethics Committee and the Southern California Bioethics Committee Consortium. She holds a master's degree in bioethics from the Medical College of Wisconsin and a bachelor's degree in speech communication from California State University and Northridge. She also has specialized training in mediation and cultural negotiation from Pepperdine University and UCLA.

Viki resides in Los Angeles with her husband, Ed, and her cat, BooBoo.

Product Details

• Paperback: 216 pages
• Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group; 1 edition (July 1, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1608320413
• ISBN-13: 978-1608320417
• Product Dimensions: 0.7 x 5.4 x 8.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #288,201 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #53 in Books > Medical Books > Nursing > Nursing Home Care

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Making an Unpleasant Topic Not So Bad! July 14, 2010

By Terri Corcoran

Format:Paperback

"Kind" is the perfect last name for Viki Kind (and yes, it's her real name!), a bioethicist and long-time hospice volunteer who has written the book The Caregiver's Path to Compassionate Decision Making: Making Choices for Those Who Can't. She has taken a very difficult, painful subject and produced a highly intelligent, comprehensive and most of all "compassionate" resource for caregivers who must make medical and end-of-life decisions for loved ones suffering from mental impairments which prevent them from making their own informed decisions.
In contrast to most "how to" books that overwhelm already over-burdened caregivers with lists of medical and legal to-do lists, Kind understands exactly how we caregivers feel, and she leads us very gently and lovingly into the dark night of decisions, from starting new medications and taking away the car keys to moving a loved one to a care facility and life-or-death medical decisions. Stating in the book's introduction that "One area of caregiver stress comes from not knowing what to do," Kind always prefaces her detailed and clearly written advice with words of comfort and assurance that although these are very unappealing issues, we can get through the ordeals with some degree of peace.
The Caregiver's Path sets forth how to use both your heart and mind to make loving and reasonable decisions for a mentally impaired loved one. Kind starts out by explaining how to evaluate the ill person's mental capacity and to what degree decisions need to be made for them by others. She presents tools which empower the caregiver to be assertive with doctors and hospital staff in finding the best care options.... A chapter entitled "When Our Hearts Get in the Way" reassuringly brings understanding of the caregiver's fears and stresses, and emphasizes the importance of the caregiver's well-being with sections such as "The Promises We Can't Keep", "Choosing the Least Worst Option" and "Protecting the Caregiver".
It should be of great relief for the caregiver to read that there is not just one "right" answer in decision-making; there are many variables to consider, such as religious or cultural values of the ill person, and especially the ill person's wishes, to the extent that they are known. Caregivers are allowed some creative space in resolving the issues at hand, rather than having to determine some elusive "correct" response to a situation. Kind discusses medical goals versus quality of life goals, including an enlightening explanation of CPR and how the reality of its value is not "as seen on TV" - "When you picture the last minutes of your loved one's life, do you see strangers straddling the patient on a bed, pushing on the patient's chest, while the family waits outside the door? Or do you see a time with family and friends gathered around the bedside, with words of love being expressed, music being played or prayers being said?"
The book further clarifies the often-misunderstood definitions of Palliative Care, Comfort Care and Hospice Care; and Kind's amazingly compassionate manner actually makes death seem not so scary.
As the caregiver of an ill husband with very minimal mental capacity, I found The Caregiver's Path to be an invaluable tool to hang on my caregiver's tool belt - and a tool that is presented with such love, understanding and KINDness that it is not the burden I would have expected such a book to be. Very readable! Read more ›

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Alzheimer's Caregivers' Necessity August 27, 2010

By Jacqueline M. Baldwin

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I have been running a support group for Caregiver's of Alzheimers or dementia patients for over 15 years. I always try to find books that will help them in this journey since my husband had Alzheimer's disease for 20 years. When I saw this book on Amazon, I knew it would be a good book to offer my group of 16 people. So far, everyone that has read it have been very appreciative of the information they have gleaned from its contents. I will continue looking for helpful information on Amazon as they always have wonderful books containing much needed help.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Practical and Easy-to-Apply Methods for Making Tough Caregiving Decisions July 26, 2010

By Jacqueline Marcell

Format:Paperback

Great help for caregivers of those who've lost some or all of their mental capacities due to any type of dementia (such as Alzheimer's), stroke, brain injury, mental illness, Parkinson's or developmental delays. Caregivers of the incapacitated inherently doubt their choices and decisions. "Should we try this procedure, treatment or medication... or should we stop all efforts and opt for a dignified death?" As a bioethicist, Vicki shows us how to reach sound decisions medically as well as ethically.

Full of practical advice such as: how to document health care wishes in Advance Directives, end-of-life issues, how to take away car keys, and how to break a promise of not placing someone in a nursing home. Also includes a decision making diagram to reinforce the learning process and shortcuts for adapting to a patient's fluctuations and needs.

-Jacqueline Marcell, Author 'Elder Rage, or Take My Father... Please! How to Survive Caring for Aging Parents', International Speaker on Eldercare & Alzheimer's

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Informed and Proactive Caregiving June 27, 2010

By Frances Shani Parker

Format:Paperback

Author Viki Kind walks readers through the healthcare maze of medical terms, forms, decisions, burnout, joys, death, and grief. Practical questions that readers might be considering are presented with general topics and interesting examples of ordinary people bridging gaps between inexperience and practice in their roles as caregivers are given. Within a framework of ongoing respect for everyone involved in the caregiving process, especially patients, her book educates and encourages proactivity among readers facing healthcare challenges.
By Frances Shani Parker, Author, Becoming Dead Right: A Hospice Volunteer in Urban Nursing Homes

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Compassionate Decsion Making November 30, 2010

By Life Coach Christine

Format:Paperback

It is a frightening position to be in; Making a decision for a loved one. You want to do the right thing, but you are overcome with fear of making the wrong decision. Viki Kind, MA has written The Caregiver's Path to Compassionate Decision Making: Making Choices for Those Who Can't. In it, Viki has given caregiver's tools we can use as we travel this unfamiliar road. But she goes beyond the presenting of mere tools, she takes the reader by the hand and walks us through applying the process to different real life scenarios. She does this with both compassion and honesty.
Viki speaks as a professional bio-ethicist, but more importantly, as the voice of experience. Long before she became a bio-ethicist, she traveled this road first with her mother and then later with her father. Her personal experience was the catalyst for her career choice.
This book is a must read for caregiver's struggling with decision making.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Greatest book on caring for an aging parent October 25, 2010

By Wayne from Granada Hills,CA

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I was introduced to Viki through a local non profit group. We exchanged emails and I bought her book. My expectations were high that I had many questions about how to deal with an aging parent. I started the book and found it was very difficult to put it down. Viki's style of writing is just like you were sitting next to her and having a conversation with a friend. Viki shares a lot of personal history to draw you into the understanding of each topic. I found that Viki's style of sharing that she made mistakes when she was caring for her mother makes us feel vulnerable, but also opens the reader up to the position of we are all human and there is no way we could know everything. If we do things from the heart and seek counsel when we are out of our comfort zone, the rest should fall into place. Viki will be speaking in our local community soon and I am anxiously waiting to meet her and tell her how much I enjoyed her book.