Customer Reviews

Caring for Our Parents: Inspiring Stories of Families Seeking New Solutions to America's Most Urgent Health Crisis

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The book offers tons of practical advice--of tremendous value to anyone going through the horrid experience of caring for an elderly parent. But it manages to do it while still being a great read, too. The people Gleckman interviews come alive on the page. You'd think their stories would be depressing, but, instead, they're inspiring.

What makes Gleckman's book both interesting and important is the way he connects the complex issues of health reform with the real-life consequences of misguided health-care policy. Lost all too often in our current chaotic debate on health care is how these choices and decisions become the centerpiece in the lives of us all. Lost in some current debate is the simple notion that we will all get old, that we will all need care as we age, and that all of our good intentions and well-intentioned planning may not be enough to prevent financial or personal disaster for our parents and ourselves. Gleckman presents us with human problems that have been caused by, and thus can be remedied by, our own decisions.

I would surely suggest this book to anyone interested in any aspect of health care reform; to anyone who is or may need to care for an aging parent; and to anyone who intends to age happily and gracefully. In other words, I recommend it to everyone.

"Caring For Our Parents" tackles with aplomb and sensitivity what is bound to become a major challenge in coming decades--how to provide long-term health care for an aging US population. Caring for elderly parents is increasingly a major challenge for members of the Baby Boom generation like myself. With the huge number of Baby Boomers set to begin retirement in the next couple of decades, the issue of developing ways of providing long-term care for the aged, and paying for that care, will become a pressing and daunting challenge. The current battle over changes to the health care insurance system likely is a preview of the debates that will arise again as the nation is forced to confront the issue of providing long-term care for its elderly citizens in a humane, cost-effective fashion.

Howard Gleckman deftly frames the issues in this debate in a relatively concise book that will appeal to both lay readers and health care policy specialists. The book features both touching stories of people around the country trying to come up with solutions to care for their aging parents, as well as informed discussion of some of the emerging alternatives for providing long-term care--and the options for financing that care. The book examines a range of alternatives to the traditional nursing home, and offers a variety of innovative solutions for financing long-term care. A discussion of how other countries deal with this issue is particularly illuminating. Howard Gleckman's book discusses a range of potential solutions in a civil, non-preachy manner that is a welcome contrast to the shrill, combative style of debate that has become so in vogue on the airwaves. Hopefully, the book will prompt deeper examination and analysis that will encourage creative solutions to deal with a difficult problem.

Caring For Our Parents (2009) is a beautifully written, well-researched and easy to read book about negotiating long term healthcare and housing as you age. Too many of our parents are losing their life savings to pay for long term and end-of-life care. Using stories from persons he interviewed, Gleckman describes what is wrong with our health and welfare systems, then offers and describes solutions -- innovative alternatives to support long term healthcare and housing. This book is for baby boomers and younger who are attempting to figure out how to plan for healthcare and housing as they age. It is for family members who want to better understand the current long term care system and explore ways to offer alternative care for their loved ones as they age. This is for healthcare practitioners frustrated with some of the structural difficulties they face in providing good, quality long term care and it is a must read for policy makers, anyone on the fore-front of healthcare reform today.

Americans are living longer than ever before. A sixty-five year old woman today will likely live into her eighties, and men are living longer too. Many of these will become the "frail elderly," unable to dress themselves or go to the bathroom without help. Many will suffer from strokes, dementia, or just becoming weaker and weaker. They are, as the author says, "dying in slow motion." Many are cared for by children and relatives, as Gleckman and his wife cared for their parents. Many will need trained home health care workers or more likely will end up in nursing homes, living there, often for years, until the end finally comes.
Mr Gleckman goes beyond the angry all-or-nothing, either-or debates raging across our country about the good or evil of a national health care plan. He interviews many quite ordinary people, who live far from any centers of political power. We meet both the elderly, who desperately need health care, and those who give it as best they can like family members, often exhausting themselves and their financial resources, to care for those they love. He travels to different parts of the country to examine modest experiments in small-population group homes, community care, and in programs to train health care givers, both family members and professional workers. He also examines the good and the bad in the national health systems of Canada, England and Europe.
He tells people's stories with simple clarity and touching modesty, allowing the people he interviews to speak for themselves, rather than using them as tools in an angry, partisan argument. You will be touched and even made hopeful by this book. And most of all you will leave the book informed in both mind and conscience.

This book is replete with essential information for anyone in a long-term care situation, whether they're caring for an aging parent or a loved one suffering from a chronic illness or disability. (And once you consider that most people will find themselves dealing with long-term care eventually, it's not an exaggeration to say that Caring for Our Parents is appropriate for nearly everyone.) Gleckman deftly shepherds the reader through the intricacies of Medicare and Medicaid, long-term care insurance and Social Security, and all the rest of the "behind the scenes" requirements for administering -- and paying for -- long-term care. The book is practical, accessible, and engaging: Gleckman has a gift for bringing his characters to life on the page and presenting information in cogent, concise language. Each story he tells is moving and informative.

The book should also be required reading for anyone interested in or at work on health care reform. Overall, it's a superior book -- well researched, beautifully written, and thoroughly engaging. I left feeling much more informed and, just as its subtitle suggests, inspired.

Like many 40-somethings, I know that at some point my siblings and I may (nay, will) be called upon to care for our parents. And like many 40-somethings, I knew little about what the options were, much less which ones would be best. This book engages you with stories of people from all walks of life facing similar situations, explains existing health care benefits and options, then deftly ties them into the health policy issues -- what policymakers are doing, can do, or should do -- in a way that is very understandable. While the oulook is not always the most uplifting, reading this book is very empowering -- to feel like you have a grasp of the issues and can make smart choices. (I'm off to buy long-term care insurance now...)