Customer Reviews

Caring for Your Aging Parents: A Common-Sense Guide for Transforming a Difficult Time Into a Loving, Cooperative Relationship

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One of the challenges of life that many of us will have to face at some point is dealing with our aging parents. This is a very difficult time with many specialized problems. This book walks the reader through some of the most important problems they will have to deal with including gaining perspective, discovering when your parents have a hidden agenda, and dealing with problems of communication. It even includes information on the very difficult problems of transferring authority from the parent to the child, changing living arrangements, driving, remarriage and planning for death. Of course all of this is very helpful information but the one thing books like this tend to overlook is the importance of taking care of yourself as well as your parent. The authors here do not miss that detail but emphasize it's importance as an integral part of your planning.

Some of the issues discussed in this section include how to deal with the problems in a caring and yet professional manner, dealing with guilt, anxiety, non-appreciative parents, getting other family members to help, health issues, finances, and emotional struggles. Even the appendix is unusually helpful and contains many resources for the elderly as well as for children dealing with elderly parents. This is required reading for anyone caring for the elderly in addition to people who will have to care for their parents at some point. Read it and be prepared for what will be one of the most emotionally gratifying and emotionally trying times of your life. Caring for Your Aging Parents is highly recommended.

Reviewed by Linda Benninghoff for Reader Views (10/06)

"Caring for Your Aging Parents" is remarkable for its thoroughness and for the hope it offers for seniors. Its discussion of the adult children-parent relationship is fascinating and the book is successful in pointing out ways to improve this relationship. According to the authors, some children never quite become adults, remain irresponsible and in need of parental authority. This may continue even as their parents age. Other children mature and take on responsibility. In some cases, the relationship remains stable. In this status-quo relationship where the children's and parent's roles remain unchanged and the parental authority is unquestioned, the parents are often financially independent and have the money to pay for nursing home care. In other cases, the dynamic changes and the parents become dependent on the adult children, either financially or emotionally, or both. The book makes suggestions as to how to make this difficult time when the parents grow old a time of a healthy, loving, cooperative relationship.

There follows a discussion of resources available for seniors and helpful hints about how to care for an aging parent. Checking up on medication, seeing that the parents are eating, and distinguishing depression and anxiety from dementia, are among the day-to-day activities the adult child can engage in to help the parents cope. For the aging parent, there are many resources available despite his or her diminishing capacities. For some, this is an excellent time to go back to school. Other parents may go back to work. Still others may go to a senior center, although they may not like being exclusively with elderly people.

Yet the disabilities of aging are many. There comes a time when Mom or Dad may stop driving. Then there is the time for assisted living, a retirement community or a nursing home. There is some discussion in the book on finances. Medicare does not cover someone with a chronic condition such as Alzheimers. In order to get proper coverage, the adult child must act before Mom or Dad becomes ill and is caught without coverage.

The authors discuss empowerment groups such as AARP and the Gray Panthers. There are 34.5 million members of the American Association of Retired persons having their say in many areas, including medical benefits and the demand for better senior housing. "The Gray Panthers proved that it's productive to band together and make noise about age discrimination," the authors say. "Caring for Your Aging Parents" finishes by asking what it will be like for us when we age. Will our children take care of us? Will seniors attain an even greater voice in society and rights, such as the right to better medical care and better housing, at that time?

Received book free of charge.

Written by an award-winning journalist and a clinical professor of psychiatry, Caring For Your Aging Parents is a compassionate guide to dealing with eldercare, written especially for middle-aged and older children charged with the responsibility of looking after their elderly parents. Chapters cover especially focus upon psychological issues, including how to bridge the communication gap, how to express care and concern without reinforcing negative behavior, the transfer of authority from parent to child, how to find the best living arrangements if one's parents have to move, dealing with confusion and memory loss, how to help aging parents find positive way of compensating for losses and debilities, and much more. A valuable resource, drawing upon anecdotal, psychological, and medical evidence to provide much-needed wisdom in an era of aging baby boomers.