Caregiving

For Ben Benjamin, all has been lost—his wife, his family, his home, his livelihood. Hoping to find a new direction, he has enrolled in a night class called the Fundamentals of Caregiving. There he learns the basics of the art of inserting catheters while avoiding liability, and he is instructed about professionalism and how to keep an emotional distance between client and provider. But when Ben is assigned his first client—a tyrannical nineteen-year-old boy named Trevor who is in the advanced stages of Duchenne muscular dystrophy—he soon discovers that the endless service checklists have done nothing to prepare him for the reality of caring for a fiercely stubborn, sexually frustrated teenager who has an ax to grind with the whole world. Over time, the relationship between Ben and Trev, which had begun with mutual misgivings, evolves into a close friendship, and the traditional boundaries between patient and caregiver begin to blur. The bond between them strengthens while they're on a road trip to visit Trev's ailing father—a journey diverted by a series of bizarre must-see roadside attractions that propels them into an impulsive adventure disrupted by one birth, two arrests, a freakish dust storm, and a six-hundred-mile cat-and-mouse pursuit by a mysterious brown Buick Skylark. By the end of that journey, Trev has had his first taste of love, and Ben has found a new reason to love life. Bursting with energy and filled with moments of absolute beauty, this big-hearted and inspired novel ponders life's terrible surprises as well as the heart's uncanny capacity to mend.

"Nurses play a vital role in improving the safety and quality of patient car -- not only in the hospital or ambulatory treatment facility, but also of community-based care and the care performed by family members. Nurses need know what proven techniques and interventions they can use to enhance patient outcomes. To address this need, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), with additional funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, has prepared this comprehensive, 1,400-page, handbook for nurses on patient safety and quality -- Patient Safety and Quality: An Evidence-Based Handbook for Nurses. (AHRQ Publication No. 08-0043)." - online AHRQ blurb, http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/nurseshdbk/

Caring for a parent whose health is in decline turns the world upside down. The emotional fallout can be devastating, but it doesn't have to be that way. Empathic guidance from an expert who's been there can help. Through an account of two sisters and their ailing mother--interwoven with no-nonsense advice--The Emotional Survival Guide for Caregivers helps family members navigate tough decisions and make the most of their time together as they care for an aging parent. The author urges readers to be honest about the level of commitment they're able to make and emphasizes the need for clear communication within the family. While acknowledging their guilt, stress, and fatigue, he helps caregivers reaffirm emotional connections worn thin by the routine of daily care. This compassionate book will help families everywhere avoid burnout and preserve bonds during one of life's most difficult passages.

For many, caring for a chronically ill family member is “the right thing to do”, but it is also often a source of emotional hardship, physical stress, and social isolation. In response, skill-building, coping, and psychoeducational programs have emerged to help caregivers meet the changes and challenges in their – as well as the patients’ – lives. Education and Support Programs for Caregivers reveals the diversity of the caregiver population as well as their experiences and needs, and it introduces an empirically solid framework for planning, implementing, and evaluating caregiver programs. The book synthesizes current trends, exploring the effectiveness of different types of programs (e.g., clinic, community, home based) and groups (e.g., peer, professional, self-help), and how supportive programs lead to improved care. Coverage includes: Improving service delivery of education and support programs to underserved caregivers. Cultural, ethnic, and gender issues in conducting caregiver education and support groups. Utilization patterns (e.g., a key to understanding service needs). E-health, telehealth, and other technological developments in caregiver services. Evaluating the effectiveness and sustainability of programs. Recommendations for future practice, training, policy, and advocacy. Education and Support Programs for Caregivers offers a wealth of insights and ideas for researchers, practitioners, and graduate students across the caregiving fields, including psychology, social work, public health, geriatrics and gerontology, and medicine as well as public and education policy makers.

Effective, meaningful caregiving requires a well-coordinated and informed effort guided by various highly skilled specialists across several interrelated professions, including psychologists, social workers, and occupational therapists. Multidisciplinary Coordinated Caregiving addresses the information needs of these interrelated professionals, contributing to the direct care of individuals and serving as an essential resource for those who ultimately create collaborative approaches to contemporary caregiving plans. In addition, the volume provides a wealth of evidence-based research findings to facilitate ongoing dialogue about multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives on and interventions for the complex challenge of caregiving in America. Key areas of coverage include: The status of professional caregiving in the United States. Nursing perspectives on the state of family caregiving. Psychological aspects of caregiving. A human development, lifespan perspective on caregiving during late life. Public health contributions to caregiving. Multidisciplinary Coordinated Caregiving offers a wealth of insights for those researchers, practitioners, and graduate students who seek to optimize the care of individuals across such fields as psychology, social work, public health, geriatrics and gerontology, and medicine as well as public and educational policy making.

Most scholars do not consider the long-term nature of caregiving, but rather focus on a specific developmental period (e.g., old age) or a specific disability (e.g., cancer). Yet the most important lessons about caregiving may occur at any age, regardless of disabilities or other limitations. Caregiving is a lifelong process. It begins in a mother’s womb, continues throughout the lifespan, and ends after death. Caregiving Across the Lifespan emphasizes caregiving as a process that occurs throughout one’s life. It discusses infant care, the developmental needs of children and adolescents, the many caregiving issues in adulthood and mid-life, and finally end-of-life care and bereavement. Key coverage includes: Examining caregiving issues across a developmental perspective. Caregiving from infancy through early childhood through end of life. Mid-life and multigenerational bonds and responsibilities. Caregiver identity in older adults. Family caregiving at the end of life. This must-have volume offers a wealth of insights and ideas for researchers, practitioners, and graduate students across the caregiving fields, including psychology, social work, public health, geriatrics and gerontology, and medicine as well as public and education policy makers.

Family Caregiving explores one of the most precious and fulfilling gifts of love that can be given to a family member or a friendand also one of the most difficult tasks to undertake. The difficulty increases in magnitude because many family caregivers have no formal medical training other than basic first aid. In most cases, all of their medical knowledge has come from their own life experiences with personal illnesses, accidents, and medications. In Family Caregiving, author Brett Lewis shares his insights and the bounty of information that he learned acting as a family caregiver for both his father and his close friend. He explains that even though caregiving is stressful, being prepared and knowledgeable can reduce stress levels and better position a family member for caregiving success. A caregiver should have a thorough understanding of the patients personal and family medical history, current symptoms, and medical conditions. It is critical to learn how to interact effectively with medical personnel; to become familiar with hospital/rehabilitation center processes and protocols; and to learn about basic medical terminology, equipment, and procedures. By sharing candid, real-world experiencesincluding his mistakesLewis provides a step-by-step guide that can enable the family caregiver to better navigate the journey of caregiving.

Groundbreaking information for caregivers—and those receiving care It is more common now than ever before for partners, family members, and friends to provide informal care, yet caregiving in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) communities has received little attention. Caregiving with Pride is the pioneering examination of caregiving experiences in the LGBT population. This important text also provides a frank discussion of the issues involved in needing and receiving care as well. Comprehensive and up-to-date, this both a timely account of an important field and practical information for implementing change. Unique in its focus and scope, Caregiving with Pride offers readers original research and new summaries and analyses of existing literature. With a wide-ranging approach that is both readable and enlightening, this essential collection recognizes the changing nature of families as central to the issues of caregiving and LGBT communities. It features articles that insist on and illustrate the importance of taking both identity issues and socio-cultural policy contexts of caregiving into account. While maintaining a multifaceted biopsychosocial perspective that is critical to understanding the varied aspects of this topic, contributors discuss: the prevalence of caregiving with LGBT communities health issues and the needs of those requiring care the unique risk and protective factors impacting HIV/AIDS caregivers the psychological effects - positive and negative - of caregiving family and personal - “chosen family” - relationships interactions with formal systems of health and long-term care effects of history and social stigma on those needing and giving care how current social policies impede LGBT people in their access to care the ways established medical guidelines hinder LGBT caregivers in their efforts to help existing interventions and opportunities to better sever these communities and much more! While Caregiving with Pride provides a detailed perspective of the current state of this often overlooked field, it also looks ahead and outlines a practical, useable blueprint for future research, services, and policies in marginalized communities. As an informative stand-alone resource, Caregiving with Pride is essential for gerontologists, sociologists, historians, social workers, psychologists, educators, researchers, and policy makers. In addition, this collection is ideal as a supplementary text for students of aging, women studies, GLBT studies, sociology, and health studies as well as the larger GLBT community.