Caregivers Bookshelf

We recommend these books and DVDs for family caregivers. Arranged by topic, we’ve noted which books are also available in a Kindle edition (most are).

Aging Parents | Eldercare

#1 Best Seller
Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End [affiliate link]. In Being Mortal, bestselling author Atul Gawande tackles the hardest challenge of his profession: how medicine can not only improve life but also the process of its ending

In the inevitable condition of aging and death, the goals of medicine seem too frequently to run counter to the interest of the human spirit. Nursing homes, preoccupied with safety, pin patients into railed beds and wheelchairs. Hospitals isolate the dying, checking for vital signs long after the goals of cure have become moot. Doctors, committed to extending life, continue to carry out devastating procedures that in the end extend suffering.

Gawande, a practicing surgeon, addresses his profession’s ultimate limitation, arguing that quality of life is the desired goal for patients and families. Gawande offers examples of freer, more socially fulfilling models for assisting the infirm and dependent elderly, and he explores the varieties of hospice care to demonstrate that a person’s last weeks or months may be rich and dignified.

Full of eye-opening research and riveting storytelling, Being Mortal asserts that medicine can comfort and enhance our experience even to the end, providing not only a good life but also a good end.

Kindle and paperback editions are available.

When Your Aging Parent Needs Help: A Geriatrician’s Step-by-Step Guide to Memory Loss, Resistance, Safety Worries, & More [affiliate link] It’s scary and stressful when it happens — noticing changes in your parent and becoming increasingly worried about their health and safety. Maybe it’s Mom leaving the stove on, Dad getting lost on his way home, or unpaid bills that trigger this realization. Or perhaps there have been falls or emergency room visits. Whatever it is, you know something’s wrong. You wonder about a diagnosis. And you want your aging parent to accept help, or perhaps move.

Kindle and paperback editions are available.

How to Care for Aging Parents (A One-Stop Resource for All Your Medical, Financial, Housing, and Emotional Issues) [affiliate link]. Hailed as “an excellent resource” by the Family Caregiver Alliance, this is an authoritative, clear, and comforting source of advice and support for the ever-growing number of Americans — now 42 million — who care for an elderly parent, relative, or friend. Now, in its third edition, it is completely overhauled and updated, chapter-by-chapter and page-by-page, with the most recent medical findings and recommendations.

Kindle and paperback editions are available.

Coping With Your Difficult Older Parent : A Guide for Stressed-Out Children [affiliate link]

Do You Have An Aging Parent Who:

•  Blames you for everything that goes wrong?
•  Is hostile, negative and critical?
•  Cannot tolerate being alone, wants you all the time?
•  Is obsessed with health problems, real, or imagined?
•  Makes unreasonable and/or irrational demands of you?

For the first time, here’s a common-sense guide from professionals, with more than two decades in the field, on how to smooth communications with a challenging parent. Filled with practical tips for handling contentious behaviors …

Kindle and paperback editions are available.

How to Say It to Seniors: Closing the Communication Gap with Our Elders [affiliate link] The author, David Solie, explains the new challenges seniors face — often alone, as peers and spouses die — and the twin conflicts they must come to terms with — the need for control and the need to let go. Walking us through their worlds — worlds that, if we’re honest, we can’t but guess at — Solie gently prods us to reevaluate WHY we are communicating so poorly and how we can improve. In the end, it is we who must change, especially our instinct to bully seniors into more comfortable situations (usually for US, but as always, “for their own good”).

Kindle and paperback editions are available.

ABA/AARP Checklist for Family Caregivers: A Guide to Making it Manageable [affiliate link] Caregiving is inevitably fraught with complex issues — emotional as well as medical, financial, and legal. The ABA/AARP Checklist for Family Caregivers by Sally Balch Hurme can help you organize the responsibilities that caregivers face. This new book will save you time and simplify the daunting tasks of caregiving. Hurme shows you how to become a trusted steward — without losing your sanity. And if you don’t know where to start, this invaluable tool tells you, step by step, what you need and why.

Kindle and paperback editions are available.

The Educated Caregiver, Three DVD Set [affiliate link] “The Educated Caregiver” is an award-winning series devoted to helping you, the caregiver, cope with your caregiving responsibilities and to teach the practical skills you need to provide the best care possible. It has won numerous accolades from leading experts in the field, including a National Award from Mature Media.

Through interviews and demonstrations, experienced caregivers and health care professionals provide invaluable tips and explain the proper procedures of caregiving tasks, making caregiving easier for those young and old alike. Each DVD has been edited into short, stand-alone sections to fit into your busy schedule.

Alzheimer’s | Dementia

The 36-Hour Day: A Family Guide to Caring for People Who Have Alzheimer Disease, Other Dementias, and Memory Loss (A Johns Hopkins Press Health Book) [affiliate link], by Nancy L. Mace, M.A. and Peter V. Rabins, M.D. and M.P.H. Despite the dozens of similar books that are now available, The 36-Hour Day is still the best-selling guide for caring for someone with dementia. Now in it’s sixth edition, everything’s covered, from managing the beginning stages of the disease, to finding more appropriate living arrangements when living at home is no longer an option.

Kindle and paperback editions are available.

Creating Moments of Joy Along the Alzheimer’s Journey: A Guide for Families and Caregivers, Fifth Edition, Revised and Expanded [affiliate link] The author, Jolene Brackey, has a vision — a vision that will soon look beyond the challenges of Alzheimer’s disease and focus more of our energy on creating moments of joy. When a person has short-term memory loss, his life is made up of moments. But if you think about it, our memory is made up of moments, too. We are not able to create a perfectly wonderful day with someone who has dementia, but it is absolutely attainable to create a perfectly wonderful moment; a moment that puts a smile on their face, a twinkle in their eye, or triggers a memory. Five minutes later, they won’t remember what you did or said, but the feeling you left them with will linger.

Kindle and paperback editions are available.

The Validation Breakthrough: Simple Techniques for Communicating with People with Alzheimer’s and Other Dementias [affiliate link] Validation is a practical technique for communicating with and managing problem behavior in older adults with Alzheimer’s. It helps reduce stress, enhance dignity, and increase happiness. Since its inception in 1989, the Validation technique has helped thousands of professional and family caregivers improve their relationships with residents and loved ones.

Kindle and paperback editions are available.

Alzheimer’s from the Inside Out [affiliate link] Dr. Richard Taylor, who passed away July 25, 2015, was a rare person with Alzheimer’s who offers a glimpse into an unfathomable existence. In short essays, he spoke eloquently and poignantly about the confusion, losses, and frustrations produced in a person’s daily life, personal relationships, and deepest identity by this ravaging disease.

Kindle edition available

On Pluto: Inside the Mind of Alzheimer’s: 2nd Edition [affiliate link] A journalist for more than 35 years, Greg O’Brien uses his reporting skills to investigate and document his journey through dementia, just as he would any other journalistic story. His memoir gives us a glimpse of the devastating disease from an insider’s perspective.

Kindle and paperback editions are available.

Surviving Alzheimer’s: Practical Tips and Soul-Saving Wisdom for Caregivers [affiliate link] What every family member of a loved one with dementia needs to know: How to help without sacrificing YOU. In Surviving Alzheimer’s you’ll find:

• The best, most current thinking on how to enhance quality of life and safety while minimizing stress on everyone involved.
• The “Why This, Try This” approach to understanding what’s behind odd, frustrating behaviors — and what you can do about them.
• How to defuse resentment, guilt, anger, and family friction.
• Lifesaving insights from a team of top dementia-care experts from geriatrics, psychiatry, social work, law, dementia therapy, and caregiver advocacy.
• Stories and ideas from real families.

Kindle and paperback editions are available.

Learning to Speak Alzheimer’s: A Groundbreaking Approach for Everyone Dealing with the Disease [affiliate link] Revolutionizing the way we perceive and live with Alzheimer’s, the author, Joanne Koenig Coste, offers a practical approach to the emotional well-being of both patients and caregivers that emphasizes relating to patients in their own reality. Her comprehensive method, which she calls habilitation, works to enhance communication between carepartners and patients and has proven successful with thousands of people living with dementia. Learning to Speak Alzheimer’s also offers hundreds of practical tips, including how to …

Kindle and paperback editions are available.

Money | Legal

Everyday Law for Seniors [affiliate link], by Lawrence A. Frolik and Linda S. Whitton, expert attorneys of elder law. Comprehensive and clearly written in language everyone can understand, it guides you through the most critical issues involved in growing older. It’s a valuable resource whether you’re looking for information for your own use, or to help your aging parents.

Kindle and paperback editions are available.

Narcissists

Freeing Yourself from the Narcissist in Your Life: At Home. At Work. With Friends [affiliate link], by Linda Martinez-Lewi, PhD. Are you in a relationship with a narcissistic mother or father, brother or sister, aunt or uncle, in-law or a self-absorbed boss? This indispensable guide will help you recognize, cope with, and ultimately overcome their destructive behavior, protect yourself, maintain your sanity and heal.

Kindle and paperback editions are available.

The Sociopath Next Door [affiliate link], by Martha Stout, PhD. As Dr. Stout explains, sociopaths are highly-skilled, compulsive liars who totally lack remorse for their actions. They can be the most charming person you’ve ever met, but use their charm only to get what they want. They have no empathy or affectionate feelings for other people, and are often characterized as “pure evil.” Discover how to identify them and how to protect yourself from their viciousness.

Kindle and paperback editions are available.

The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists: Coping with the One-Way Relationship in Work, Love, and Family [affiliate link], by Eleanor D. Payson, M.S.W. This book will help you recognize and confront the reality of narcissists, a first step toward nullifying their power and influence over your life. The author helps you understand how you enable your own narcissist, and most importantly, how to begin undoing their damage and move on. Ms. Payson includes a description of 9 pitfalls and traps that narcissists use to keep their victims dependent upon them.

Kindle and paperback editions are available.

Toxic Parents

Toxic Parents: Overcoming Their Hurtful Legacy and Reclaiming Your Life [affiliate link], by Dr. Susan Forward. All parents fall short from time to time. But Susan Forward pulls no punches when it comes to those whose personality disorders cripple their children emotionally. Her brisk, unreserved guide to overcoming the degrading agony of parental manipulation — from power trips to guilt trips and all other killers of self-esteem — will help deal with the pain of childhood and move beyond the frustrating relationship patterns.

Kindle and paperback editions are available.

Emotional Blackmail: When the People in Your Life Use Fear, Obligation, and Guilt to Manipulate You [affiliate link], by Dr. Susan Forward. “If you really loved me…” “After all I’ve done for you…” “How can you be so selfish…” Does this sound familiar? They’re all examples of emotional blackmail, a powerful form of manipulation in which people close to us threaten to punish us for not doing what they want. Susan Forward presents the anatomy of a relationship damaged by manipulation, and gives readers the tools to fight back.

Kindle and paperback editions are available.

Will I Ever Be Good Enough?: Healing the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers [affiliate link]. This is the first book specifically for daughters suffering from the emotional abuse of selfish, self-involved, narcissistic mothers. As adults, these daughters have difficulty overcoming their own insecurities and feelings of inadequacy, disappointment, sadness, and emotional emptiness. This book will help you recognize and understand your own experience with maternal narcissism, how it has affected all aspects of your life, and show you how to reclaim your life for yourself.

Kindle and paperback editions are available.

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Article Summary

Article Name

Caregivers’ Bookshelf

Description

Most people begin caregiving with the best of intentions, but quickly find that they're in over their head. Here are a variety of books that have been highly recommended for family caregivers. Arranged by topic, we've noted which ones are also available in a Kindle edition.

Author

Mike Gamble

Publisher

Our Aging Parents