The Gift of Caring

Saving Our Parents—and Ourselves—from the Perils of Modern Healthcare

Marcy Cottrell Houle, Elizabeth Eckstrom, Jennie Chin Hansen

• Publisher: Lyons Press
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781493039609
• Subtopic: Health Care Delivery

In a powerful blending of memoir and practical strategies from a medical doctor’s perspective, The Gift of Caring: Saving Our Parents – and ourselves - from the Perils of Modern Healthcare reveals the hidden side of modern healthcare practices for aging Americans. This ground-breaking book, co-written by award-winning author Marcy Houle and nationally-recognized geriatrician and public health advocate, Elizabeth Eckstrom MD MPH, sheds new light on aging by showing it from twin perspectives: the story of a daughter desperately seeking help for the parents she loves, and a geriatrician who offers life-changing strategies that can protect our loved ones and ourselves.

Today, for many older adults, the medical delivery system is confusing, fragmented, and ill-equipped to provide comprehensive, person-centered care. Under our current healthcare model, thousands of aging persons face unnecessary suffering, hospitalizations and nursing home stays, and even preventable death.

Seniors and families often feel powerless as they travel this sad journey. Not having knowledge of aging’s changes, they resign themselves to believing there is nothing anyone can do to help, while some health care professionals simply write off symptoms seniors endure as “just old age.”

But as Marcy Houle discovered in caring for her parents, many of the problems often are not “just old age.” Further, the real issue is not that the answers to ease suffering don’t exist. Rather, what we need to know is generally not available to the general public. Even more concerning, many health care professionals have had little or no training in the care of older adults.

The Gift of Caring hopes to change that. It is written to give empowerment to all older adults, family members, and health care professionals, by sharing much needed knowledge and practical strategies. The Gift of Caring shows the best ways to advocate for our parent’s health care … and our own … by giving us the tools we need to insist upon the better way.

Your parents and you deserve the best healthcare as you age- But there are so many reasons why that’s not happening.You can change that.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Part I: The Airplane Diaries
• 1. Colliding Worlds
• 2. First Decline
• What I Wish I’d Known: Early Warning Signs of Dementia
• 3. Panic Attack
• 4. Countdown to Advocacy
• What I Wish I’d Known: What Is Dementia, Mild Cognitive Impairment, and Alzheimer’s Disease . . . and How Do You Tell the Difference?
• 5. A New Way of Seeing
• 6. Passages
• What I Wish I’d Known: How to Find a Good Memory Facility
• 7. Montavilla Beginnings
• What I Wish I’d Known: Moving Day—How to Ease the Transition
• 8. Dallas II
• 9. Visiting Hours
• 10. The Phone Call
• What I Wish I’d Known: Falls—A Leading Cause of Death in Older Adults and What You Can Do to Prevent Them
• 11. Surgery for an Alzheimer’s Patient
• 12. It’s a Matter of Life or Death
• What I Wish I’d Known: A Deadly Fate with Few Symptoms—Dehydration—How to Recognize It and How to Prevent It
• 13. Forsaken
• 14. No Man Is an Island
• What I Wish I’d Known: Communicating with Those Who Have Alzheimer’s Disease or Other Dementias
• 15. Do No Harm
• What I Wish I’d Known: The Problem of Pain in Dementia and Why Millions of Seniors Are Suffering
• 16. Return of the Man
• Part II: A Good Ending
• 17. A Radical Prescription
• What I Wish I’d Known: The Best “Anti-aging” Pill of Them All
• 18. No Senior Left Inside
• What I Wish I’d Known: The ABC’S of Exercise
• 19. I’m Not Cedaring; I’m Scissoring
• What I Wish I’d Known: How to Ensure Parents’ Wishes for Care Are Met—Before a Crisis Hits
• 20. Who’s Shelby?
• What I Wish I’d Known: What Is a TIA? And What Do I Do If I Think My Parent Is Having One?
• 21. Stories from the Fall
• 22. The Very Best Christmas Ever
• 23. Three Things
• What I Wish I’d Known: The Art to Aging Healthfully for Your Body and Your Mind
• 24. I See Little Green Men
• What I Wish I’d Known: Come to Your Senses! The Value of Aids
• 25. Delirious
• 26. Paging Doctor HIP!
• What I Wish I’d Known: What Delirium Is and Why It’s Essential You Know How to Spot It
• 27. “Sometimes It’s Better If They Never Wake Up”
• What I Wish I’d Known: The Most Important Medical Word That Can Save Your Parent’s Life—“Baseline”
• 28. Where Old People Are Sent to Die
• 29. The Lazarus Syndrome
• 30. A Hope and a Future
• 31. So What’s a Geriatrician and Why Should I Care?
• What I Wish I’d Known: The Tsunami Is Coming . . . and Why You Should Be Worried
• 32. Pharmacopeia
• What I Wish I’d Known: Too Many Pills—The Fourth-Leading Cause of Death in Seniors
• 33. The Search Begins
• 34. Honey and Dummy
• 35. Mountains and Valleys
• What I Wish I’d Known: The Care and Maintenance of Caregivers
• 36. Who’s Taking the Trazodone?
• What I Wish I’d Known: How to Get a Good Night’s Rest—Naturally
• 37. The Art of Caregiving
• 38. Living to One Hundred
• 39. And They Shall Inherit the Earth
• 40. Go GICU! Stop Step-Down!
• What I Wish I’d Known: The Serious Problems of Today’s Hospitals for Older Adults—Why We Need to Demand a Change Now
• 41. No More Dresses
• What I Wish I’d Known: Frailty: What is it?
• 42. How to Pack For the Next Trip
• 43. Faithful Companion
• 44. Crossing the Line
• What I Wish I’d Known: What Is Palliative Care, and How Can It Help My Parents and Me?
• 45. A Good Ending
• Appendix 1
• Appendix 2
• Appendix 3