Nursing Homes: The Family's Journey
Author: Peter S Silin
Being the family member of someone in a nursing home is part of a difficult and painful process that begins long before a loved one enters the home. Focusing on the psychological, emotional, and social aspects of that process, Nursing Homes: The Family's Journey gives family members important practical advice and emotional support, and it explains the intricacies of care and nursing homes.
Peter S. Silin approaches his subject with compassion and sensitivity, guiding readers through the entire process. Section one helps caregivers cope with difficult decisions and deal with the emotional issues that arise. Section two describes nursing homes and how they work, and it outlines how to choose a home. Section three explains how to prepare for the day a relative moves into a nursing home and suggests ways to help the resident settle in. The fourth section focuses on the family member's role in solving problems, obtaining quality care, and visiting, and it offers advice about how to deal with death and dying. After each chapter are real-life vignettes written by caregivers which help validate and support the reader.
In assisting their loved ones through the transition to life in a nursing home, one of the greatest obstacles families face is a dearth of practical information and sympathetic experience. This book will help fill the gap for family members and their infirm relatives, as well as for social workers and family therapists. It will also be a valuable tool for nursing home administrators and care staff.
Los Angeles Times
Among the most valuable chapters in this book is one titled "Making a Home Better", which includes wonderful advice on how a loved one can influence what goes on inside a nursing home...His inclusion of real-life stories from the families he's encountered over 20 years anchors the book compassionately.
Booknews
...Gives family members practical advice and emotional support when facing the decision to place a relative in a nursing home and presents voices and stories of family caregivers struggling with the nursing home decision. There is material on talking about care with the relative needing care, caring at home versus finding a nursing home, and a detailed overview of a typical day in a nursing home. There is also discussion of guilt, loss, and grief, visiting, and working with other families to improve a nursing home. Includes a list of US state ombudsperson offices, and a questionnaire for assessing a nursing home. Silin is a geriatric social worker and principal of a geriatric care management company in Canada.
Peter S. Belson
This is a terrific book that will be of immense comfort and benefit to those who read it. Families dealing with aging and chronic illness need concrete information, decision support and clear, empathic guidance to face and accept the storm of emotions that accompany these issues. Peter Silin's book does all of that, in a calm, forthright and sometimes humorous manner that goes directly to the often unspoken pain that complicates the process of choice. The inclusion of the stories from support group members is invaluable. I enthusiastically recommend this work to clients and fellow care management professionals.
William H. Thomas
These true stories speak with power and passion.
Lilian Wells
The information in Nursing Homes is of excellent quality. The vignettes are a powerful supplement to each section. Silin's style is informal and easy to read but based on sound theoretical principles, research, and 'best practices' in gerontology.
Doody Review Services
Reviewer: Myra A Aud, PhD, RN (University of Missouri-Columbia)
Description: This book speaks directly to families who are faced with decisions about nursing home placement. It discusses a variety of issues related to nursing home placement decisions and supplements that discussion with narratives from family caregivers of their experiences.
Purpose: The purpose is to assist family caregivers who are faced with the prospect of nursing home placement for an elderly relative. The book includes information about choosing a nursing home, making the transition into the nursing home, and assuring quality care after admission. This information is needed by family caregivers who are often simply told by healthcare providers to "go and find a nursing home." The author has provided important information to help them in that search and also to cope with the feelings surrounding the placement of a relative in a nursing home.
Audience: Throughout the book, the author is speaking directly to family members: spouses, sons, daughters. Although this book is written especially for families, it would be valuable reading for geriatric social workers, clergy, nurses, and long-term care administrators. The author's experience as a geriatric social worker establishes his credibility. In the preface he describes listening to family members in a support group setting and at other times as they described their experiences placing relatives in nursing homes.
Features: The book includes topics related to making decisions about care for an elderly relative, choosing a nursing home, making the actual transition into the nursing home, and assuring quality care after admission. In addition to providing factual information about long-term care and the process of decision making, the author addresses the feelings that family members experience and how to cope with those feelings. The attention to the feelings of the family members, and the author's concern for the family members, are especially valuable features of this book. The size of the potential audience is increased by the author's inclusion of information about both the Canadian and U.S. long-term care systems. The appendixes include questionnaires to assist families in evaluating different nursing homes.
Assessment: I was very impressed with the insertion of narratives from family members between the chapters. Hearing directly of the experiences of family caregivers reinforces the material and makes the chapter's information more immediate and less didactic. The content of the chapters is excellent and should be useful for families. Reading it I could identify advice that I have shared with families struggling with decisions about nursing home placement. Although I have read other books about nursing home placement and nursing home quality, this book stands out for its focus on the feelings of the families at this stressful time.
Booknews
Gives family members practical advice and emotional support when facing the decision to place a relative in a nursing home and presents voices and stories of family caregivers struggling with the nursing home decision. There is material on talking about care with the relative needing care, caring at home versus finding a nursing home, and a detailed overview of a typical day in a nursing home. There is also discussion of guilt, loss, and grief, visiting, and working with other families to improve a nursing home. Includes a list of US state ombudsperson offices, and a questionnaire for assessing a nursing home. Silin is a geriatric social worker and principal of a geriatric care management company in Canada. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
Rating
5 Stars! from Doody
Look this: Sandra Day OConnor or God in the White House
Mindbody Prescription: Healing the Body, Healing the Pain
Author: John E Sarno
Pain disorders have reached epidemic proportion in the United States. At the same time, pioneering physicians like Dr. Sarno have identified the primary role emotions play in causing illness. As a result, we stand on the brink of beign able to understand and treat many disorders withou drugs, physical therapy, or sugery.
The Mindbody Prescription teaches you:
- How emotions stimulate the brain to produce physical symptions
- How TMS -- Tension Myositis Syndrome -- a a major cause of back, neck, shoulder, and limb pain How repressed emotions can lead to petpic ulcers, colitis, tension and migraine headaches, hay fever, and a host of other ailments How new, sometimes disabling pain conditioins like RSD -- Repetitive Stress Disorders - carpal tunnel syndrome, fibromyalgia, andpost-polio syndrome are all part of TMS, and can be treated successfully How understanding the way you mind and body interact can produce record results.
Your mind and body are one, inextricably linked. You are stronger than you know and have more power over your body than you probably realize. But you must learn how to tap that wonderful potential. That is the goal of The Mindbody Prescription: to provide you with a powerful weapon in the war on pain and disability.
What People Are Saying
Anne Bancroft
"John Sarno has changed my life and the lives of all the people to whom I have recommended him. He was healing patients with the mindbody connection long before anyone else I know. He is a true miracle worker."
Howard Stern
"My life before Dr. Sarno was filled with excruciating back and shoulder pain. For twenty years I also suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder and thought my back pain was due to my height or some sort of spine problem and that my OCD was a chemical imbalance and only treatable with medication. But all my thoughts were wrong. Imagine the miracle in my life when in a matter of weeks my back pain disappeared. Imagine my shock when I applied Dr. Sarno's principles and never suffered a single symptom again. Quite simply -- I owe Dr. Sarno a lot."
John Stossel
"For fifteen years, my life revolved around my back. I took time off from work, conducted meetings lying on the floor, and slept with ice bags. Could this be psychogenic? I had considered Dr. Sarno's idea preposterous, but ten years ago I was talked into seeing him. I haven't had back problems since. If Dr. Sarno is right about other psychogenic pain, America is wasting billions of dollars. What a tragedy." -- Correspondent, 20/20
Benjamin J. Sadock
"Dr. Sarno describes in clearly written and understandable language how emotions influence and cause illness... He has cured thousands with debilitating chronic back pain and now offers curative approaches to other painful conditions... I recommend this book highly." -- Professor and vice chairman, Department of Psychiatry, NYU Medical Center
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