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The Comfort Of Home
An Illustrated Step-by-Step Guide For Caregivers
By Maria M. Meyer with Paula Derr, RN
Foreword by United States Senator Mark O. Hatfield
Published by CareTrust Publications LLC
Publication date: August, 1998
364 pp.
ISBN: 0966476700 (soft cover)
Synopsis
This comprehensive and reader-friendly handbook covers all the basics of practical home caregiving.
Clear organization, imaginative layout, and plentiful illustrations help family caregivers quickly locate and understand each subject. Key tips and checklists are highlighted. Quick references for particular home care problems are backed-up by resource listings to help you get more depth from organizations working in each content area. In the book's development, a host of expert reviewers ensured the book would contain the latest home care information and be easy to understand.
It covers all the basics of providing care in the home including
- preparing and equipping the home
- understanding special equipment
- dealing with emergencies
- proper nutrition
- caring for those with dementia or Alzheimer's Disease
- preparing for death
It includes details on physical aspects of daily living missing from many other publications such as bathing, how to make a bed while someone is in it, movement and wheelchair transfers, and other practical aspects of caregiving.
Choosing to provide home care can be a difficult decision. The book begins by explaining financial issues and helping home caregivers understand the different types of services provided by home health care agencies and long term care facilities.
Family caregivers can use this book both to plan an initial home setup and to refer to
any time they face a new situation. Home care professionals could use the text to reinforce their own client education efforts.
Maria Meyer and Paula Derr, RN, present their subject from the dual perspectives of first-time caregiver and health care professional. When her father-in-law suffered a stroke in 1993, Meyer became aware of the need for more information about how to care for an aging parent. Paula Derr has thirty years of experience as a nurse, a clinical educator, and a family caregiver.
This book received the 1999 Benjamin Franklin Award in the health category from the Publishers Marketing Association (PMA) to recognize editorial and design excellence, and got a 5-star rating from Doody's Health Sciences Book Review Journal.
Table of Contents
- Foreword by Mark O. Hatfield
- Part One: Getting Ready
- Is home care for you?
- Using the health care team effectively
- Getting in-home help
- Paying for care
- Financial management and tax planning
- Planning end-of-life health care
- Preparing the home
- Equipment and supplies
- Part Two: Day by Day
- Setting up a plan of care
- How to avoid caregiver burnout
- Activities of daily living
- Therapies
- Special challenges
- Diet and nutrition
- Emergencies
- Body mechanics: Positioning, moving, and transfers
- Dementia and Alzheimer's Disease
- The dying process
- Funeral arrangements and the grieving process
- Part Three: Additional Resources
- Common abbreviations
- Common specialists
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index