The Eldercare Consultant: Your Guide to Making the Best Choices Possible - Softcover

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BECKY FEOLA, the founder of Assisted Living Advantage, provides counseling, evaluations, and placement services for those seeking care options. As primary care giver to a husband with Huntington's disease, she faced the same challenges and had the same questions her clients do now.

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“I enthusiastically recommend The Eldercare Consultant. Having worked with the elderly and their caregivers for over 30 years, I’ve seen firsthand how the challenge of making decisions for your loved one can feel like traveling through a foreign land without a map. This book is a simple, yet powerful, guide to help you navigate your unique and personal journey without losing your direction, sanity, or love.” --Bernice Wilson O’Roark, MSN, Retired Founding Director of the Ohio Hospice Organization; President of SilverSpirit; former Executive Director of ElderSpirit CoHousing; and family caregiver

Caring for someone who is no longer independent and in complete control is one of the most difficult challenges many people ever face. Making the decision to seek assistance—and possibly place your loved one in an eldercare facility—can be equal parts difficult, complicated, and confusing. Weaving together instructive and inspiring real-life stories with the essential information you need to make the best decisions for you and your family, The Eldercare Consultant helps you:

Recognize when a loved one needs assistance • Spot the warning signs of physical and mental decline • Determine the level of care needed • Evaluate the options— family caregiver, home health care, palliative care, senior housing, assisted living facilities—and select the right one • Discuss the issue with your loved one • Understand and manage the costs of care • Make the adjustment as smooth as possible •l Avoid caregiver burnout • And much more.

Both compassionate and practical, this book supplies you with the knowledge, support, and encouragement you need to cut through the confusion, ensure that the people you love are getting exceptional care...and turn an undeniably difficult transition into a journey of hope and love.

BECKY FEOLA is the founder of Assisted Living Advantage, which provides counseling, evaluations, and placement services for those seeking care options. As primary caregiver to a husband with Huntington’s disease, she faced the same challenges and had the same questions her clients do now.

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Why This Book?

If you've bought The Eldercare Consultant, you're not reading it for entertainment. Something has happened or will soon be happening in your life, and you need help. I'm going to give you that help.

This book provides you with a clear, concise outline of the considerations you need to make and the steps you need to take in your new role as a caregiver. It offers practical advice; indispensable knowledge; and invaluable strategies, tools, and resources essential in guiding you through the various stages of caregiving. It aids you in making informed decisions regarding your loved one's needs and in understanding when you should seek assistance. And finally, it delivers a strong message of hope and inspiration by helping you to recognize that you are not alone in your struggles.

Caregivers such as yourself won't be the only ones who will want to have this book on hand, though. Those who come into contact with caregivers daily--­be they physicians, nurses, case managers, social workers, religious or spiritual leaders, pharmacists, financial planners, or eldercare attorneys--­will find it of value to their clients.

Finally, this book is not only a valuable asset to you, but it just might teach your own children how to manage your care once you require assistance!

What Information Will You Find?

In order to successfully care for your loved one, you need to address a multitude of issues that you may have not previously considered. These are the concerns that catch you off guard and throw your world into chaos. By thinking ahead, considering how you would handle each situation, and preparing for those events as much as possible, you can develop a sense of control over things you can't prevent. This book delivers clear and concise information on topics critical to understanding the full range of eldercare. The following chapter summaries provide a brief explanation of what you will find.

Chapter 1: Providing Eldercare for a Loved One

Eldercare isn't only about delivering quality care to a loved one, it's also about managing your other important relationships, such as your spouse, children, and siblings. This chapter helps you to understand how caregiving can affect these interactions and what steps you can take to nurture them. It also identifies and offers compassionate advice for the major concerns you will have in managing your loved one's care, including safety issues, functional decline, and medication management, along with how to help your senior handle major life transitions. Finally, it helps you understand your role as caregiver and that you have choices in managing your loved one's care.

Chapter 2: The Caregiver's Challenges

As a caregiver, you may find yourself overwhelmed with the many responsibilities you've taken on. Not only will you encounter changing family roles and dynamics, but you will be required to become an expert on the legalities of caregiving, management of your loved one's medical needs, handling their finances and the costs of care, identifying future needs, determining living arrangements, and helping your loved one cope with loss and death. This chapter addresses these issues and offers advice on how you can juggle your needs with caregiving, as well as how to recognize and prevent caregiver burnout.

Chapter 3: Easing Caregiver Concerns with Proactive Behavior

The key to successful caregiving is to anticipate needs and know how you will handle them rather than waiting for the crisis to happen. This chapter shows you how to identify the early warning signs, assess your loved one's requirements, and know when it's time to ask for help. It also tackles some of the more complicated issues for caregivers such as long distance caregiving, being caught between multiple generations who demand your attention, and keeping your retirement funds protected.

Chapter 4: Nurturing Your Loved One's Mind, Body, and Spirit

Care should be all encompassing. In order to safeguard your loved one's overall health, you will want to provide for his or her mental, physical, and spiritual well-­being. This chapter helps you to recognize those needs and identify the steps you can take to ensure a well-­balanced program of care.

Chapter 5: Considering Options for Care Needs

You don't have to go it alone. There are plenty of resources that can help. Many caregivers don't fully understand the options available to assist in providing care for their loved one. This chapter explains these possibilities, their pros and cons, and how to put that care in place, whether your desire is to provide assistance at home, hire outside help, or move a loved one to a care community.

Chapter 6: Paying for Your Loved One's Care

The biggest obstacle for many in making eldercare decisions is the cost of care. There is a risk that you may make unnecessary or poor decisions simply because you didn't understand the financial facts. This chapter helps you understand the costs and how to budget and pay for care. You may be surprised at the different methods and resources available.

Chapter 7: Having the Difficult Discussions

You've finally decided that something needs to happen, but how do you manage the emotional, and sometimes difficult, discussions with family or your loved one? This chapter offers strategies for approaching and handling conversations in order to arrive at decisions that benefit your loved one and the family as a whole.

Chapter 8: Making the Right Decision

Change is never easy, but knowing that you've educated yourself on options, talked with everyone involved in your loved one's care, and have what you need to make the best decisions possible will make it less stressful. This chapter offers advice on approaching your decision, knowing when you should compromise, and deciding who makes the final decision.

Chapter 9: Special Considerations for Care

While most people associate caregiving with the elderly and picture the normal decline that happens with aging, there are circumstances where it involves unique and often very high levels of specialized care. This chapter helps you identify if your loved one falls in a category that will require greater demands from a caregiver and whether or not you are the most capable of providing that care.

Chapter 10: Final Words of Advice After Any Change

After all is said and done and you've put your choices into motion, there will be a period of time afterward that may make you question all your decisions. This is absolutely a normal part of the process. This chapter explains this transition period, what you should expect, and how to cope until you, your loved one, and anyone else involved in his or her care has accepted and adapted to the changes.