When Aging Parents Can't Live Alone : A Practical Family Guide

Ilen Rubenson's, When Aging Parents Can't Live Alone provides step-by-step explanations of alternatives to living alone, and surveys the decisions and choices involved in evaluating physical and mental health, finances, insurance benefits, and safely issues. From legal issues to evaluating facilities and understanding their different levels of care, this is packed with important considerations.

In this outstanding work, Ellen Rubenson provides extensive "nuts and bolts" guides to assessing elders' needs, family capacity to provide care, information on products and services, insurance, hospitals, and alternative living situations. Readers will also find an extensive guide to on-line information sources. Anyone who has dealt with the long-term care system knows that you practically have to be your own doctor, own lawyer and own social worker. This book shows readers how to better navigate these waters. We want to help our aging parents and relatives but too often get paralyzed by confusion, family conflict, guilt, ignorance, anger, burnout, fear, regret, and the sense that we'll be ineffective. Relying on this book will certainly increase the chances of actually being useful while helping to manage all those feelings. .Rubenson's book is an invaluable guide for facing what we'd like to deny: The US population is aging. The percentage of the "old old," people over 80, is rapidly increasing, and when we "boomers" start to hit our late 60s, we will seriously strain medical, housing, and economic resources. We are now helping our elder parents' deal with their challenges, but soon enough it will be our own (and our children's) turn to make the decisions Rubenson describes. This book helped me to fully realize the personal impact of the challenge our social and economic infrastructure faces.