The Family Caregiver's Manual: A Practical Planning Guide to Managing the Care of Your Loved One

by David Levy

Overview

A complete, step-by-step guide offering problem-solving and coping skills applicable to every caregiver’s unique circumstances.

Drawn from over twenty-five years of experience, this comprehensive manual sets forth how to evaluate priorities, understand options, and face bedrock issues so caregivers can make informed decisions for their loved ones, while balancing their own needs and gaining peace of mind.

Author and family caregiving expert David Levy provides a model for effective planning and decision-making, focusing on the nonclinical aspects of caregiving (legal, financial, emotional, and social), which are often neglected by medical professionals:

Caring for young and old victims of disability, illness, and chronic disorders

Finding ways to make a struggling care system work

Assembling core information about a loved one's life

Locating resources that can m are a difference in making sure a loved one's care needs are met

Finding a good family caregiver support group

Overcoming the roadblocks that the caregiver's feelings of distress and failure can create

Taking a practical approach to that overused phrase "Take care of yourself"

David Levy, JD is a gerontologist and a recognized family caregiver expert. Levy holds a Doctor of Jurisprudence and is a Florida Supreme Court Certified Family Mediator in family caregiving and a certified Family Conflict Dynamics Profiler. He facilitates weekly family caregiver support groups and counsels family caregivers, both pro bono and privately.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781942094128
Publisher:	Central Recovery Press, LLC
Publication date:	04/26/2016
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	7.90(w) x 9.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

David J Levy, JD, CCE is a gerontologist and a recognized family caregiver expert. Levy holds a Doctor of Jurisprudence and is a Florida Supreme Court Certified Family Mediator in family caregiving and a certified Family Conflict Dynamics Profiler. He is the author of teaching texts and digital tools for nonclinical family caregiving, and he facilitates weekly family caregiver support groups and counsels family caregivers, both pro bono and privately.

Levy consults to professionals on complicated caregiving issues arising from aging, chronic illness, dysfunctional family dynamics, and disability, and is an expert witness. He engages with leading firms in healthcare and insurance on post-acute patient homecare strategies that integrate family caregivers into effective home care management and on workplace strategies for productivity losses caused by working family caregivers.

Levy has founded a number of companies, including AdultCare (1990), the first national company devoted exclusively to the support, education, and well-being of informal family caregivers with a loved one covered through long-term care insurance. He helped design the first proprietary caregiver-specific software solution support program. Levy was instrumental in the creation of the first masters-level program for geriatric care management. He has designed nonclinical family caregiver training programs and teaches “train the trainer” intensives. He is founder and chairman of the American Association for Caregiver Education (AACE), a fifteen-year-old nonprofit organization devoted to creating education, teaching, and training modalities for family and professional caregivers.

Levy founded two consulting practices: Family Caregiver Advocacy Group, for personal caregiving support, and CaregiverReality, Inc. for support of businesses and corporations.

In 2013 he created and hosted the nationally acclaimed CaregiverReality Hour, a live-streaming radio program reaching a worldwide audience. Mr. Levy is currently working on a new collection of web-based caregiver tools and direct services.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Preface

1. Today’s Family Caregiver: Are You a Family Caregiver?

2. Why Planning Counts

3. Positive Attitude = Success
Overcoming Guilt and Resentment
Letting Go
You as a Caregiver
Benefitting from a Support Group

4. Building a Successful Plan

5.Why Document?
What Can You Learn?
Does Everyone Need Legal Documents?
Get It Organized

6. Critical Information: The Lists
The Caregiver’s List
The List for the Person Needing Care Now or in the Future

7. Thinking about “What If . . . ?”
Overcoming Objections
When You Are Already Giving Care
What Can You Do?
Getting Things in Order
Starting the Discussion about Care Needs
Knowing When Care Is Needed
You Are Planning, So What Else?
Planning for Financial Needs
Putting Care into Place
Crises
What You Need to Know in an Emergency

8. Practical Problem Solving
Addressing Medical and Health Needs
Questions to Ask the Doctor
Overall Housing and Care Needs
Security/Safety Condition Check
Hiring a Paid Caregiver
Fundamentals of Hiring and Managing In-Home Care Services
Using In-Home Care from a Home Healthcare Agency Complaints
Your Role When Someone Else Gives Care
Advocate for a Person Living Away from Home

9. Someone Else Deserves Care—You
Rate Your Caregiver Stress
Your Plan for Stress Reduction

10. Understanding Continuum of Care
How Much Care Is Needed?

11. Write Your Plan/Make It Work
Sample Narrative and Plan

12. Additional Resources

Appendix: The Family Caregiver Questionnaire

Editorial Reviews

I’ve known David Levy for quite sometime and am confident in saying he is clearly the subject-matter expert in family caregiving dynamics. The information on these pages will be transformative to those who read it and need the skills and suggestions offered. I highly recommend this book.” —Scott Greenberg, CEO Comforcare Senior Services and author, Oh My God I’m Getting Older And So Is My Mom

“David Levy has been doing ‘caregiving’ since before that term was in vogue. This book can be a lifesaver and is certain to engender a higher quality of life for all who will be touched by this knowledge.” —Scott M. Solkoff, Esq., Founder of Solkoff Legal, Florida bar board-certified specialist in elder law

“. . . a valuable tool that can assist and support unpaid family caregivers in their efforts to provide an improved quality of life for their loved ones while they maintain balance in their own lives. Educating family caregivers allows them to be better prepared to face the myriad of issues that arise in caregiving.” —Charles T. Corley, Former Secretary, Florida Department of Elder Affairs

From the Publisher