An empowering, authoritative manual written in a simple, informal style.
A debut guide to evaluating nursing homes that serve people with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
Gallogly, a retired nurse who worked in nursing homes in Northern Ireland, takes a very personal approach to this manual, saying that “I primarily started this writing to inform my own family, just in case I should develop dementia of any type myself.” In the book’s first part, she concentrates on providing information about nursing homes for the average consumer, including helpful details about staff, facilities, and resident activities. The “Pre-Visit Information Guide” will likely interest anyone evaluating such places for a family member; in it, the author offers tips on what one should look for in terms of location, décor (including color photographs, for example), and activities for residents. Gallogly also addresses the issue of potential abuse “because this question has worried so many family members.” All this information, written from the perspective of an insider, will be valuable for readers comparing one nursing home to another. Early on, the author makes the point that as a visitor, one “must use all your senses”: “Go beyond simply looking; pay attention to sounds and smells as well.” She augments this advice with numerous questions that one should ask home managers. Gallogly also offers several examples of patients (including her own mother) from her own caregiving experiences to illustrate various points, and they give a human, emotional context to the work as a whole. The book’s second part, excerpted from the author’s university studies, is more academic in tone, presenting a history of dementia and a discussion of “person-centered” care; as such, it may appeal most to health care professionals. Because the book is European in its focus, some terms and descriptions may differ from those in other geographical areas, but this doesn’t reduce its effectiveness as a general resource.
An empowering, authoritative manual written in a simple, informal style.Pub Date: Dec. 11, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5049-9586-3
Page Count: 160
Publisher: AuthorHouseUK
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A somewhat fictionalized account of Minahan's semester at Brown ``in the early 1980's.'' There, as an adjunct lecturer, he taught a writing course called ``Democracy and Education,'' in which students discussed texts from the Declaration of Independence to the writings of E.D. Hirsch, and subjects from race, class, and gender to the ills of society. The students here are composites—allegorical types: the lazy, the passionate, the idealistic, the methodical, the manipulative, the arrogant, the silent; Ray, Toshiro, Pete, Rahjiv, Helga, and Juanita—the sort of cultural array that admissions officers fantasize about. Meanwhile, Minahan is critical of contemporary ideology; of political correctness, as well as of the DWM (dead white male) curriculum; of the cultural poverty of ``American education'' and ``college students today'' (who don't know Latin or the meaning of ``transcendentalism''); of a system that hires black women without Ph.D.s while he's unemployed (``Shit''); and of the ultimate disease—greed—the ``American illness'' perpetuated on campuses. But he likes his own students, plus Allan Bloom and Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, and he advocates compassion (``the only idea that makes any sense'')—which he defines in increasingly general ways until concluding that ``the society we get is the society we deserve.'' But while Minahan criticizes US education- -students, faculty, the MLA—his book offers neither cogent analysis nor solutions but, ironically, is itself symptomatic of a problem. Hired to teach writing, the author presents opinions as truth, ideology as ideas, polemic as rhetoric, cultural diagnoses as ``personal essays,'' stereotypes as style. If he were one of his students, Minahan probably would find that his own writing—replete with generalizations, shifting voice (the implicative ``we'' and accusing ``you''), and lack of discipline—would earn him a recommendation to change his major.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1993
ISBN: 1-883285-01-1
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Delphinium
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1993
An endearing and lively account of what one teacher encountered in a year with a private nursery school ``class from hell'' on Manhattan's educationally progressive Upper West Side. A preschool teacher for 20 years, Wollman had decided to keep a detailed journal of a recent school year before she knew that her class of 13 three- and four-year-olds would have more than its share of problems. True, there was an unusual number of unruly and immature children (one youngster was still in diapers). But affecting the behavior of the class even more was a procession of tragic events, including deaths and illnesses in almost every child's family, putting extraordinary demands on Wollman and her assistant, Cathy. For, as Wollman says, ``preschool teachers do a lot more than play games and bandage scraped knees.'' They socialize and civilize, give the children a safe place to learn how to identify emotions and express them verbally, and work (carefully) with parents to detect and correct problems. The children come to life: Harris, who struggles to overcome the scars left by a babysitter who hit and screamed at him; Jeremy, who's blaming himself for the baby sibling who died at birth; Sharon, who had a difficult ear operation early in the school year; and the other ten enchanting, frustrating, bright youngsters (names are changed). Though Wollman is often exhausted, troubled, and challenged by her charges, nevertheless, year's end finds the class and its teachers a tightly knit, productive group and the parents rightly grateful to have found a nurturing haven for their children. Wollman writes, ``[We] felt victorious...We had enriched the lives of thirteen families who would never be the same.'' A year's adventures in the world of collage, cubbies, and time-out, told with wit and humanity. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-684-19665-4
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1994
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