Poignant, eye-opening, and uniquely relevant patient stories interwoven with practical approaches to compassionate elder...
An assortment of reality-based portraits examines dementia and Alzheimer’s disease sufferers and their hardworking caregivers.
Veteran caregiver Boggs channels her nearly 20 years of experience in elder support into this heartfelt, illuminating debut book focusing on both patient convalescence and the importance of self-care while delivering aid to those in need. The author believes there is limited knowledge of Alzheimer’s and dementia in contemporary society and therefore an underappreciation for the impact these illnesses have on patients, their families, and the emotional and physical well-beings of caregivers themselves. Among the patient profiles she provides is that of ornery, diminutive 93-year-old Cynthia, who rejects repeated offers for caregiving suggested by her concerned nephew. Her story is narrated by Annelle Bright, an aide with a Connecticut home care agency. Bright escorts readers through the various stages of her client-caregiver relationship with Cynthia, a prideful former professional who had lived in her home for over 60 years until a dementia diagnosis. As bonding progresses, Cynthia generously shares her rich, extensive, melodramatic personal and familial history with Bright even as her disease progression ebbs through an eventual heartbreaking, irreversible descent. Boggs’ volume emphasizes themes of perceived familial abandonment, loneliness, and confusion alongside the hopelessness, frustration, and sadness caregivers must endure for the greater good of their patients. The author stresses that her book is not meant to replace nor supplement clinical guides on elder dementia care but instead act as a motivational learning and emotional support tool. Sensitively rendered throughout, the work will give readers a good sense of the critical importance of administering attentive care to those struggling with age-related memory impairment and mood alterations. Boggs’ chronicle of Cynthia’s past and upsetting incremental decline does tend to ramble on a bit lengthily, with overly extended chapters on developments with her caregiver. Even so, the author’s message is one of tough love tempered with the kind of exasperated humor that occurs during situations that are beyond anyone’s control. Boggs reminds readers that the consistent patience, humanity, and resilience required to assist Alzheimer’s patients can be difficult to muster and that those delivering this essential care are a selfless, compassionate, unparalleled breed.
Poignant, eye-opening, and uniquely relevant patient stories interwoven with practical approaches to compassionate elder care.Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4809-2738-4
Page Count: 404
Publisher: Dorrance Publishing Co.
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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