My Mother's Hip: Lessons from the World of EldercareSome 400,000 hip fractures occur every year, the vast majority among the elderly; all too often these fractures are associated with death or severe disability. After her mother's double hip fracture, Luisa Margolies immersed herself in identifying and coordinating the services and professionals needed to provide critical care for an elderly person. She soon realized that the American medical system is ill prepared to deal with the long-term care needs of our graying society. The heart of My Mother's Hip is taken up with the author's day-to-day observations as her mother's condition worsened, then improved only to worsen again, while her father became increasingly anxious and disoriented. As both a devoted daughter and a skilled anthropologist, Margolies vividly renders her interactions with physicians, nurses, hospital workers, nursing home administrators, the Medicare bureaucracy, home care providers, and her parents. In the Lessons chapter that follows each episode, she discusses in a broader context the weighty decisions that adult children must make on their parents' behalf and the emotional toll their responsibility takes. Here she addresses the complex practical issues that commonly arise in such situations: understanding the consequences of hip fracture and its treatment, preparing health care proxies and advanced directives, enabling elders to remain at home, and the heartbreaking dilemma of prolonging life. Like many adult children, Margolies learned her lessons about eldercare in the midst of crises. This book is intended to ease the information-gathering and decision-making processes for others involved in eldercare. |
Contents
My Mothers Hip | 1 |
Coral Bay Memorial Hospital | 7 |
Hip Fracture the Silent Killer | 30 |
Sacred Heart Hospital | 49 |
Advance Directives or Misdirectives? | 90 |
Home | 98 |
Who Cares? | 130 |
The Palms at PalmAire | 148 |
Enough Is Enough | 225 |
From LovingCare to Victoria Park | 237 |
Id Rather Age in Place | 273 |
Boca Raton Medical Center | 286 |
Who Decides? | 297 |
Heartbroken | 300 |
En Route | 323 |
References | 331 |
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Common terms and phrases
aide asked assisted-living bone loss Canary Islands Caracas caregiving chronic condition congestive heart failure Coral Bay Dad's daughter death dinner discharge disease doctor dying early elderly estrogen fall father feel felt finally Florida Foley catheter frail go home Graz Graziano Hafner happened heart block hip fractures hospital insisted intubated José Gregorio Hernández Kathy knew leave living look LovingCare Luisa Marisa matter Medicare menopause ment minutes months morning Mother Mother's medical Mother's room move never night Noel nursing facilities nursing home nursing-home one's osteoporosis Palms parents patients percent person physician pleural effusions problem residents Risden Sacred Heart seemed siblings staff stay sure surgery talk tell therapist therapy things tion told treat treatment tube upset Victoria Park wait walk weekend weeks wheelchair woman women worry
References to this book
Handbook of Long-Term Care Administration and Policy Cynthia Massie Mara,Laura Olson Limited preview - 2008 |