Centers for Ending: The Coming Crisis in the Care of Aged People (Caregiving: Research • Practice • Policy)

Front Matter....Pages i-xi Themes of the Book....Pages 1-15 Becoming a Resident in a Total Care Facility....Pages 17-27 Residents as Immigrants....Pages 29-37 Some Aspects of Organizational Craziness....Pages 39-45 Two Months in the Nursing Home....Pages 47-60 Planning Programs: Social Security and Head Start....Pages 61-67 The Haves and the Have-Nots....Pages 69-75 The Need for a Presidential Commission: Some Caveats....Pages 77-86 On the Uses of History....Pages 87-92 Back Matter....Pages 93-109 As people live longer and health care costs continue to rise and fewer doctors choose to specialize in geriatrics, how prepared is the United States to care for its sick and elderly? According to veteran psychologist Seymour Sarason’s eloquent and compelling new book, the answer is: inadequately at best. And rarely discussed among the grim statistics is the psychosocial price paid by nursing home patients, from loneliness and isolation to depression and dependency. In __Centers for Ending__, Dr. Sarason uses his firsthand experience as both practitioner and patient in senior facilities to reveal wide-ranging professional and moral issues affecting this seemingly familiar terrain. Insensitive medical personnel, poorly trained nurses and aides, indifferent administrators, and a prevailing culture content with treating “bodies” instead of human beings are identified as contributing factors. Drawing on America’s rich history of large-scale solutions to social problems, Dr. Sarason offers penetrating insights and bold suggestions in such areas as: * The widening care gap between haves and have-nots. * Why professional caregivers fail to understand patients. * The nursing home resident as immigrant. * Why previous reform efforts have not worked. * The need for a Presidential commission for the elderly. * The scenario if conditions are allowed to remain as they are or worsen. This concise volume is essential reading for researchers, graduate students, professionals, practitioners, and policy makers across such fields as geriatric medicine, health psychology, social work, public health, and public policy. __Centers for Ending__ is a clarion call to be ignored at great cost to our elders and ourselves. Series Foreword 6 Foreword 8 Contents 10 1 Themes of the Book 11 2 Becoming a Resident in a Total Care Facility 26 Entering the Center 28 3 Residents as Immigrants 37 4 Some Aspects of Organizational Craziness 46 5 Two Months in the Nursing Home 53 Postscript 63 6 Planning Programs: Social Security and Head Start 67 Head Start 70 7 The Haves and the Have-Nots 74 8 The Need for a Presidential Commission: Some Caveats 81 Choosing the Members of the Commission 81 The 9/11 Commission 82 A Commission on the Aged: What Are the Problems? 83 Criteria for Appointment of Commission Members 83 Aides: The Immediate Pressing Problem 85 Voices of the Aged 86 9 On the Uses of History 91 Epilogue 97 About the Author 104 References 105 Index 107 This book combines a critical analysis of health care policy and practice with the reflections of one personally experiencing the issues of which he speaks. The book examines the impending surge in demand for facilities and personnel to care for the elderly.