Biographical note: Sally Chivers is a Full Professor in the Departments of English and Gender & Women's Studies at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario, and a founding executive member of the Trent Centre for Aging and Society. Ulla Kriebernegg is an Associate Professor at the Center for Inter-American Studies of the University of Graz, Austria, and chair of the European Network in Aging Studies.

Based on the belief that older people have good stories to tell, Story Writing in a Nursing Home was developed as part of a volunteer teaching service to a nursing home. Graduate students who were learning to teach this special population conducted story writing activities with older adults and found that even the frail elderly who are confined to nursing centers provided a unique perspective about events that emphasize the lasting verities in life. The information, memories, and humor the elderly see in situations is worth recording. In addition, Story Writing in a Nursing Home emphasizes the way to develop the mental stimulation that is so important for physical well being. This sensitive and insightful book provides a lesson plan outline and the type of content that was used as an example. It also provides a running commentary in the form of a diary that tells how to begin a teaching program for nursing center residents. Students and professionals interested in implementing a similar program can use these ideas for planning and for organizing the use of student help to better serve the population.

Institutional care for seniors offers a cultural repository for fears and hopes about an aging population. Although enormous changes have occurred in how institutional care is structured, the legacies of the poorhouse still persist, creating panicked views of the nursing home as a dreaded fate. The paradoxical nature of a space meant to be both hospital and home offers up critical tensions for examination by age studies scholars. The essays in this book challenge stereotypes of institutional care for older adults, illustrate the changes that have occurred over time, and illuminate the continuities in the stories we tell about nursing homes.

"Nurses play a vital role in improving the safety and quality of patient car -- not only in the hospital or ambulatory treatment facility, but also of community-based care and the care performed by family members. Nurses need know what proven techniques and interventions they can use to enhance patient outcomes. To address this need, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), with additional funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, has prepared this comprehensive, 1,400-page, handbook for nurses on patient safety and quality -- Patient Safety and Quality: An Evidence-Based Handbook for Nurses. (AHRQ Publication No. 08-0043)." - online AHRQ blurb, http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/nurseshdbk/

Introducing life story work, a way for people with dementia to connect with their relatives, carers and the professionals working with them. This evidence-based book explains the many benefits of life story work, with practical guidance for introducing it in a variety of settings. The authors show how life story work can empower people with dementia to inform care practitioners and family members what care and support they may need now and in the future, by taking into account their past and their future wishes and aspirations. The book includes practical information on how to get started, ethical considerations such as consent and confidentiality, and considers issues of diversity and how to address them. The voices of practitioners, researchers and family carers sit alongside those of people living with dementia to present a wide-range of perspectives on life story work.

The target audience is women between the ages of 42 and 65. They represent the majority of unpaid care givers for loved ones with dementia. Dementia Home Care: How to Prepare Before, During and After will examine taking on the role of care giver and help them make informed decisions about in-home care giving. It will give examples of how to create a safe living space, how to use distraction techniques, and suggest available resources for the care giver. It will emphasize the role of care giver respite and participating in dementia community support to relieve the daily stress of dementia care. Home care giver, Tracy Cram Perkins, will use anecdotes drawn from twelve years of experience. Demetia Home Care will cover aggressive behavior, coping strategies, memory aids, communication aids, and support services. There is a space at the end of each chapter for the reader to record special or humorous moments with their loved ones. And it will address the empty nester experience after the loss of a loved one—to a nursing facility or to death—rarely covered in other books of this genre. This life-lesson of care giving is not meant to destroy us but meant to remind us to take care of ourselves, forgive ourselves, accept ourselves. To know other people trudge up this same hill with us every day. To pay forward kindness in some measure. To know laughter has not abandoned us. At the end, to know some measure of joy. -- Tracy Cram Perkins

As nurses and health professionals increasingly care for people with chronic diseases and disability, it has never been more important for students to gain the knowledge, skills and understanding they need to provide quality care.Stories in Chronic Illness & Disability will help you understand the lived experience of the people you look after. Intended as a companion to the Living with Chronic Illness & Disability textbook, also by Esther Chang and Amanda Johnson, it offers real-life case studies of the most common conditions you are likely to encounter in your work.The stories are accompanied by concise and engaging videos, with related activities to help you reflect on the everyday experiences of people you are caring and adjusting your approach accordingly. This resource is perfect for undergraduate nursing students on clinical placements, right through to registered nurses wanting to enhance their insights and understanding of chronic disease and disability - Print + interactive eBook with 29 videos embedded to bring case stories to life - Transcripts provided for all video interviews - Builds on the core theory presented in Living with Chronic Illness & Disability (4e) text which can be used in conjunction with the main textbook or as standalone - Scaffolded approach to learning, suitable for students with Certificate, Diploma, Bachelor and Post Graduate degrees across nursing, individual support and disability - Reflection, Inquiry and Action framework for teaching and learning around each story

This timely book explores what it is like to live in an aged care home: the expectations that new residents and their families enter with, their relationships with fellow residents and formal caregivers, and how they approach, in different ways, the reality that this place is where they will die. Creative Arts-Based Research in Aged Care draws on an immersive semi-longitudinal four-year study and purposely privileges the voices and perspective of older residents. Using creative arts-based qualitative research methods, specifically participatory photography and research poetry, it demonstrates the experience of contemporary aged care from the perspective of those who matter most: older residents. Divided into three parts covering entering residential aged care, daily life in aged care and dying in aged care, the book stimulates debate and discussion about current practice, and the future of aged care in the context of rapid population ageing and care automation. It is essential reading for all scholars and students working in the fields of gerontology, social work, psychology, design, and nursing, particularly those tasked with redesigning aged care in the twenty-first century.

This book presents the latest research that shows how design thinking, making, and acting contribute to the co-designing and development of products, spaces, and services with people living with dementia. We know that there is currently no cure for the 130+ kinds of dementia that millions of people live with all over the world, but the designed interventions such as the products, spaces, and services described in this book can address stigma, isolation, loss of confidence, and raise awareness and greater understanding of dementia. This book showcases a range of innovative and creative design interventions that have been developed to break the cycle of well-established opinions, strategies, mindsets, and ways of doing that tend to remain unchallenged in the health and social care of people living with dementia. The book will be of interest to scholars working in product design, service design, experience design, architecture, design research, information design, user-centred design, and design for health.

This book focuses on the relationship between the media and those who work as paid care assistants in care homes in Britain. It explores this relationship in terms of the contemporary cultural and personal understandings of care work and care homes that have developed as the role has emerged as increasingly socially and economically significant in society. Three strands of analysis are integrated: an examination of the representations of paid care workers in the British media; the experiences of current and former care workers; and the autoethnographic reflections of the authors who have experiences of working as care assistants. The book offers a rich contextual and experiential account of the responsibilities, challenges, and emotions of care work in British society. Grist and Jennings make a case for the need to better value and more accurately represent care work in contemporary media accounts.