Follow Here To Purchase Alzheimer's Disease and Other Dementias - The Caregiver's Complete Survival Guide

Author: Nataly Rubinstein
Publisher: Two Harbours Press
ISBN: 978-1-936198-13-9


Poet Emily Dickinson wrote that “hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul, sings the tune without the words, and never stops at all.”  That’s easy to say when life is going well.  It’s not so easy to say when a diagnosis of dementia is heard.  Somehow, when a diagnosis of dementia is pronounced, families often slip into Dante’s “All hope abandon ye who enter here.”   And hope is what is needed at some a moment.

As caregiver to her mother who has dementia and as clinical social worker (with over twenty-five years of experience working with more than eight hundred families each year who are coping with dementia), Nataly Rubinstein is professionally and personally qualified to write a book for caregivers and medical professionals about dementia.  But this book is more - it is not just the typical “book for caregivers and medical professionals about dementia.”  

This is a book that helps the reader, caregiver, and healthcare professional realize … that “no one size fits all” when it comes to treatment and caregiving of someone diagnosed with dementia … that no two dementias are the same … and that because a person with dementia (due to changes to the brain) at some point in time will have difficulty talking, understanding, making decisions and co-ordination, “maintaining their personhood is the key to helping them to remain physically and emotionally connected to their world.”  It's practical.  It's hope-filled.

The chapters in this book (A Brief Look at Caregiving; Understanding Dementia; Getting an Accurate Diagnosis; Medication; Your Perspective as a Caregiver; Communication with a Person who has Dementia; Coping with Changes in Daily Life; Dealing with Unwanted Behaviours; Home Safety; Respite Care; and Saving your Sanity) offer clear, comprehensive and practical information in an easy-to-read and compassionate understanding of this illness. The listing of resources at the end of the book is a veritable treasure trove!  And in her final chapter (A Final Thought on Caregiving), the author shares her personal journey and concludes with a vital reminder that caregivers need to reach out and ask for help.  Hope comes in many guises.  

Two weeks after his ninety two year old mother was diagnosed with dementia, Sam entered the author’s office for a consultation.  After explaining the importance of diet, exercise, and proper hydration for his mother, Sam thanked her for the ‘diagnosis of hope‘ she offered.  

It was this expression of gratitude that gave this book the “feathers” that perched in Rubinstein’s soul and moved it from draft to final manuscript.  What makes this book unique?  It offers hope.   


Follow Here To Purchase Alzheimer's Disease and Other Dementias - The Caregiver's Complete Survival Guide