The Caregiver: A Life With Alzheimer's - Softcover

Alterra, Aaron

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1586420070 ISBN 13: 9781586420079

Publisher: Steerforth Pr, 2000

Synopsis

When Aaron Alterra's wife was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, the diagnosis radically altered the author's role in a vital partnership that had spanned 60 years. Husband became caregiver, and gradually came to think of himself as his wife's "primary physician," managing her care assisted by aides and medical specialists as needed. In this account, Alterra describes his attempts to find new ways to connect with his wife and to help her live at peace with her condition. He explains how caregivers can better understand the symptoms of Alzheimer's if they recognize that the patient struggles to adapt not to individual memory loss but to a loss of relationship, a lost sense of how things connect. He also shares practical information about support groups, patients' rights, and financial matters.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

"A touchingly exact and superbly composed account written by a real writer. This is the best and most expert book on Alzheimer's that I have read and it should be closely studied by every caregiver."--John Bayley, author of Iris: A Memoir of Iris Murdoch

"The Caregiver is one of the few examples of the lived experience of Alzheimer's disease from the perspective of a loving, reflective, and articulate husband. Aaron Alterra paints a beautiful and honest picture of how Alzheimer's disease changed one family's world, a literate world full of life, music, art, and words. His story will touch physicians, nurses, social workers, physical therapists, psychologists, and healers of all sorts who struggle to assist families in their journey with this disease."--Patricia G. Archbold, Building Academic Geriatric Nursing Capacity Scholars Program, American Academy of Nursing

About the Author:

Aaron Alterra is a pseudonym for E. S. Goldman, an award-winning fiction writer who publishes frequently in the Atlantic; he has published a novel and two volumes of short stories and lives on Cape Cod. Arthur Kleinman is Esther and Sidney Rabb Professor of Anthropology, Professor of Medical Anthropology, Professor of Psychiatry, and Curator of Medical Anthropology in the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University. His books include Patients and Healers in the Context of Culture and The Illness Narratives.

About this edition

• Publisher: Steerforth Pr
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 1586420070
• ISBN 13: 9781586420079
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 208