Love in the Land of Dementia

September 16, 2013
While in recent years there have been more skilled professionals and care facilities for dementia patients, close to 15 million Americans are family caregivers. In a combined memoir and caregiver’s guide, Shouse, a journalist and contributor to numerous Chicken Soup volumes, shares the story of her mother Fran’s last seven years, from diagnosis and a move to assisted living to a stay in the geriatric psych ward, and on to nursing home placement and eventually hospice care. The author’s short, first-person narratives, complete with dialogue, will undoubtedly resonate with the huge population of adults charged with caring for a loved one with dementia. Shouse ably expresses a daughter’s pain and sense of hopelessness, while exploring the intertwined dynamics of love, guilt, and grief. Though she is indeed fortunate to have found—and been able to afford—an excellent Alzheimer’s unit of a nursing home, her experience is universal, and compassionately rendered here. Readers come to know Fran, thanks to her daughter’s unconditional love, respect, and candor. Though the appendix features concise advice for advocacy, a minimal resource listing, and a cursory caregiver’s guide, in terms of guidance, these sections barely touch upon what is readily available in books like the classic The Thirty-Six Hour Day or Lauren Kessler’s Finding Life in the Land of Alzheimer’s.

Starred review from January 1, 2014

Once a rarefied term used primarily by medical specialists, dementia is now a common word in the vocabulary of aging. Despite the ubiquity of this term, families often know only to be scared and are unsure of how to care for a family member with the disease. Columnist Shouse's (coauthor, Working Women's Communications Guide) writing has appeared in many publications. She shares the story of her mother's decline owing to the mental and physical effects of Alzheimer's, ending with her death in 2005. This is a practical and sincere guide, written with humor and insight and packed with useful information to help family caregivers understand what is happening as they and their loved one experience this difficult disease. Readers will be grateful that the author has distilled her own experiences, providing a nonprofessional but caring picture of the loving and difficult journey she took through her mother's illness. VERDICT Highly recommended for all general health collections. This title will be a good companion volume to the more technical publications on the topic.--Olga Wise, formerly with Compaq Computers Inc., Austin, TX

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