Main description:

*A straight-to-the-point handbook of critical information, ideal for overwhelmed caregivers.
*Some guides offer too much information or are overly clinical; this one provides straightforward skills that caregivers can use right now.
*Readers will recognize their own struggles in this comforting, matter-of-fact discussion.
*Filled with critical self-care strategies and advice for maintaining a loving family bond.
*Authoritative: short, informative chapters for time-strapped readers from a Harvard geriatric psychiatrist and a journalist with firsthand caregiving experience.

Contents:

Introduction
I. Understanding Your Parent's Dementia
1. What Is Dementia? How Is It Different from Just Getting Older?
2. How Can I Know for Sure If My Parent Has Dementia?
3. What Causes Memory Loss?: Alzheimer's Disease and the Many Other Causes
4. What to Expect: How the Problem Typically Progresses
5. Can Dementia Be Treated to Make It Less Severe?
II. Understanding Your New Relationship with Your Parent
6. Why Caring for Parents with Dementia Is So Much Harder than Caring for Parents with Other Diseases
7. The Biggest Mistake Family Members Make
8. Your New Relationship with Your Parent
9. Your Relationship with Your Other Parent or Stepparent
10. Taking Care of Yourself Is Not an Afterthought
III. Caring Smarter, Not Harder
11. What It Means to Care Smarter
12. How to Communicate with a Parent with Dementia
13. Avoiding Headaches with Your Parent's Finances
14. When Is It Okay to Lie to Your Parent?
15. Keeping Your Parent Safe at Home
16. Getting Help When Your Parent Lives at Home or with You
17. How to Take Away the Car Keys
18. What Causes Problem Behaviors
19. How to Reduce Problem Behaviors
20. How to Handle Problem Behaviors When They Occur
21. Responding to Your Other Family Members and Friends
IV. The Later Stages
22. Moving Your Parent to a Care Facility
23. How to Choose a Care Facility
24. How Am I Going to Pay for All This?
25. Your Relationship with Your Parent in a Care Facility
26. Dealing with the End of Life
Resources
Notes
Index