My Mother's Hip: Lessons from the World of Eldercare

Book Description
Some 400,000 hip fractures occur every year, the vast majority among the elderly; all too often these fractures are associated with death or severe disability. After her mother's double hip fracture, Luisa Margolies immersed herself in identifying and coordinating the services and professionals needed to provide critical care for an elderly person. She soon realized that the American medical system is ill prepared to deal with the long-term care needs of our graying society. The heart of My Mother's Hip is taken up with the author's day-to-day observations as her mother's condition worsened, then improved only to worsen again, while her father became increasingly anxious and disoriented. As both a devoted daughter and a skilled anthropologist, Margolies vividly renders her interactions with physicians, nurses, hospital workers, nursing home administrators, the Medicare bureaucracy, home care providers, and her parents. In the Lessons chapter that follows each episode, she discusses in a broader context the weighty decisions that adult children must make on their parents' behalf and the emotional toll their responsibility takes. Here she addresses the complex practical issues that commonly arise in such situations: understanding the consequences of hip fracture and its treatment, preparing health care proxies and advanced directives, enabling elders to remain at home, and the heartbreaking dilemma of prolonging life. Like many adult children, Margolies learned her lessons about eldercare in the midst of crises. This book is intended to ease the information-gathering and decision-making processes for others involved in eldercare.

From the Publisher
What most of us don't know about the longevity revolution

About the Author
Luisa Margolies is Clinical Research Director of the Hip Fracture Research Project of South Florida; she serves as a consultant on aging-in-place as well as housing, assistive technology, and universal design for the elderly. She also is Director of Ediciones Venezolanas de Antropologia in Caracas, Venezuela.


Buy from Amazon     Compare Prices

Because people are living longer, they are much more likely to suffer from osteoporosis and the resulting bone loss. As a result, hip fractures in the elderly make up a modern epidemic: some 400,000 fractures occur annually, mostly among the aged. An anthropologist by training, Margolies (clinical research director, Hip Fracture Research Project of South Florida) provides both a personal narrative of her experiences caring for her mother, who suffered a hip fracture, and a well-documented factual presentation of the medical and health issues related to eldercare in America. She writes that her "mother's hip is every mother's hip," and this is certainly true: many of us will be able to identify with the author as she details her mother's journey through a difficult and flawed healthcare system. Topics addressed in the nonbiographical chapters include hip fracture, nursing homes, advance directives, daughters as caregivers, prolonging life, and residential design for the elderly. Although her text is at times a bit strident, the author provides valuable lessons. Enthusiastically recommended for public and health sciences libraries.-Linda M.G. Katz, Drexel Univ. Health Sciences Libs., Philadelphia Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.


Buy from Barnes & Noble     Compare Prices