The Caregiver’s Secrets
The Caregiver’s Secrets is Willetha King Barnette’s account of her 20+ year experience as a caregiver to her aging mother framed by powerful statistics and urgent policy issues. It emphasizes both the enormous scope of the demographic challenge facing America and the poignant details of coping with day-to-day caregiving responsibilities. The book aims to “open up” the experience of caregiving, a shadowy corner of family life with huge but largely unrecognized social and economic impacts. The narrative touches on many key challenges and dilemmas facing families and their aging loved ones, including difficult discussions about end of life decisions, the changing nature of medical services delivery, and the mind-numbing bureaucracies that dominate the landscape of an individual’s final years. The Caregiver’s Secrets includes tips and helpful advice for practicing caregivers as well as those who are destined to become caregivers. It spans the general and the particular, connecting the dots within a complex and hidden, but increasingly important sector of American life.