5 Books Every Caregiver Should Read
Whether you are a new caregiver or you have been one for a while, resources on caregiving are invaluable. In the beginning, you can feel like you’ve been thrown in at the deep end. The demands can be huge and seemingly endless, and the stakes are high. As time goes on, your loved one’s caregiving needs evolve, as do yours as a caregiver. Books can make all the difference.
From offering insight on how to manage daily caregiving tasks to self-care for caregivers, these books can make your caregiving journey easier and more fulfilling.
1. Caregiver’s Guide for Canadians
By Rick Lauber
Published by Self-Counsel Press — a well-reputed source for DIY books — this book is essential reading for any new caregiver struggling to understand their role and the demands of eldercare. If you’ve been a caregiver for a few years, you will also find value in it. Best of all, it is tailored to the needs of Canadian caregivers.
Chances are if you have burning questions as a caregiver, you will find answers to them in this guide. Questions such as:
- What should I expect when looking after an elderly parent?
- Who should I ask for help when I need it? (This is critical as ALL caregivers need help, yet many are reluctant to ask for it.)
- How do I manage medications?
- When does my parent need to move into assisted living?
- What activities can I do with my elderly loved one?
- How should I handle diet and personal care?
You will also find more valuable information such as how to delegate as a caregiver and how to be a long-distance caregiver. Or get to better understand the differences between independent living, assisted living and long-term care homes.
There are even worksheets to help you with self-care and to assess how you are doing as a caregiver.
From offering insight on how to manage daily caregiving tasks to self-care for caregivers, these books can make your caregiving journey easier and more fulfilling.
2. When Caregiving Calls: Guidance as You Care for a Parent, Spouse, or Aging Relative
By Aaron Blight
If you are looking for as much candid, practical advice as you can get, this caregiving book is for you. Author Aaron Blight draws on his experiences as a caregiver for his mother-in-law and owner of a home-care company. He was also a national health care policy leader and studied caregiving as a social science phenomenon.
In When Caregiving Calls, he unwraps issues such as how caregiving reshapes family relationships and the time, energy and emotional demands it places on caregivers.
The book also explores other weighty caregiving challenges such as how elderly loved ones become more vulnerable as their physical and mental health decline. It challenges common assumptions about the role and offers caregivers meaningful and doable strategies on how to cope better with every aspect of caregiving, including the physical and psychological.
3. Self-Care for Caregivers: A Twelve Step Approach
By Pat Samples, Diane Larsen, Marvin Larsen
After becoming caregivers for many elderly people and those struggling with addiction, the authors of this book were inspired to write a guide to help other caregivers. Its key premise is how to better take care of yourself so that you can care for someone else.
Using the 12 Steps approach as a foundation, they provide insight into common caregiver challenges. They offer practical techniques to cope with day-to-day struggles, emotional fallout — including guilt and loneliness — conflicting needs and pain management.
In particular, if you are a caregiver who struggles with control and tension in your relationship with your loved one, this book can provide some solutions.
4. Chicken Soup for the Caregiver Soul: Stories to Inspire Caregivers in the Home, Community and the World
By Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen and LeAnn Thieman
In 2023, it will be 30 years since the first Chicken Soup for the Soul was published. As this spinoff’s title suggests, it offers stories of caregivers from around the world to help inspire and motivate others sharing the same journey.
You will find stories of special moments in caregiving and acts of kindness, and ruminations on the true meaning of health care. Others share how they overcome caregiving obstacles, find perspective along the journey and, despite their struggles, still count their blessings. Several also offer how tapping into their spirituality has helped them as caregivers.
The odds are that within these short stories, you will recognize many of your own experiences and emotions as a caregiver. Definitely soup for the soul.
5. Alzheimer’s: A Caregiver’s Guide and Sourcebook
By Howard Gruetzner
About half a million Canadians are caring for someone with dementia, according to the University of Alberta’s Research on Aging, Policy and Practices. That number will continue to rise as our elderly population continues to increase. In fact, by age 85, 1 in 4 seniors are diagnosed with some form of dementia, the most common being Alzheimer’s.
When you care for someone with dementia, you face more difficult challenges than other caregivers, especially as your loved one’s disease progresses. For instance, seniors with dementia spend more time in hospitals and for longer periods, which can make them more vulnerable to diseases and falls.
Where do you begin to find the information that you need to reduce possible harm to your loved one and not be completely out of your depth?
Alzheimer’s: A Caregiver’s Guide and Sourcebook is a good start. Currently in its third edition, this bestselling guide guides you through the challenges of caring for someone with Alzheimer’s.
It includes essential insight on the latest research breakthroughs and treatment and care options and how to cope with stress and depression you might experience. You will learn what to expect at each stage of the disease as it progresses and the best ways to respond.
Ultimately, it addresses three key fundamental demands of caregiving for your loved one with dementia: How to better understand what is happening to your loved one. How to provide the best possible care for them with the resources you have. And how to make the experience more rewarding and less daunting for you as a caregiver.
