AARP Meditations for Caregivers: Practical, Emotional, and Spiritual Support for You and Your Family

As a clinical psychologist who works with older people, along with individuals and families of all ages dealing with cancer and health issues, the struggles to provide care for an ill or elderly person can't be underestimated. There are also so many opportunities for growth and healing as well. I will strongly recommend this book to my clients and friends because I think there are very few resources that address caregiving in such a practical and compassionate way. As the child of elderly parents, I have found many of the anecdotes in this book meaningful to me personally. Drs.Jacobs and Mayer have written an easily digested and comprehensive book that provides practical advice and comfort for those faced with the complexities of taking care of someone. From accepting feelings, to having a sense of humor, knowing your limits, and finding rewards in the often stressful process, Jacobs and Mayer are like wise friends who have your back. They understand through their own personal and clinical experience what you may be feeling and what you might need to do. This book gets to the heart of the caregiving journey many of us are going through. If you are looking for support to help take care of yourself and your loved one, you'll turn to this book again and again for advice, wisdom and hope. It would make a great gift for the caregivers you know.

A read a page a day and it's been tremendously helpful. Thank you.

The book is good. The title is off. It has nothing to do with meditation, which is fine for me. Basically it is different people telling brief stories about their experiences which makes you know you are not alone. A more accurate title would have been "The daily life" or "All in a Day's work" "by Caregivers." It is brief stories we can relate too. The title is just misleading.

I am 43 years old and I manage all aspects of my father's well being and affairs. my father has vascular dementia, and I do tend to be an A type personality , so incase you don;t know what that means, it means I like everything in order and on schedule 105% of the time and I noticed that I have been having issues being able to emotionally adjust to changes and anything that might interfere with what my thought process was for that day. It recently caused high blood pressure, severe stress and anxiety which I WOULD NOT succumb to taking medication for these things so, I found this book as an alternative to stress and anxiety management. I can already tell you that I feel way better because the excerpts in this book helped me to understand that this is normal, there is a different perspective and way to think about these situations, and there are other people who can COMPLETELY relate to these crazy things that stress me out. I still have to work on it but this book has been helping alot. Example: My father calls me to tell me his TV is broken again and I need to explain every other day how to "get it to work." It took me a while to realize it was not the TV. I calm down now, and every time, I just reexplain it as if it is the first time, and realize that it's just about patience, and maybe it feels like it IS the first time to him. I take this book everywhere incase there is a line I have to wait on and I get another moment to read it.

The book contains stories helpful to those who are dealing with aging parents, but the word meditation is deceiving. As a caregiver for a young family member who is terminally ill, I was looking for a book that would lend support spiritually. This book was not a good fit for me.