This Paperback Book item from ILR Press was reviewed on 26-Oct-2008.
Search ISBN:080147261X offer from Abebooks or used books from Alibris. Nobody's Home: Candid Reflections of a Nursing Home Aide Reference Book. Classifications : Gerontolgoy Clinical Nursing Medicine & Health Sciences New & Used Textbooks Custom Stores Specialty Stores Books Home & Community Care Clinical Nursing Medicine & Health Sciences New & Used Textbooks . Click the following link to view the cover of Nobody's Home: Candid Reflections of a Nursing Home Aide. Related topics: Gerontolgoy. Clinical. Nursing. Custom Stores. Specialty Stores. Books. Clinical. Nursing. Custom Stores. Specialty Stores. requestid: 8a2cb0c9-875c-47da-a88a-ec94fac7e5be
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1) Paperback Book Nobody's Home: Candid Reflections of a Nursing Home Aide by ILR Press. The idea of this book is a good one--but it lost momentum toward the middle of the book. I have worked in long-term care in the past and more recently in a hospice facility..I knew in my mind what the author was saying was true--but it didn´t change any of the feelings I carry in my heart. I was disappointed in this book. A rating of 2 seemed to harsh and a rating of a 2 1/2 seems about right--but you can´t rate a 1/2 star so I will give this book a 3.¤ 2) Paperback Book Nobody's Home: Candid Reflections of a Nursing Home Aide by ILR Press. My mother went into a nursing home a little over a year ago. It is a ´good´ nursing home, yet even so I have been distributed by several things related to her care (or lack thereof). The author gave a realistic picture of daily life in a nursing home from the perspective of someone who works there. I found his book to be very helpful in clarifying my own thinking about the nursing home. I recommend this to anyone who has a loved one in, or about to go into, a nursing home.¤ 3) Paperback Book Nobody's Home: Candid Reflections of a Nursing Home Aide by ILR Press. Having spent 3 weeks time in a nursing home last year, I found the book to be well written. It was very candid, almost too much so sometime. The time I spent reading this book reminded me of many patients and circumstances that I remember so vividly that were written about. The caring of the author showed all through every chapter. This is a book that needed to be written. Thank you Thomas for your abilities.¤ 4) Paperback Book Nobody's Home: Candid Reflections of a Nursing Home Aide by ILR Press. I added this book to my library while preparing a "reading list" of sorts for my entry into the world of managing assisted living. Although Mr. Gass´ residents are skilled nursing folks, there is strong overlap if you´re dealing with a high care needs population and the caregivers who work with them. For my situation - turning around a badly run facility and getting perspective on the CNA´s position, it´s ideal.
Tom Gass is clearly an "in the trenches" story teller - but do NOT be put off by that and assume he´s naive or unanalytical. Sure, the book is full of stories of coping with incontinence (aka the "poop factor"), but he has outstanding perspective on the health care and labor practices that lie behind the "incontinent war zone" he´s writing about. If I have any criticism at all it´s that the author could have written a bit more on the "big picture" while discussing the minute. He clearly has the mind and writing talent to tackle it.
Buy this book for anyone who is underpaying a caregiver for an elder. Buy this for yourself if you are working with elders in residential care. And let´s hope Mr. Gass writes some more. Honestly, there are so many learned writers out there who write badly! It´s a pleasure just to read his prose. I put the book down feeling touched, energized, politicized, and in love with Tom Gass´ writing style. Come on, buddy - time to write another!
He belongs on the same shelf with Anne Lamott probably - although book sellers would never do that. Wry, irreverant, but ultimately in love with his subject - old people.
I´m not sure what the book is doing relegated to the arcane category of "culture and politics of healthcare work." It should be sold with books on aging for non-professional readers, healthcare practice etc.. Those readers need to hear these stories - and will be grateful for the introduction. This is not a wonk´s book.¤ 5) Paperback Book Nobody's Home: Candid Reflections of a Nursing Home Aide by ILR Press. Many have experienced the problems and fears recorded here. Waht is special is the writer´s focus on how one can humanize the people otherwise robbed of their humanity. This is truly a fine ministry. His emphasis on communicating with the residents is truly a work of God,¤ 6) Paperback Book Nobody's Home: Candid Reflections of a Nursing Home Aide by ILR Press. "At present nursing homes are designed . . . like outmoded zoos. Residents are kept in small rooms, emotionally isolated. Occasionally they are visited by family members who reach through the bars and offer them treats. Aides keep their bodies clean and presentable. . . . America invests huge amounts of money to maintain the body while leaving the person to languish, cut off from all they love."—From Nobody’s Home After caring for his mother at the end of her life, Thomas Edward Gass felt drawn to serve the elderly. He took a job as a nursing home aide but was not prepared for the reality that he found at his new place of employment, a for-profit long-term-care facility. In a book that is by turns chilling and graphic, poignant and funny, Gass describes America’s system of warehousing its oldest citizens. Gass brings the reader into the sterile home with its flat metal roof and concrete block walls. Like an industrial park complex, it is clean, efficient, and functional. He is blunt about the institution’s goal: keep those faint hearts pumping and the life savings and Medicaid dollars rolling in. With 130 beds in the facility, the owner grosses about three million dollars annually. As a relatively well-paid aide, Gass made $6.90 an hour. Seventeen of the twenty-six residents on Gass’s hall were incontinent, and much of his initiation to the work was learning to care for them in the most intimate ways. One of the many challenges was the limited time that he had available for each of his charges—17.3 minutes per day by his calculation. Even as he learned to ignore all but the most pressing demands of the residents, he discovered the remarkable lengths to which aides and their patients will go to relieve the constant ache of loneliness at the nursing home. With Americans living longer than ever before, elder care is among the fastest growing occupations. This book makes clear that there is a systemic conflict between profit and extent of care. Instead of controlling costs and maximizing profits, what if long-term care focused on our basic need to lead meaningful and connected lives until our deaths? What if staff members dropped the feigned hope of forestalling the inevitable and concentrated on making their charges comfortable and respected? These and other questions raised by this powerful book will cause Americans to rethink how nursing homes are run, staffed, and financed—as well as the circumstances under which we hope to meet our end.¤ Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 23-Nov-2008, 080147261X9780801472619, 1X0-8X0-300-680-011-221-8 
Nobody's Home: Candid Reflections of a Nursing Home Aide, Book, Image © ILR Press
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