Lanterna Rally

Author: Cynthia Loucks

Publisher:

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781889242132

Author Cynthia Loucks provides a first-hand account of the story of quiet desperation that is the day-to-day norm in the majority of nursing homes. Her mother spent the last years of her life as a total-care resident in an average-rated nursing home. She was not beaten, neglected, or otherwise abused-at least not in the sense that would cause headlines to erupt-yet the indignities and careless behaviors documented here are bone-chilling. Loucks's story is not significant because it is unique; it is significant because it is typical. Anecdotes of personal and professional experiences are woven with information about the nursing home business in general. Loucks offers helpful advice throughout the book to anyone who is feeling cornered by the system. In the final chapter, "Hope Rising, " Loucks describes some grassroots programs that give the rest of us reason to hope for a better future, despite our prime-of-life tendency to avoid the topic. The book ends with a Bibliography, Resources, and an Index.This is NOT a book about how to select a nursing home. As the author writes, "Making a valid assessment of a nursing home is difficult when much of what happens, good or bad, within a facility remains hidden until one is in the midst of the nursing home experience." Following is an example of the behind-the-scenes behavior the author refers to: "Mama's skin had gotten as thin as an old shirt that's been worn and washed so many times it has become transparent and easily torn. Yet the aides would take a terry washcloth, coarse from heavy bleaching, and scrub her as though she had been digging ditches all day."The author's main point throughout the book is that restoring people's humanity to theequation of products and services will go a long way toward reforming the system. "It