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Author Davis offers practical advice for any person in the role of caregiver. Based on her own professional and personal experience, she details the probable needs of people suffering from various ailments and how to provide for them. The subjects examined include the needs and distresses of conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, amputation or loss of a limb, Parkinson’s disease, and heart attack. Techniques described include such necessary skills as taking a glucose test, dressing and undressing the patient, and even washing genitalia. The caregiver may also be expected to perform housekeeping chores, including laundry and food preparation. The caregiver should always offer comfort and companionship as they may be serving someone with a mental disorder or even someone experiencing grief, situations which require a strong concentration of empathy and compassion.
For caregivers, the author presents a variety of practical ways to approach the work since its emotional and physical necessities can be draining. To improve the caregiver’s outlook, Davis supplies useful examples for meditations, such as breathing, walking, singing, and dancing, and provides extra pages to be used for psychologically affirming journaling. Davis, who has written previously on this subject matter, continues to demonstrate her impressive knowledge of the caregiving realm. Emotive drawings and photographs by the author fill the book. Her rich background informs the work as she became a caregiver at age nineteen and has been sought to assist with necessities for a wide variety of patients while also working as a medical receptionist, phlebotomist, and lab technician. Her writing evidences a deep understanding of the numerous changes that have affected the caregiver’s work over the span of time during which she served as a participant and observer. Davis diligently and empathically shares that knowledge for the guidance and benefit of other active or potential caregivers.