Happily Ever After is broken into 14 chapters covering all of the issues you need to be across in making informed decisions about community care, moving to a retirement village or residential aged care facility for yourself or someone you care about.

Chapter headings and content:

Foreword

What this book covers

1 Introduction

A note on the resources detailed in this book
Note about the terminology of aged care

2 Becoming a Carer

I am the carer
Carer’s leave
Planning ahead (or the lack of it)
How to prepare ahead of an unforeseeable future

3 Caring for an Aged Person at Home

Which home, theirs or yours?
Moving house
Bringing the aged person to live in your home with you
Financial and legal issues of sharing accommodation
Be clear about what is intended
Dealing with your parent or friend’s increasing needs and worsening health
Making changes to your home to accommodate the aged person
Clearing and cleaning
Incontinence
Getting help
Eating
Medical issues
When you need medical information and help
Looking after someone who is sick
Keeping a person hydrated
“Giving a four-star bed bath”
Bed sores (or pressure ulcers)
Modifying a house to assist a disabled or fragile resident

4 Caring for an Aged Person in Hospital

Helping someone settle in to hospital
How to help in hospital
When decisions need to be made
When someone with dementia is in hospital
How the health system works
Understand the public and private health system divide
Out-of-hospital services
In-hospital services
What’s not covered by Medicare?
How do you pay the doctor?
How the hospital system works
What can you do to get the best care for your
aged person in hospital?
Too much medicine or too little care?
Intensive care unit or palliative care centre?
Complaints about health care

5 Caring for Someone Living in a Retirement Villag

“Over 55” Development or independent living unit
Is it a park? a community? a village? a retirement village?
Why does it matter?
Retirement villages
Where you can help

6 Residential Aged Care— Choosing and Moving to an Aged Care Facility
The once unthinkable: moving out of their home
How to facilitate the decision to move
How to choose the right aged care facility
The big move

7 Caring for a Person in Residential Aged Care
Immediate surrounds
Wandering
Your visits
Arranging for other visitors
Complaints about aged care

8 Health Issues in the Ageing
Nutrition and diet
Exercise
Dealing with special health issues

9 Making Ends Meet
The effect of government policy on you and your ageing relative or friend
What you need to know before making financial decisions
Access to social security
Eligibility for a pension
Means testing for pension benefits
Granny flats for social security purposes
Other issues relating to assets

10 The Real Cost of Different Living Arrangements
Services for people ageing in their own home
Moving to an independent living unit or retirement village
Changes to the aged care sector 2014-2017
The future

11 Legal Issues for Carers
Family agreements
Capacity in relation to wills and other documents
Wills
Powers of attorney, enduring guardianships and advance care directives
Financial abuse
Legal issues arising after a person dies

12 Care for the Carer
Attitude
Be realistic
Helping yourself
Acknowledge that the caring role is as demanding
as it is important
Accept that you won’t be able to do it all
Be realistic about what can be done within the
relationship you have
Get enough rest
Take a break
Set limits
Enlist other members of the family to help
Accept offers of help
Let it out
Grief and losses
Find time to think
Accept what can’t be changed

13 Caring at the End of Life
Choosing death
A living funeral
The place where we die
Dying at home
Caring for someone in their last weeks or months
Dealing with fear
When death comes
Paying for the funeral and related costs
The funeral
After the funeral of your loved one
The nature of grief
Losing a partner
Losing a parent
Becoming an orphan
Ways to help yourself grieve
Practicalities of death and estates

14 Reflections on the Future
When carers will become those cared for
Changes we’d like to see
About the Authors