A nursing home ... not for my folks! : Families Caring for their Elderly at Home

This booklet is the second in a series of reports about elderly issues. The first, entitled The Elderly Have Spoken: Is Anybody Listening? The Impact of Fuel Costs on the Elderly, documented the impact of rising fuel costs on the elderly in Massachusetts. Each of the series reports seeks to capture the actual words, expressions, and feelings of elderly people and their loved ones. For the most part, the interviews were conducted by interviewers who are themselves 60 years old or older. We find that this age match provides greater insight and openness to the problems confronting the elderly in today\u27s society. In the following pages, you will find the stories of 68 families that have decided to care for their aging relatives in their own homes. Whenever possible, we have attempted to present the words of the family members themselves. These are telling words, unraveled in a moving document in which the authors\u27 job was merely to serve as organizer and communicator of the experience