Alzheimer’s Caregiver Guide Offers 300 Tips To Make Life Easier

Newswise — With more than five million American's suffering from Alzheimer's disease and the number rising, authors of a new book entitled "A Caregiver's Guide to Alzheimer's Disease: 300 Tips for Making Life Easier" focus on the capabilities that remain instead of those that have been lost to the disease.

Alzheimer's is a devastating disorder of the brain's nerve cells that impairs memory, thinking and behavior. Patricia Callone, vice president for Institutional Relations and Roger Brumback, professor of Pathology and Psychiatry and chairman of the Department of Pathology, School of Medicine, both from Creighton University, authored the book along with Connie Kudlacek, executive director of the Alzheimer's Association Midlands chapter and Janaan Manternach, co-director of Life, Love, Joy Associates, a company specializing in writing education and religious materials.

The book is divided into sections that correspond with the progression of the disease and ways to face the challenges encountered at each stage.

"By understanding what is physically happening to the brain, caregivers like me, can learn to apply our own special skills and talents throughout the disease process," said Callone. My experience of being a caregiver to three family members has been a wonder-filled and life altering experience and gave me insight I wanted to share with others, "she added.

The book recently received a "3" rating on the Doody's Review Service, a health services experts review service that many medical and academic libraries use when determining their purchases.

Additional Creighton staff members who contributed to the book include: Siobhan Champ-Blackwell, M.S.L.I.S. Community Outreach Liaison and Judith R. Bergjord, M.L.S., reference librarian, Creighton University's Health Sciences Library and Helene Lohman, O.T.D., O.T. R/L, associate professor of Occupational Therapy at the Creighton University School of Pharmacy and Health Professions.

Copies of the book are available through Demos Medical Publishing.

Creighton University, a comprehensive Jesuit, Catholic university located in Omaha, Nebraska, offers its 4,000 undergraduate and 2,800 professional and graduate students a unique atmosphere where students feel academically and professionally challenged and individually supported and inspired. Creighton has been a top ranked Midwestern university in the U.S. News & World Report magazine's "America's Best Colleges" edition for 19 years. For more information visit our website at: http://www.creighton.edu.