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Behind the Old Face: Aging in America and the Coming Elder Boom
After the highly respected author discovered a resident's box of old love letters as teenage nursing-home aide in 1977, her view of elderly patients was altered and inspired her lifelong career of geriatric care and advocating for quality elder care. She provides us an overview of aging and elder care in the U.S in this best-selling and award winning book. Drawing upon over 3 decades of experience and her interviews with seniors, Angil Tarach-Ritchey RN, GCM reveals the rich inner worlds of the elderly, conveys their advice and describes her vision of a community-based, intergenerational, and sustainable approach to senior living and care for our aging future as we face the Elder Boom crisis. Who Will Benefit From Reading Behind the Old Face? 1. Seniors now and into the future. If the treatment and care of older adults didn't need improving, this book would have not been written. This is the overall intention and motivation of the author. 2. Baby Boomers that either won't be able to, or do not want to pay between $100,000.00 and over $210,000.00 for care in 20 years or so. Statistically 70% of those over 65 years of age will need some amount of care for an average of 3 years. If you want a positive and uplifting aging future in your own home that you can look forward to rather than dread, and won't send you to the poorhouse this book is for you! 3. Caregivers, both family caregivers and professionals in healthcare, since the vast majority will care for seniors in one capacity or another and are all of us are aging too. Whether you are a nurse's aide in a skilled nursing home, a physician in ER, a volunteer directing patients, a social worker, nurse, therapist, or are in insurance sales or financial planning, we all come in contact with seniors and need to better understand aging in those we care and interact with, and ourselves. 4. Business Owners are losing 34 billion dollars annually in lost productivity related to employed family caregivers and this problem is going to get much deeper and far reaching than most realize as care costs become unaffordable for the vast majority, and government programs that are currently helping those under the poverty line will not be able to meet future costs. Find out how you can become part of the solution! 5. Government Officials in aging, housing, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and Veterans Administration who have a vested interest in how our nation will handle 78 million aging boomers. 6. Philanthropists, Foundations, Major Corporations, Patient Advocates, Hospitals, and other nonprofits interested in aging, senior health, the changing population, social change, and being a part of a great aging future. 7. Our country as a whole because the one thing we have in common from the day we were born is we are all aging. Find out how to reduce healthcare and custodial care costs all without taxing family members and US businesses.
186 pages, Paperback
First published November 12, 2012
About the author
Angil Tarach-Ritchey
2 books8 followersAngil Tarach-Ritchey has cared and advocated for seniors since her passion was sparked by a box of love letters she found in the nursing home she worked at as a 17 year old girl in 1977. She is a Registered Nurse, Geriatric Care Manager, National Eldercare Expert, Best-Selling and Award Winning Author of Behind the Old Face: Aging in America and the Coming Elder Boom, Speaker, Consultant, and Educator.
Angil has written nearly 80 articles and been featured and quoted in CNBC, Reuters, CBS, Case in Point Magazine, CareNovate Magazine, McKnight’s Long Term Care News, Consumer Affairs, Women Entrepreneur, Life Goes Strong , Jennings Wire, and many other websites, magazines, newspapers and podcasts across the US and internationally. She has been a guest and repeat guest on several radio shows and the featured guest on Your Money, Your Life TV show. She is a highly respected advocate for the elderly.
Angil has written nearly 80 articles and been featured and quoted in CNBC, Reuters, CBS, Case in Point Magazine, CareNovate Magazine, McKnight’s Long Term Care News, Consumer Affairs, Women Entrepreneur, Life Goes Strong , Jennings Wire, and many other websites, magazines, newspapers and podcasts across the US and internationally. She has been a guest and repeat guest on several radio shows and the featured guest on Your Money, Your Life TV show. She is a highly respected advocate for the elderly.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
November 30, 2012
The book was amazing and gives an amazing perspective on the aging process and how things need to change with the coming Elder Boom! I was blown away by how this book makes you think and understand what is "Behind the Old Face" and helps to make you realize that truly one of our most valuable resources are those living among us who have seen it and done it already!
October 22, 2013
Few books on aging provide the multiple perspectives needed to understand the current aging crisis in America. Typically, the focus is singular. Facts and figures on demographic trends, advocacy or interviews with older persons are the focus. Caregiving issues may figure prominently or a proposed model for community is discussed. Rarely, do you see a combination of these topics. This book covers it all.
Angil Tarach-Ritchey offers 30 years of nursing experience with the elderly, advanced professional training and limitless empathy to communicate the big picture about elders. Let's start with her background in nursing and as owner of a home health care agency. She is only too well aware of the disregard for elders in this society. "I have seen more advocacy for an animal than an abused senior," she writes, a caring perspective that radiates throughout the book.
Part I provides a thoughtful review of the current climate of aging, including Angil's personal story. Topics range from her experience caring for the very sick elderly in a nursing home, while still an adolescent, to essential information about Alzheimer's disease. She also offers considerations about retirement--that is, are people prepared for the big transition from an active working life to creating a meaningful post-retirement?
Current and future demographics further detail the reality we all face: families scattered and unable to care for their older relatives, lack of income among the very old and sick, breakdown of long-term care options, as well as isolation and neglect of older people. The ever-present concern about health care costs and the viability of Social Security, especially for the Boomer generation, are also addressed.
Part II uses interviews to explore the people behind the "old faces," their lives, hopes, dreams and strengths. The photos particularly bring forth our own compassion and understanding of older persons: those left to live alone, others simply left behind by family and friends, caught in the system, or existing in a barren old-age facility she refers to as a "storehouse of the dying."
Part III provides a highly detailed vision of cooperative communities, a concept whose time has surely arrived. With work and commitment, Angil argues it would be possible to generate alternative models of senior living that would enhance old people's lives. As a sociologist, I was very excited about the development of a cooperative community of diverse age groups with full access to a variety of group activities, including shopping, health care, transportation, entertainment and other needs--and at affordable costs.
No one looks forward to that last stage of life trapped in an old age facility. Policymakers, you're on notice to begin planning for a more humane and compassionate future for our senior citizens. It takes a village to care for the expanding number of older persons, and we'd better start building those communities right now--while there's still time!
Angil Tarach-Ritchey offers 30 years of nursing experience with the elderly, advanced professional training and limitless empathy to communicate the big picture about elders. Let's start with her background in nursing and as owner of a home health care agency. She is only too well aware of the disregard for elders in this society. "I have seen more advocacy for an animal than an abused senior," she writes, a caring perspective that radiates throughout the book.
Part I provides a thoughtful review of the current climate of aging, including Angil's personal story. Topics range from her experience caring for the very sick elderly in a nursing home, while still an adolescent, to essential information about Alzheimer's disease. She also offers considerations about retirement--that is, are people prepared for the big transition from an active working life to creating a meaningful post-retirement?
Current and future demographics further detail the reality we all face: families scattered and unable to care for their older relatives, lack of income among the very old and sick, breakdown of long-term care options, as well as isolation and neglect of older people. The ever-present concern about health care costs and the viability of Social Security, especially for the Boomer generation, are also addressed.
Part II uses interviews to explore the people behind the "old faces," their lives, hopes, dreams and strengths. The photos particularly bring forth our own compassion and understanding of older persons: those left to live alone, others simply left behind by family and friends, caught in the system, or existing in a barren old-age facility she refers to as a "storehouse of the dying."
Part III provides a highly detailed vision of cooperative communities, a concept whose time has surely arrived. With work and commitment, Angil argues it would be possible to generate alternative models of senior living that would enhance old people's lives. As a sociologist, I was very excited about the development of a cooperative community of diverse age groups with full access to a variety of group activities, including shopping, health care, transportation, entertainment and other needs--and at affordable costs.
No one looks forward to that last stage of life trapped in an old age facility. Policymakers, you're on notice to begin planning for a more humane and compassionate future for our senior citizens. It takes a village to care for the expanding number of older persons, and we'd better start building those communities right now--while there's still time!
February 3, 2014
Behind the Old Face-- A book with Clarity and Insight--
Angil Tarach-Ritchey has written a superb book about her observations and experiences as a nurse with 30 years of experience caring for aging adults. She details many life experiences that have shaped her perspective about our health system and how we as a society have been addressing and caring for our older adults. She expresses her frustrations that we pay too little attention to the lives our patients have lived. I found reading about her personal experiences such as the ladder that she and many nurses must climb within her profession to be enlightening and eye opening. She started as an inexperienced aide and described all the steps in her training to become a skilled, experienced, and dedicated nurse. She expressed the frustrations she faced in dealing with the callousness she observed in the treatment of elders in our health care system and within society in general.
I very much appreciated the patient examples she used in the book to demonstrate that while adults age they are not hollow vessels but real people who have lost some skills but maintained their identity and souls. In the third part of her book she boldly describes what she believe would be a solution of integrating our aging adults into communities. I applauded this forward thinking of the author.
Angil Tarach-Ritchey has written a superb book about her observations and experiences as a nurse with 30 years of experience caring for aging adults. She details many life experiences that have shaped her perspective about our health system and how we as a society have been addressing and caring for our older adults. She expresses her frustrations that we pay too little attention to the lives our patients have lived. I found reading about her personal experiences such as the ladder that she and many nurses must climb within her profession to be enlightening and eye opening. She started as an inexperienced aide and described all the steps in her training to become a skilled, experienced, and dedicated nurse. She expressed the frustrations she faced in dealing with the callousness she observed in the treatment of elders in our health care system and within society in general.
I very much appreciated the patient examples she used in the book to demonstrate that while adults age they are not hollow vessels but real people who have lost some skills but maintained their identity and souls. In the third part of her book she boldly describes what she believe would be a solution of integrating our aging adults into communities. I applauded this forward thinking of the author.
May 15, 2013
This book contains three parts- Part One discusses the current climate of aging, Two is made up of interviews the author conducted with elderly people, and three describes a model on the future of caregiving and how it might be a better and more cost effective way to provide care to seniors.
She writes in a way that is easy to understand-which is good because when I have to read a lot of "technical" terms it cause my brain to glitch. She also emphasizes empathy when providing care so the carees will receive the best care they can and I agree. As for her model for the future of caregiving, she proposes communities for aging adults, care providers, and businesses that are self-sufficient and self-contained. They would provide affordable residential living for aging adults, caregiving families, business owners, and healthcare professionals. They would also provide stores, banks, postal services, etc. The communities would be managed by multi-generational committees. While it is a fresh and unique perspective, I'm not sure it is doable.
Overall, I found the book to be a handy tool for familiy caregivers and professionals. I recommend it.
She writes in a way that is easy to understand-which is good because when I have to read a lot of "technical" terms it cause my brain to glitch. She also emphasizes empathy when providing care so the carees will receive the best care they can and I agree. As for her model for the future of caregiving, she proposes communities for aging adults, care providers, and businesses that are self-sufficient and self-contained. They would provide affordable residential living for aging adults, caregiving families, business owners, and healthcare professionals. They would also provide stores, banks, postal services, etc. The communities would be managed by multi-generational committees. While it is a fresh and unique perspective, I'm not sure it is doable.
Overall, I found the book to be a handy tool for familiy caregivers and professionals. I recommend it.
April 5, 2014
Great book to help re-sensitize anyone/everyone to the very real human beings that elderly people still are. And to remind every single one of us, young and not so young, that elderly people are us, just a few years older. Chapter after chapter not only tells real stories, but asks many questions that would be great for group discussions. Our popular culture has teaches us that elderly people are of no longer any use to our society - actually they are the most awesome teachers among us - and show us what really matters about being human and where we are all going. I'm not surprised this book has won 3 book awards.
I am completely ready to live in a community the author describes in the last chapter - sign me up and tell me address, and I'll be in my car and on my way there!
I am completely ready to live in a community the author describes in the last chapter - sign me up and tell me address, and I'll be in my car and on my way there!
December 1, 2012
This is a book EVERYONE should read. It is eye-opening, heart rendering, and inspiring. Our care system is badly broken. If you're a Baby Boomer, you'll want to take action while you can to improve the quality of care for our growing elderly population (which includes you). If you're Gen X, Y, or Millenial, you'll very likely be in position of being responsible for the care of an aging loved one. After reading this book, and learning the sad state of our system, you should be sparked to take the steps needed to ensure that your loved ones are cared for properly.
Thank God for advocates like Angil. Her passion is infectious, and she knows what she's talking about. A great, great book!
Thank God for advocates like Angil. Her passion is infectious, and she knows what she's talking about. A great, great book!
October 27, 2013
Angil Tarach-Ritchey has written a truly unique book about aging. It is actually three books in one. One book is about Angil herself. That is, who she is, what she believes in, in regard to our elderly population now and her vision for the future of aging Americans. It's also about the journey Angil has taken to get to the place of advocacy she now dwells in. The second book is a storybook of lives of older adults she has known. Through a series of vignettes about these people she shows us what is behind their old faces. Happiness and tears, triumph and failures, in short, their lives lived fully. She reaches into our hearts with these stories. Finally, the third book is an educational tome, teaching us things about how to treat the elderly, with dignity and respect instead of dismissal. Angil has woven these three books together in an unusual way, switching from one mode of thinking to another, while still maintaining the continuity of the overall structure of the book. Kudos to you Angil. This is a wonderful book!
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews