The Baby Boomer's Guide to Nursing Home Care

Eric Carlson and Katharine Bau Hsiao. The Baby Boomer's Guide to Nursing Home Care. Taylor Trade Publishing, Lanham, Md., 2006. 194 pages.

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Currently, many baby boomers are dealing with one or both parents' long-term care needs. From choosing a nursing home to moving there to making medical decisions, there are so many different factors to consider. And the decisions don't go away -- as the baby boomers age, getting good long-term care will become a bigger and bigger issue. The Baby Boomer's Guide to Nursing Home Care was written to help children of aging parents address these issues and ensure that nursing home residents and their caregivers get the best nursing home care possible.

The authors, who are attorneys with the National Senior Citizens Law Center (NSCLC), cover practical issues like what to bring when one moves to a nursing home as well as legal issues like how to respond to a nursing home's attempted eviction. The book uses a question-and-answer format to cover the topics, which makes the information easy to read and understand. Other helpful features include tips and guides (for example, the book offers a helpful guide to using the Medicare's "Nursing Home Compare" Web site).

Other subjects covered include choosing a nursing home, paying for care (including a thorough discussion of Medicaid), the admission process, moving in, quality of care, and health care decision making. In addition, the book has several appendixes with helpful addresses and phone numbers, as well as the Medicaid resource and income allowances and average monthly private pay rates for each state.