Spirituality Health and Healing or Death in Slow Motion

Spirituality, Health, and Healing

Author: Caroline Young

In Spirituality, Health, and Healing, health care professionals and spiritual care providers are presented with a comprehensive resource for delivering effective, compassionate spiritual care to their clients. Content includes exploring the spiritual dimension of individuals, the various aspects of spiritual care, spiritual dimensions in particular types of care, and spiritual considerations of special populations.

Table of Contents:

Ch. 1	Characteristics of spirituality	3
Ch. 2	Spirituality, the health care professional, and the spiritual care provider	23
Ch. 3	Spiritual rituals	43
Ch. 4	Spirituality, religion, and health	59
Ch. 5	Spirituality, culture, and health	75
Ch. 6	Spiritual assessment and spiritual care	103
Ch. 7	Therapeutic interventions for healing	125
Ch. 8	Spiritually healing environments	147
Ch. 9	Spiritual care of the dying	169
Ch. 10	Spirituality and the grieving process	187
Ch. 11	Spirituality, religion, and children	203
Ch. 12	Spiritual dimensions of aging	221

New interesting book: The Opinion Makers or The Collected Works of Billy the Kid

Death in Slow Motion: A Memoir of a Daughter, Her Mother, and the Beast Called Alzheimer's

Author: Eleanor Cooney

When her once-glamorous and witty novelist-mother got Alzheimer's, Eleanor Cooney moved her from her beloved Connecticut home to California in order to care for her. In tense, searing prose, punctuated with the blackest of humor, Cooney documents the slow erosion of her mother's mind, the powerful bond the two shared, and her own descent into drink and despair.

But the coping mechanism that finally serves this eloquent writer best is writing, the ability to bring to vivid life the memories her mother is losing. As her mother gropes in the gathering darkness for a grip on the world she once loved, succeeding only in conjuring sad fantasies of places and times with her late husband, Cooney revisits their true past. Death in Slow Motion becomes the mesmerizing story of Eleanor's actual childhood, straight out of the pages of John Cheever; the daring and vibrant mother she remembers; and a time that no longer exists for either of them.

Publishers Weekly

"Whoever said love was stronger than death was full of malarkey," comments Cooney, setting the forthright tone early in this honest account of taking care of a parent with Alzheimer's. In 1997, Cooney (The Court of the Lion: A Novel of the T'Ang Dynasty) and her companion, Mitch, both freelance writers, moved Cooney's 75-year-old mother, novelist Mary Durant, from her home in Connecticut to live near them in Northern California when it became clear that her mother's short-term memory was failing. A great admirer and loving daughter of her elegant, witty mother, Cooney suffered from terrible grief because she could not protect her mother from encroaching dementia. Durant's metamorphosis into a dependent, childlike hypochondriac occurred some years after the death of her husband. Cooney vividly describes the everyday physical and emotional stresses on her and Mitch, once her mother moved in with them, and highlights the lack of available resources for Alzheimer's patients who are not independently wealthy. Cooney and Mitch missed writing deadlines, began to drink heavily and nearly ended their relationship. When they could no longer manage her mother at home, Cooney placed her in several unpleasant assisted living residences, until Cooney managed to find her a reasonable place. A short story by Mary Durant is appended to this well-written, harrowing memoir. (Feb.) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Soon after the unexpected death of her mother's third husband, novelist Cooney noticed subtle signs that her mother's memory was failing. Mary Durant (also a writer) fell prey to sweepstakes schemes, suffered from depression, and was becoming confused in familiar neighborhoods-common symptoms of Alzheimer's. Over their mother's violent protests, Cooney and her brother moved her from Connecticut to Cooney's California home. As Durant's memory deteriorated, Cooney found the "hip, cool" mother she knew and loved "insidiously replaced by an imposter." Unable to afford in-home assistance, Cooney turned to alcohol and antidepressants for relief. Finally, after 18 months of caregiving, she sought residential placement for her mother. Cooney's memoir is a vivid, honest account of losing a parent to Alzheimer's. It is also the story of her own growing up, a narrative that accentuates the loss of memories both mother and daughter suffered. As Cooney eloquently writes, "You can't remember the predementia person. The memories are stuck behind heavy soundproof plate glass." Although less medically focused than Charles Pierce's Hard To Forget, this is a wonderful addition to caregiving and Alzheimer's collections. Highly recommended. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 10/15/02.]-Karen McNally Bensing, Benjamin Rose Lib., Cleveland Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Novelist Cooney (Shangri-La, 1996, etc.) paints a harrowing portrait of the devastation Alzheimer's wreaks not just on the victim but on those closest to her.

"Hip, cool, brilliant, funny, sane," Mary Durant was transformed by the blight of Alzheimer's into a demented creature who nearly destroyed her daughter's life. When it became clear that Durant's mind was going, Cooney moved her mother from Connecticut to California to care for her. The initial plan, for Durant to live alone in a nearby apartment, proved impossible. Cooney then converted her garage into a residence for her mother, but this too became unworkable, and the long search began for an adequate, affordable live-in care facility. Durant's violent behavior caused her to be evicted from one home and judged unacceptable by others. Even with the help of Cooney's partner Mitch, who had once been a nursing-home inspector, finding the right place was a long and grueling process. As she chronicles Durant's increasing dementia and its devastating effects on her own life (she turned in anguish to Valium and vodka), Cooney weaves in glimpses of happier days. Durant was a respected writer--the inclusion of an unpublished short story in the appendix is an unexpected bonus--and young Eleanor took great pride in her glamorous mother's beauty and accomplishments. During her privileged childhood among artists and writers in Connecticut, Alexander Calder's studio was her playroom, and Arthur Miller was a neighbor. The contrast between this golden past and a present marked by frustration, anger, resentment, and fatigue makes the destructive force of Alzheimer's a vivid reality. Anyone assuming that Alzheimer's victims live in a happy,mindless state will discover here that on the contrary they are often agitated, confused, miserable, and angry, and that those who loved the person he or she once was are likely to find themselves pushed to the limits of endurance.

Cooney tells it all with a fine and rare mix of black humor and bleak honesty.