Alone and Invisible No More: How Grassroots Community Action and 21st Century Technologies Can Empower Elders to Stay in Their Homes and Lead Healthier, Happier Lives

Allowing patients the dignity of risk is a central concept in this book. Simple though this idea sounds, it literally calls for re-educating our society. Elder care, in current usual practice, is expected to provide care with ZERO risk to the patient -- and in attempting to do so, our currently practiced elder care system also removes all joy of living for the patient. Many die simply as a way to escape the living hell of the nursing home (my wording, not the author's).After witnessing from out of state my father's last years -- he had apparently signed away rights to have a voice about WHICH section of the retirement facility he would be housed in at any given time (and this was a POSH facility in a chain with a nationwide good reputation) -- I commented to my brother (10 years younger than I) that I was going to make a serious plan for suicide at the first sign of any incurable elder illness because I would rather be dead than endure elder "care." My brother replied that he had come to the same conclusion. And my sister and another brother commented that our father had told THEM he would prefer death to continued existence in this care system.Dr. Teel, the author, summed up pretty much all that my brother and I thought in the beginning of his book. I was impressed that he was a doctor with a big heart and a big intelligence and a big dedication to then go out and actually DO something significant. He described the "journey" by which he formed a county-wide association dedicated to providing in-home care to 6,000 patients, about 25% of whom would normally be consigned to assisted living or nursing home care -- at about 10% of the cost of such institutional care. With a creative use of technology, volunteers, paid personnel who have been retrained to this philosophy of preserving patient dignity and rights, and patients who assist in monitoring and sometimes caring for other patients, he has built a truly innovative approach to elder care. Integral to this approach is the idea that patient desires and hopes are SO important that this system makes it part of their mission to assist patients in getting out to do FUN things, not just for medical appointments.Dr. Teel also makes the point that elders have been marginalized in much the same way that developmentally disabled people had been prior to the 1960's-70's, when their care was de-instututionalized. He says that many of the steps that were taken to allow the developmentally disabled the dignity of risk, the right to try, the right to fail and try again, are the same steps needed to de-marginalize elders with health problems.It seems that he wrote the book to interest others in joining his effort to create a nation-wide chain of such organizations. He states that a goal of his organization is to spearhead formation of 10,000 such groups in the course of the next ten years. Though he hopes others will join him, he also states that it doesn't matter WHO does this; what matters is that SOMEONE does it.I was interested enough to buy a second copy of this book to share with my doctor, a young doctor months away from leaving a corporate medical office in order to open a one-doctor private practice. I think Dr. Teel's ideas and organization merit more investigation with an eye to being able to do the same things in my area of the country.

I could have written "Thought-provoking," but it was more than that. My framework for how I view helping elders was definitely disturbed, in a productive way. Dr. Teel has solid credibility, having attempted building the kind of assisted living environment we would all hope to have, only to be continually thwarted by unyielding regulatory personnel, leading to non-meritorious monetary sanctions and costly structural modifications. His approach is also "disturbing" given the intensive need for microscopic monitoring of a patchwork system to maintain homebound elders with volunteers (both able-bodied, and elder) and paid help. Any one piece that falls out of the daily picture, if only for an hour, needs immediate replacement and back-up. I would not want to be the great overseer of such a litigation-waiting-to-happen. However, if any individual client-family can pull such a system together for their loved one, I would certainly be there to help them develop the quilt of care and advise them of the caveats.

When I finished reading Alone and Invisible No More, I immediately loaned my copy to one sister and ordered another copy sent to my other sister in California. I also recommended it to the director of a company that helps seniors stay in their own homes, and she ended up purchasing more copies for friends and associates. This is a wonderful book, one that should be read by everyone who has contact with or responsibility for the elderly. At the very least, it assures us that we are not alone in our frustration with the awesome task of caring for loved ones who are no longer able to care for themselves; but is also offers real, practical suggestions and makes it clear that we all need to value our elderly friends and family members for what they have contributed to their communities and may still be able to offer. I highly recommend it.

I find that elder care is vastly complex and more often than not strips the aged of all dignity and sense of worth. There is value in living as you have always lived or dreamed of living. This book highlights the successes of a pilot program in Maine that is astonishing. To me, the most remarkable thing is that this pilot program is not government established but the brain child of caring, concerned individuals who merely want elderly adults to age with respect and value.

a well presented perspective on our society's upcoming challenge to deal with the demographic certainty of our aging population; he presents the facts, the challenge, and some suggestions to soften the reality using community and technology. Very nicely done.

This book presents the Maine Approach to caring for the older American. It should be read by all health care professionals and by anyone that cares for an aging adult. The use of modern technology and volunteers is inovative and a better idea than warehousing the aging population. The option presented is also more affordable.

well written and public needs to known how to enrich life with what we all have already and use as little of government help as possible.

Make sure you read to the end. The first half pretty much tells what they did wrong and what they learned from it. The last part of the book really gets into helping seniors age in place.