Standing Beside Them: The Complete Caregiver's Guide to Dementia, the Third Book in Dr. Patricia A. Farrell's Living With Dementia Series, Now Available on Amazon and Draft2Digital

There are more than 11 million unpaid family caregivers in the United States providing care for someone with Alzheimer's disease or another dementia. They provide nearly 18 billion hours of care every year. They do it without a salary, without a job description, and without the training that the job demands. Many of them are depressed. Many of them are burned out. Almost none of them has been given a book written for them.

Dr. Patricia A. Farrell has spent her career working with the families behind those numbers. She knows what is missing. Standing Beside Them is her answer.

Third Book in the Series Now Available

Standing Beside Them: The Complete Caregiver's Guide to Dementia is available now as an e-book priced at $6.99 and as a paperback priced at $14.99. The e-book is available on Amazon and through Draft2Digital. The paperback is available on Amazon. An audiobook edition is also available on Amazon.

This is the third volume in the Living With Dementia series. Where Book 1, When Memory Fades, explains what a dementia diagnosis means for the person receiving it, and Book 2, Day by Day, addresses the full range of therapies and daily strategies for living well with the disease, Standing Beside Them turns its full attention to the caregiver.

Most books about dementia are written for patients or for clinical professionals. This book is written for the family member who is doing the actual work of care and who has been largely invisible in the published conversation about this disease. Dr. Farrell wrote it to change that.

What Caregivers Will Find Inside

Standing Beside Them covers the full scope of the caregiving experience, from the moment a family member steps into the caregiver role through the long aftermath of caregiving's end. Written in plain language at a high school reading level, it covers:

•How understanding dementia at a neurological level transforms a caregiver's ability to respond to difficult behavior with patience rather than frustration

•Practical communication strategies for every stage of the disease, including validation therapy, simplified language approaches, and nonverbal connection techniques for late-stage dementia

•Step-by-step guidance on the physical tasks of daily care: bathing, dressing, nutrition, medication management, sleep, and incontinence, all approached with an emphasis on dignity for both caregiver and patient

•A comprehensive breakdown of the most challenging behavioral symptoms, including paranoia, agitation, wandering, and sundowning, with specific, field-tested management strategies for each

•A clinical, compassionate examination of caregiver burnout: what it looks like, what causes it, and what caregivers can actually do to prevent or recover from it

•A complete guide to respite care and community resources, including the National Family Caregiver Support Program, adult day programs, and how to access Veterans Administration benefits that many eligible caregivers do not know exist

•Navigation of the legal and financial landscape, including the documents every caregiver needs, what Medicare does and does not cover, and how to protect a vulnerable adult against financial exploitation

•Guidance on when home care is no longer sufficient and how to evaluate, choose, and remain engaged with a memory care facility after placement

•Tools for managing the family dynamics that dementia consistently strains, including sibling conflicts, long-distance family members, and family members in denial

•A research-grounded exploration of anticipatory grief and ambiguous loss, named and validated for the caregivers who are grieving someone who is still alive

•Support for the transition after caregiving ends, including bereavement, relief guilt, post-caregiving identity loss, and how to find meaning in what the experience produced

Every chapter ends with a summary and three specific actions the reader can take immediately, because in caregiving, a clear next step matters more than additional information without one.

Written for the Caregiver, Not the Clinician

The caregivers who need this book the most are often the least likely to have time to read it. Dr. Farrell designed Standing Beside Them accordingly. The chapters are organized so that a caregiver in crisis can go directly to the section that addresses their most urgent situation. The language is direct and accessible. The research is current but never overwhelming. And the tone throughout reflects Dr. Farrell's three decades of clinical experience sitting across from people who are frightened, exhausted, and in need of someone who will be honest with them.