4 Recent Health Books You Should Know About

Looking for an interesting book to read? We’ve got you covered. Below are four books that have landed in our inbox about topics like aging, dementia and caregiver safety.

The Quiet Shift

By Nicole B. Simpson and contributor Sharon Stanford

In “The Quiet Shift,” Simpson and Stanford encourage readers to be proactive in understanding how to manage family finances to maintain healthy family relationships.

“Aging parents in a family can detrimentally impact the economic and emotional status of the parents themselves, their primary caregivers (who are usually their children) and their grandchildren—three generations,” Simpson said.

Simpson offers readers a series of stories and reflections on change, challenge and power—and her belief that when people prepare for the future emotionally and economically, they can build a legacy that will illuminate the richness and potential of those around them.

The Journey’s End: An Investigation into Death and Dying in Modern America

By Michael Doring Connelly

In this new book, Connelly, a 40-plus-year health care veteran and former CEO of Mercy Health, details how people can have more control and dignity in the final phases of their lives.

The book covers topics including:

• Many older patients are not getting what they want in respect to end-of-life care
• Older patients should have palliative care consults before aggressive end-of-life treatments.
• Why health policies routinely pay for futile attempts to avoid death but don’t cover effective, needed and much less expensive social support services—and steps for reform.
• How senior citizens and anyone grappling with a grave disease need to clearly express their wishes for dying—with details on feeding tubes, ventilators and more—and document their preferences in a cell phone video, if not an official advance directive.

Dementia Prevention: Using Your Head to Save Your Brain (A Johns Hopkins Press Health Book)

By Emily Clionsky and Mitchell Clionsky

Emily and Mitchell Clionsky are a physician and neuropsychologist couple who have cared for their own parents with dementia, created a test used by doctors to measure cognitive function and treated more than 25,000 patients with cognitive impairment. In “Dementia Prevention,” they combine the most current scientific findings about Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias with their experience to present a practical guide that empowers the reader to improve their brain’s future.

Readers will learn how activity level, weight, habits, mental outlook and social engagement may affect one’s likelihood of developing dementia. “Dementia Prevention” provides a dementia risk checklist to better understand your personal risk profile to help you on your journey. The authors’ training and experience as behavioral scientists will help readers set better goals, identify roadblocks to success and overcome these obstacles. 

Shared Voices: A Framework for Patient and Employee Safety in Healthcare

By Heidi Raines

Raines says it is paramount for health care leaders to establish a framework that sets caregivers up for success at every level and in every type of health care organization.

The book outlines how near-miss and incident reporting, equitable follow-up, analysis and learning are all essential parts of achieving a just culture of care and of protecting patients and employees, giving voice to employees and elevating the overall health of communities.

Raines also wants to inform policymakers and other high-level decision-makers of the benefits of transforming health care organizations into safe cultures of care.

Readers will learn:

• What determines a just culture in health care
• Steps toward achieving a just culture of care
• Steps to establishing a patient safety committee
• Steps to improve employee safety in health care
• How to build an effective reporting system