Life Worth Living: How Someone You Love Can Still Enjoy Life in a Nursing Home; The Eden Alternative in Action

The activities director at my mother's nursing home(Tn.) brought this author and his book's to my attention. The nursing home administrator is currently having the entire staff read this line of book's(The Eden Project). I ordered "Life Worth Living" and "Learning From Hannah", because I want to be a part of what will make mom's life and other's a better place to be. I started reading "Life Worth Living" and was honestly amazed about how educational this paperback really was. Not only is this book easy to understand, it's extremely interesting! I can only pray that some day all nursing home facilities realize how beneficial the "Eden Project" really is.

This book will show how to turn a cold clinical facility into a warm, caring home. A place families want to visit, not make exuses to avoid. This truly can be revolutional. Anyone placing a person into a nursing facility should make sure they have Edenized.

As a Regional Ombudsman, responsible for a large county in N. CA, I used this book to inspire people to form a "Family Council" in a sample nursing home and to lobby for the changes that Thomas recommends. The home adopted several of the changes and they transformed the home, once known as the worst in the county into the best. Several people emerged from years of depression, others simply took a whole new interest in life, others simply had whole-hearted laughter reenter their lives for the fist time in years. The Eden alternative is indeed the "recipe" for making one's years in long term care "worth living."

I am a Regional Ombudsman for a county in Northern California with responsibility for 970 Skilled Nursing "beds", so I see first hand what happens even in the "best" of Nursing Homes. This book, if taken seriously represents such a profound, yet so seemingly simple approach, that nursing homes would become "homes" for the first time - places where one could look forward to living out one's last years still growing and still having a reason for living. One nursing home in my district is beginning to implement it and one example will suffice. There was a woman who was so severely depressed, nothing could reach her - no drugs, no therapy, nothing! Then the facility put a cockatiel across from her room (part of Thomas'"Eden Plan.") Ever so slowly, she started to take an interest in that bird. Then she got out of bed on her own for the first time so she could see it better. Then she crossed the hall and started talking to the bird. Then she started talking to other residents and to the staff. Her depression was gone. A simple bird had done what no drugs, no therapists, nothing else could do. And that is but a tiny part of the picture. This particular nursing home has gone from what many considered to be the worst home (it's name among the people outside was "Hellhaven")in my district to, in my opinion, the best, and they are just getting started! Read this great book. You won't be able to put it down and it will change the way look at nursing homes forever. Rev. Wayne Bradley Robinson, Ph.D., Regional Ombudsman for Placer County, California. [email protected]

If you have read "The Eden Alternative Project" you will not see anything new in this book. "Life Worth Living" appears to be revised for a wider audience. Both books illustrate how poorly we care for our elderly under the medical model that exists in the majority of nursing homes today. The most life threatening "diseases" in nursing homes are hopelessness and loneliness; even in the best of facilities. The solution presented by Dr. Thomas is to make nursing homes more "homey". He uses children, animals, plants and staff restructuring to accomplish this goal. Clear evidence is presented showing cost effectivness of "edenizing" a facility. His facility has experienced decreased medication use, decreased infection rates, improved overall health of residents and staff retention rates that are well above the industry average. This book should be read by anyone involved in caring for the elderly or anyone considering placement of a loved one in a nursing home. Evan Kay OTR/L Occupational Therapist