How to Survive Your Hospital Stay or Healthy Dependency

How to Survive Your Hospital Stay: The Complete Guide to Getting the Care You Need--And Avoiding Problems You Don't

Author: Gail Van Kanegan

GET WELL AND GET OUT!

Most people will find themselves — or a loved one — faced with a hospital stay at some point in their lives. The prospect is scary enough, even without worrying about hospital infections, adverse drug reactions, and other alarming risks that have been documented by the Centers for Disease Control and reported widely in medical journals and the national media. But help is here.

Written by an experienced nurse practitioner and recognized hospital safety expert, How to Survive Your Hospital Stay offers simple steps to take before, during, and after hospitalization in order to take control of the entire process, including:

• Evaluating whether a hospital stay is really necessary
• Dealing with the top ten risks, from medication errors to malnutrition
• Getting the staff on your side
• Choosing the right doctor
• Negotiating the insurance minefield
• Making sure you are discharged safely and will get the follow-up care you need

Packed with advice that will help people feel better when they are ill and at their most vulnerable, this essential guide provides a reassuring road map for avoiding mishaps along the route to recovery.

Table of Contents:

	Preface	ix
	Acknowledgments	xiii
	Introduction	xv
Part 1	Eight Important Ways to Prepare for Your Hospital Stay	1
1	Avoid the Hospital--if You Can	3
2	Choose a Health Care Advocate	8
3	Prepare Your Mind	14
4	Know Your Rights	22
5	Learn the Lay of the Land	31
6	Choose Your Hospital	45
7	Choose Your Physicians	59
8	Make Sure Your Wishes Will Be Followed	71
Part 2	The Top Ten Risks: How to Understand and Avoid Them	97
9	Medication Errors	99
10	Side Effects of Drugs	115
11	Infection	123
12	Pressure Sores	142
13	Malnutrition	148
14	Complications of Surgery	155
15	Falls	178
16	Misdiagnosis	183
17	Unnecessary Tests and Procedures	193
18	Going Home	199
	Afterword: If You're Hurt	214
	Resources	222
	Bibliography	232
	Index	237

New interesting book: Robert Crayhons Nutrition Made Simple or OncoLink Patient Guide

Healthy Dependency: Leaning on Others Without Losing Yourself

Author: Robert F Bornstein

From the psychologist who coined the phrase "healthy dependency"—the first and only book that outlines its four key steps and helps readers understand and use these principles to achieve balance in love, in friendships, with family, and at work.

The research is clear: Too much dependency in our relationships can be a bad thing, but too little dependency is just as bad. Healthy dependency—that flexible middle ground between rigid independence and unhealthy overdependence—is the ability to balance intimacy and autonomy, lean on others while maintaining a strong sense of self, and feel good (not guilty) about asking for help when you need it.

The authors' studies confirm that healthy dependency brings a wealth of positive effects including:

• increased satisfaction in love relationships

• greater likelihood of academic and career success

• better family communication and improved parenting skills

• enhanced physical and psychological health

This unique book, meticulously organized and laced throughout with case studies, anecdotes, relationship-style questionnaires, and research findings, draws from the authors' more than 20 years of research and clinical experience. A valuable guide to achieving healthy relationships between men and women of all ages, it will help readers identify where they are on the relationship continuum, and understand the skills they will need to address in order to strengthen their personal, professional, and family relationships.

Author Biography: Robert F. Bornstein, Ph.D., is currently a professor of psychology at Gettysburg College, and has published more than 100 articles and 30 book chapters on psychological diagnosis, testing, and treatment. Mary A. Languirand, Ph.D., is co-author of The Thinking Skills Workbook, a pioneering treatment manual for cognitive remediation in older adults. She is in full-time private practice counseling older adults and their families, as well as health professionals about the complexities of nursing home, assisted care, and in-home services. The authors are married and live in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. They are also the authors of When Someone You Love Needs Nursing Home, Assisted Living, or In-Home Care—The Complete Guide.

Publishers Weekly

Yes, Virginia, dependency can be healthy-at least according to Bornstein, a professor of psychology at Gettysburg College who specializes in dependency issues, and his wife Languirand, a private therapist. The couple, both of whom are multi-published contributors to books and articles for professional and lay readers, extol "depending on people without becoming dependent on them." They explore this subject in great depth, from an assessment of the causes and ramifications of dependency disorders to an examination of healthy dependency in professional and personal relationships. Bornstein and Languirand articulate four key skills, including "relationship flexibility" and "connection-based thinking," which they say are necessary to attain a balanced blend of intimacy, autonomy, trust and self-confidence. The authors' textbook approach (replete with case studies, charts, graphs, statistics and quizzes, not to mention some redundancies) is sincere, thorough and learned, but at times overly pedantic. Still, in a world in which time, energies and emotions are fragmented and an increasing dependence on technology can isolate and detach people from each another, this book offers good advice on maintaining the right connections. (Jan.) Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.