1. Long Term Care Insurance

2. Geriatric Care Management

3. Putting Your Plans In Writing (including a living will, written instructions on the care you want and how it will be paid for), and

4. Getting Allies (including your doctor, your lawyer, your CPA, your family and friends).

The book describes how people are inadvertently put in nursing homes, how Mrs. Shoff kept her 96 year old father at her home after he had a major stroke, and all of the details of planning for your future comfort and dignity.

What if you could stay in the comfort of your own home, with round the clock care if need be, with your choice of caregivers? What if this option was not only for the fabulously wealthy, but was in fact available to anyone and everyone at a fraction of the price of a nursing home? It is not as farfetched as it seems. It just takes some careful planning.

Our society has acknowledged that surviving old age takes preparation. Retirement funds, social security, and well-stocked shelves of volumes upon volumes of do-it-yourself guides are evidence of these sentiments. It is a wonder that amidst all the excitement, most people fail to prepare for illness and incapacitation.

But Karen Shoff of Santa Monica California has vowed to make this ignorance a thing of the past. In her compelling and essential new book, There's No Place Like A Nursing Home, she details in a surprisingly fascinating manner the problems inherent in institutional life, and offers a step-by-step solution. The fast paced text is only enhance by the stories she masterfully tells. As a former Social Worker and Gerontologist, she was witness to the horrors of institutional life. Her experiences in institutional life fueled her passionate commitment to protecting her family, friends and clients from those very facilities.

Her goal is to help ensure each and every American a life of dignity, security, and comfort. She details steps that if taken, will free one from worry, and doubt. She tells her reader how he can stay in the comfort and dignity of his own home, while at the same time receiving care far superior to that offered in any institution for significantly less. Her solution is a combination of Long Term Care Insurance, careful planning, and a slew of incisive, original suggestions. As one of the foremost experts in her field, her book is invaluable. Our society owes Karen Shoff a debt of gratitude for opening up her vast expertise and experience for our benefit.

Don't wait any longer. There's No Place Like A Nursing Home will change your life.


There's No Place Like (a Nursing) Home   January 5, 2003
Lenore F. Broughton (Burlington, Vermont United States)
13 out of 13 found this review helpful

Mrs. Shoff has written a clear, convincing, heart-felt, elegantly organized treatise on how to age responsibly. It has rearranged and brightened up a very confused and bleak picture of what it means to age, derived from countless visits to nursing homes over the years. Instead of a sense of victimhood, I have caught a (liberating) glimpse of what it might mean - for me and my dear friends - to have a hand in determining our own destinies!


Practical advice about planning for our futures   December 9, 2002
Judy Gruen (Los Angeles, CA United States)
12 out of 12 found this review helpful

This is a great book for anyone who is practical enough to realize that we need to plan in advance for our later years, when the chances of being incapacitated or somehow needing in-home assistance are greater than ever before.
Author Karen Shoff has parlayed her many years of experience as both a geriatric social worker and expert in long-term care insurance to help us understand the implications (financial, emotional, and other) of getting a good long-term health insurance plans. She includes many compelling examples about what has happened to people who didn't have this long-term care insurance, versus the much happier outcomes of those who did: longer, happier lives, spent in their own homes, and far more of their own money left at the end of their lives to pass on to their families. Her own father, in his 90s, had to spend nearly all his assets to pay for care in his (and later, Karen's home) to avoid the indignities and lesser quality care of most nursing homes.

A great book to get for your middle-aged parents or even for yourself!


Finally! The book we've all been waiting for!   December 5, 2002
Morah Sarah (Santa Monica, CA United States)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful

If you don't want to end up in a nursing home yourself, or if you want your parents to make some plans so that you don't have to end up as their full-time caregiver, then this is the definitive expert guide to the issues.

This book has absolutely everything you need to know about long-term health care issues: from the problems with nursing homes, to the challenges of (sanely) caring for aging parents, to advice on how to discuss this all with your family. I don't think there's another book quite like this one, anywhere.

If you've cared for a parent, the validation this book offers is priceless. It acknowledges how totally draining caregiving is, while also affirming the critical benefits of home care over institutionalization.

We are not alone! Peace of mind, here we come!


A Must Read Guide to the 'end game' of life   May 23, 2003
jessica (Venice,, CA United States)
5 out of 6 found this review helpful

Karen Shoff produced a guide that did not exist before. This should be required reading as a part of everyman's life education: like how to swim, how to be a decent parent, how to do CPR and how to prepare for end of life infirmity. Let's face it: Modern medicine, safer cars, non-smoking and weight watchers are all conspiring to help us live longer. Great! So when we all succeed, then what? Read this book. It answers the question.