You and your ageing parents - Claire Gillman

A self-help book for people who have elderly parents whose memories, minds and physical abilities are not what they used to be. It offers strategies for dealing sensitively with your loved ones, advice on how to make their lives more pleasurable and fulfilling, ways to avoid feeling guilty, how to share the obligation evenly and tips for making sure you keep your own faculties fresh for as long as possible. It also touches in brief on planning for the future in terms of thinking about assistance from local social services and the NHS and where to find information on these matters.

The author helped her 83-year-old mother to nurse her father for five years, an Alzheimer's patient who had a severe stroke that left him in a wheelchair. This personal experience forms the backbone of the book and makes it convincing and supportive.

Claire Gillman is an experienced journalist, writer and broadcaster. She writes for The Times and other national newspapers on health, travel and family issues and also contributes to many magazines including the leading Mind, Body and Spirit title, Kindred Spirit, as Contributing Editor, and also health and parenting titles including NHS Mother and Child and Family Life magazines, and sports titles such as The Good Ski Guide. In the past, she was the editor of a number of consumer and specialist women's magazine titles including Health and Fitness, Bicycle and Girl About Town magazine.