Winner of the 2011 Caregiver Friendly Award --Today"s Caregiver magazine Wouldn"t it be a relief to know you are making the right decisions and doing right by the person in your care? Whether you have a loved one who can"t make his or her own decisions or you are a healthcare professional, you know how difficult--even heartbreaking--it can be to make decisions for others. Feeling confident that you"re made the right decision would be a welcome relief from the worry and guilt you may be feeling. The Caregiver"s Path to Compassionate Decision Making offers tools and techniques that will limit your frustration and fears and help you make informed, respectful decisions. Extremely practical, yet also heartfelt, the book offers: Four adaptable tools that make decision making a simple, step-by-step process Guidlines to help you determine if your loved one or patient can make decisions, who should make the decisions, and how to make better decisions Questions to use in almost any medical or quality-of-life situation that will help you gather all of the information you need Techniques for improving communication between patients, families and caregivers "Kind, a clinical bioethicist, shares tools and strategies in this step-by-step guide for making health-care choices for those who can"t. She clarifies complex and sensitive matters by stripping away extraneous questions that frequently distract caregivers and decision makers from key considerations to what Kind identifies as core questions concerning the individual patient"s decisional capacity, past and present communication abilities, and developmental and mental stages. Kind"s detailed approach is anchored to what she calls the Best Interest Standard for the patient. Designed not as a recipe or prescription but rather as a process to help readers think their ways through difficult decisions, Kind"s guide encourages careful, methodical, and informed thought, and to that end, it contains flowcharts, case studies, personal anecdotes, and gridlike frameworks for decision making organized by useful categories. With an index, list of references, and appendix materials, including a glossary and key forms, Kind provides solid advice for anyone faced with some of life"s most challenging and important dilemmas." --Whitney Scott, Booklist magazine