We are all going to age and we may all have to deal with aging parents. This process can present a real challenge in either case and there are few books that look at this issue beyond medicating patients and particularly at the deeper dimensions of soul.

Eldercare visionary Joan Englander’s new book, Joy in the Evening of Our Lives: Nurturing the Elderly Soul, presents a heart based integral eldercare model as a soulful activity in which caregivers, be they family or professional, can develop compassionate and intuitive skills. By using poetry, story, music and deep listening among other tools and techniques developed by Joan, caregivers are empowered to reach beyond their loved ones mind and many seeming labels and blocks to deeply touch their loved ones once again. Joan’s writing illuminates how an empathetic caregiver thinks and serves and readers will gain valuable insights rarely covered in traditional eldercare literature. Joy is a valuable portal into the mind, heart and soul of elders and the creative ways caregivers can move beyond the walls that may have been built to protect the wounded psyches of their loved ones.

Joan presents a missing link in eldercare based on her 30 years of experience and moves from the physical/medical model wherein elders are treated as objects to be fixed, medicated, entertained, moved, fed and put to bed to a whole person approach that provides a deep listening and arts based palette that can draw out hidden parts of the elder psyche and soul like no other. This is a book that you must read if you are dealing with the aging process in yourself or a loved one.

To read more about Joan and her powerful work or to order a copy of her book, visit www.joanenglander.com

For a touching example of Joan’s work with elders visit

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Sonia: Love is the Healer is a powerful and intimate portrait that shows how the use of storytelling and music transforms a speechless woman with severe dementia into an alert and responsive state. It also helped her with her grieving process. The segment is from Joy in the Evening of Our Lives, a documentary currently in production that is based on Joan’s book. The documentary offers viewers the opportunity to see Joan in action as she uses music, song, poetry, storytelling and movement to work with every kind of aging challenge including Alzheimer’s and dementia, where she has been able to reach those others could not. You will learn many of Joan’s creative methods that you may be able to apply in your own situation.