Miles to Go: Aging in Rural VirginiaIn 1988, University of Virginia academics began pondering how the institution's vast resources could be used to improve the lives of the rural poor. The result was the Rural Elder Outreach Project, an innovative experiment that for five years evaluated and provided in-home nursing care for rural elder poor in five Virginia counties. As volunteer and observer, Susan Garrett traveled with the project's nurses, doctors, and social workers as they traversed these counties, trying to make a difference in health care and quality of life. Based on her research and experiences, Miles to Go deftly weaves larger issues of aging in rural America into a series of up-close encounters with individuals and their families. Miles to Go raises important questions about what we as a nation can do to help the rural elder poor. Susan Garrett's experiences are made all the more bittersweet by the fact that the Rural Elder Outreach Project did not survive. This book ensures we will never look at scenic views of the countryside in the same light again. |
Contents
Roads Taken | 35 |
In the Library | 61 |
Confronting Poverty | 85 |
Alone on the Side of a Mountain | 114 |
Sustaining the Project | 128 |
A Different Road Out | 149 |
Common terms and phrases
academic agencies Aging in Rural AHIP Albemarle County American Anita and Dianne bills Blue Ridge Medical Cecelia central Virginia Charlottesville church clients clinical colonoscopy community-based cost daughter depression doctor drinking drive elderly poor evaluation feel Fluvanna County Geriatric Gordon grant Greene County hospital husband Ivo Abraham JABA Jefferson area Jim Peterson Kellogg Foundation living look Louisa County Love Inc manager meal Medicaid Medicare mental health mental illness Milly Ann mother mountain neighbors Nelson County nurse clinician nursing home older person Older Rural patients physician Plan poverty programs referral Region Ten CSB REOP REOP's Ridge Medical Center road Route Rural America rural elderly says Snustad social society someone staff Stanardsville stay talk Telephoned trailer U.Va University of Virginia urban Visited today volunteers W. K. Kellogg Foundation week Westerman Youmans