From mom-care to action: Identifying the crises in eldercare

From mom-care to action: Identifying the crises in eldercare 
Minnesota Women's Press; by Amy Gage; 10/15/25 
“I didn’t set out to write a book,” author Judy Karofsky said. ... “My mom was my inspiration.” ... DisElderly Conduct: The Flawed Business of Assisted Living and Hospice (New Village Press, 2025) ... began as a notebook of jokes and one-liners that her mom would toss off during their time together. A one-time amateur comedienne, Lillian Deutsch “was an amazing personality,” Karofsky says. DisElderly Conduct walks readers through Karofsky’s journey through six assisted living facilities and eventual hospice care before her mother’s death in 2018. Several themes emerge in the well-researched book:

• Unlike nursing homes, assisted living facilities lack federal regulation.
• Facilities are marketed to downsizing retirees — and desperate, grieving family members — as more homelike, active environments than they have the staff or resources to be.

Hospice, as compassionate as the concept sounds, “is a business, with a bottom line,” Karofsky says. Its strict requirements for Medicare coverage include the expectation that a patient will die within six months.