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The Author
Angil Tarach-Ritchey is a Registered Nurse,
Geriatric Care Manager, Author, Speaker, Consultant, and
homecare owner who has worked in eldercare and advocacy since
1977, when she worked as an aide in a nursing home at the age of
17. An experience she had in that nursing home was
instrumental in her life’s work and passion for improving the
treatment and care of the elderly, and is the basis for Behind
the Old Face. Another experience at a client’s son’s
funeral sparked the idea and title for the book, which will both
be explained in the book.
CAREER
Angil has worked in every area of geriatric care
from a nurse’s aide to the Director of Nursing in long term care
facilities. She spent many years working as a home health
and hospice nurse and case manager, and worked for the State of
Michigan as a Nurse Manager and Infection Control
Coordinator. Angil has extensive psychiatric experience working
with acute psychiatric prisoners and as a charge nurse in an
Alzheimer’s and Dementia unit. In 2002 Angil opened Visiting
Angels in Ann Arbor, Michigan, a private duty homecare agency,
which she still owns today. In 2009, after a 5 year battle
to be diagnosed with 2 chronic incurable illnesses, Angil began
writing a blog to help seniors, caregiving families, and to
educate medical professionals and care providers.
After starting her blog in 2009, Angil was
quickly being recognized as a national expert in eldercare and
was writing for the Ann Arbor News, the Alzheimer’s Reading
Room, the National Senior Living Providers Network and
Wellsphere. Her articles started being picked up all over the
US and internationally and have appeared in the Chicago Sun
Times, Pain Today, Alzheimer’s Association online news,
Medpedia, and Alzheimer’s New Zealand to name a few. Angil
is a sought out expert who has been interviewed and quoted in
Consumer Affairs, MSN Careers, Reuters, and several other
publications. Angil has recently been interviewed on the
Everything Elderly Radio Show, Catholic Radio, and the Winning
Life Through Pain radio show on Blog Talk Radio. She
speaks on care, advocacy, geriatric careers, and to businesses
about supporting employees who are family caregiver’s so their
financial losses are reduced.
Angil’s current project includes
a M2E Book, full book, training program, and opening a nonprofit
to offer free, or reduced cost, training for family caregiver’s
and to actualize her vision for senior living and care, which is
in detail in the book. Writing for
NurseTogether.com
and CEU Courses for
Pedagogy are additional responsibilities she’s taken on because
she wants to see more geriatric education in the healthcare
field.
PERSONALLY
Angil married Bernie Ritchey in
2010, has 2 adult sons, 3 adult stepchildren and 4
grandchildren. In 2003, at the age of 43, Angil
became extremely ill, and fought for 5 years for a diagnosis.
She now lives with 2 chronic, incurable illnesses, Sjogren’s
Syndrome and Chronic Fatigue Immune Deficiency Syndrome, which
you can read about in an article she wrote for Nurse Together,
"What
Happens When a Nurse Gets Sick?"
Angil describes herself as an empathetic person who gained
another level of empathy through chronic illness.
She enjoys helping people, spending time with
family and friends, music, reading, travel, meeting new people
and experiencing new cultures, cooking, and decorating. Angil
really loves the Caribbean, the ocean, and snorkeling.
Besides her professional experience, she lost her
Grandmother in 2005 after suffering from stroke induced
dementia. She now intermittently assists her aging parents
who are local and out of state.
Angil’s experiences, both personal and
professional brought her to write this book, and advocate for
seniors on a larger scale. She said she will work as long
as she can, doing everything possible to improve the treatment
and care of the elderly.
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