Since we’ve been helping our parents with various tasks, we are keenly aware that some products might as well have the words AGING (or aged) etched into them. Since I avidly read posts from the MIT Age Lab, AgeTek, Laurie Orlov’s Aging in Place Technology Watch, and Eric Dishman, I know that new products aimed exclusively at “old people” … Continue reading
Posted in February 2011 …
Brain 101 for Seniors and Adult Children
If someone in our families experiences a brain disease — depression, stroke, dementia, Alzheimer’s — the illnesses transport us into the complex world of neurons, plasticity, neurotransmitters, serotonin, hemispheres, and much more. Despite all that is known, the large and complex organ that determines who we are and how we think is a foreign universe. Even the … Continue reading
iPad for Dad, #17: Who’s Managing Dad’s iPad?
Last April, when I purchased Dad’s birthday iPad, I set it up to download and sync on my computer. For the past ten months I have updated the iPad and kept track of apps they might like, downloading applications when I visit. Things have been just peachy. Until now. This past Saturday when I was … Continue reading
Is Your Senior Parent a Library Devotee?
Memories from the not-too-distant past … Early this week, on a tour of the Library of Congress (LOC), I took this picture of the pre-electronic era card catalog area. I also found these statistics posted by the LOC librarians on a nearby wall. Most of our parents know how to use card catalogs backwards and … Continue reading
Our Aging Parents: Looking Out With the Same Eyes …
On Sundays I love to read the longer wedding stories that appear in The New York Times and the Washington Post. The Times story on Dorothy Furlong, age 75, and Charlie Hall, age 80, caught my eye for a number of reasons, not the least of them being the opportunity to read wonderful and romantic late-in-life … Continue reading
Banishing the Myths of Aging
The University of Pittsburgh Institute on Aging has a superb website, filled with information and resources on aging and supplemented with links that can help people solve problems and better understand medical conditions. The site is easy for seniors, families, and caregivers to navigate. Many of the resources are Pennsylvania specific, however others, like the … Continue reading
Signing Up for Medicare Online #1: Getting Started
A member of my family is about to turn 65, so he applied online for Medicare a few weeks ago. He learned about the online application process because we happened upon this Medicare public service video with people from the distant past — the Patty Duke Show cast (including both identical cousins — Patty and … Continue reading
Mayo Clinic Medical Edge Radio
This morning I discovered a terrific and educational weekly radio program, Medical Edge Radio Weekend, a Saturday morning broadcast from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. The program is easily accessible on the web. From a Twitter post I learned that the today’s (February 12, 2011) broadcast featured cardiologist, Dr. Rekha Mankad. For nearly an hour, Dr. … Continue reading
For the Person Who Remembers: Dementia’s Unbearable Pain
Many of us write about the grief, the burdens, the frustrations, and the unending pain of caring for a spouse or a parent with dementia, but rarely do we read an article that articulately expresses the confusion and torment that accompanies the disease as it incrementally destroys the essence of a beloved partner. In her … Continue reading
Facebook Privacy Settings Guide from Techlicious
Check out the Techlicious Facebook Privacy Guide, posted by Josh Kirschner on February 8, 2011 over at the Techlicious website. Maintaining control over privacy settings is a required and critical technology task for each Facebook user. Since sharing information is one of Facebook’s primary missions, the company wants to collect and share as much personal … Continue reading
Communication is Critical in Aging Adult Health Care
A friend’s 85-year-old mother had surgery requiring two different types of cardiologists. Besides the primary care physician (PCP), her parent was seeing the two heart physicians and two additional specialists for other reasons. When my friend, on a visit to the primary care physician with her mom, asked a question about dizziness and the possibility that … Continue reading
Seeking Better Things to Buy as We Age…
A must-read article, In A Graying Population, Business Opportunity, appeared in the February 5, 2011 New York Times. Reporter Natasha Singer describes her visit to the MIT Age Lab as well as her experience wearing the Age Gain Now Empathy System (listen to an NPR system about these special suits), and she writes about the need for … Continue reading
Aging, Respect, Caregiving, and Honor: How Many of Us Could Do This?
For Mr. Bronson, a Neighbor’s Kind Act Led to a New Family tells the story of a couple in the Washington, DC area, John O’Leary and Nadine Epstein, who became friends and shared a home with Mr. Bronson, a 90-year-old man who had lost his home. What began as a spontaneous offer of a bedroom 25 … Continue reading
As Our Parents Age So Do We 