Some New iPad for Dad Readers?
Check out this Wall Street Journal blog post, A Look at iPad Users. The story shares iPad ownership stats, recently released by ComScore, including a terrific graphic that depicts iPad sales by age group. Notice the statistics for age 65 and older and then add those iPad sales to the stats for the group just below, age 55 to 64. Bottom line? Lots of seniors own and are using iPads. The Journal’s blog post also features a short video news report that leads with the iPad data.
ComScore is a digital intelligence, data, and marketing firm.
Watch for a new iPad for Dad post - coming son.
If you are considering purchasing an iPad for your senior parent, read some of the post about my Father/Daughter iPad adventure. Click on the any of the links below.
iPad for Dad, #1, iPad for Dad, #2, iPad for Dad, #3, iPad for Dad, #4, iPad for Dad, #5, iPad for Dad, #6, iPad for Dad, #7, iPad for Dad, #8, iPad for Dad, #9, iPad for Dad, #10, iPad for Dad, #11, iPad for Dad, #12, iPad for Dad, #13, iPad for Dad, #14, iPad for Dad, #15, iPad for Dad, #16, and iPad for Dad, #17.
Does Musical Training Influence Cognitive Aging?
Shubert Impromptu in A Flat Major
Does musical training have any effect on the aging brain? Scientists at the University of Kansas Medical Center asked this question. They wondered whether the experience of learning and practicing an instrument and the resulting sensorimotor and cognitive abilities might help a person much later when aging changes begin to occur.
In The Relation Between Instrumental Musical Activity and Cognitive Aging (abstract, the article is not freely available), researchers Brenda Hanna-Pladdy and Alicia MacKay describe how they evaluated 70 adults between the ages of 60 and 83, placing them into three groups. All participants were given a broad range of memory tests.
All participants were matched closely in terms of age, education, and level of physical activity, and everyone was living independently. Each group represented a different level of musical training and activity. Read more »
Changing the Home in Small Ways for Senior Residents
A grab bar on wall above tub helps a person climb out.
Read Small Changes Enough to Keep Aging Seniors in Home, an April 21, 2011 article in the Kansas City Star. Reporter Diane Stafford describes how small tweaks and novel ideas can help a seniors remain in a much-loved home. These adjustments range from grab bars and higher toilets in bathroom to throw rug removal in places that are highly traveled. The article also describes some of the services that are available to seniors now, as well as others that may soon be used in the future.
Some time ago a post in this blog, Making Our House Safer for Aging Parents and For Ourselves, described how my family made some basic changes to our house. At first we tweaked various spots in the house to accommodate our senior parents when they were visiting, but now we find we happily use them ourselves.
Home accommodation demonstration videos are available on YouTube. For instance, the Visiting Nurses Service of New York has posted a series of “How to Help” videos on its website and on a visiting nurses channel on YouTube.
Alzheimer’s Disease – Earlier Diagnosis Guidelines
A great summary of the new Alzheimer’s guidelines is at WEB MD. The recently posted article, New Alzheimer’s Guidelines Stress Early Diagnosis by Daniel J. DeNoon, goes over some of the new diagnosis information recently agreed upon by National Institutes of Aging (NIA) and the Alzheimer’s Association expert panels.
The complete guidelines were published in the Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association and are freely available in PDF format. A summary is also available at the association website.
Washington Post Article on Hospice and Palliative Care
Today’s Washington Post features an article, Progress Needed on End of Life Care, by Janice Lynch Schuster, describing the urgent need for improvements to palliative and hospice care. The article describes the problems that still exist for many patients at the end of their lives who experience unnecessary suffering and pain.
I’ve written about our family’s amazing experience with hospice, ending over a year ago when my husband’s mother died in January 2010. Here are a few As Our Parents Age posts from the past that focus on hospice and palliative care.
Grandparents, Parents, Grandchildren: Family Blogging?
How would digital literacy and behavior improve if more families saw blogging as a way to communicate, share, and connect with extended family members, as well as teach children, parents, and grandparents the basics about global communication? Would they be thrilled that their younger family members had a big head start developing digital citizenship skills? Would grandparents, motivated by extra connections with their grandchildren, develop new confidence in their technology skills? Would parents be delighted at all of the writing taking place and take pride as they watched children, as well as grandparents, become more savvy digital citizens?
Blogging is safe and easily managed. While we’ve all heard the scary stories, such as people going online and writing mean comments or nasty rumors that go public or even viral — in truth just about all blogging is safe and fun. Blogging enables people to write, revise, write more, and publish for a community of readers.
Imagine, for a moment, if a family with two children, age five and seven, along with a bunch of relatives, starts a blog. Read more »
Aging Parents, Adult Children: Caregiving and Empathy
Spring Flowers in My Yard
When you have senior parents who need increasing support, empathy is critical. You try hard, and not always with success, to understand what they are experiencing. That’s called empathy.
The concept of empathy has received a bit of a bad rap the past year or two with politicians actually taking the time to deliver statements against looking at the world through an empathic lens (I could write an entire post just on these tactless quotes). During some U.S. Senate confirmation hearings for judges questions on empathy played a central, and I think somewhat silly, role. I like the outlook of the late Senator J. William Fulbright, who originated the idea of Fulbright scholars. Senator Fulbright wrote:
There are many respects in which America, if it can bring itself to act with the magnanimity and the empathy appropriate to its size and power, can be an intelligent example to the world.
Multitasking and the Aging Brain
Over the past 20 years multitasking has become a common 20th and 21st Century conversation for people of all ages. Technology, especially the many things we seem to do all at once with the help of our gadgets, makes us think that we are all pretty good multi-taskers. Unfortunately, research is showing we aren’t doing so well.
John Medina, a molecular biologist at the University of Washington wrote Brain Rules in 2008 (available in paperback), an entertaining book in which he discusses 12 brain characteristics and especially the importance of movement on learning and working. Dr. Medina addresses the concept of multitasking, which he says the brain doesn’t really do that well. What many of us think of as multitasking is really task switching, and some people are better at jumping back and forth between tasks than others. Research is cited everywhere in this book, and Dr. Medina documents all of his explanations. Several entertaining video explanations describing the human brain and its functions are posted at his web site. You can also listen to a terrific presentation by Dr. Medina at the Authors@Google series. Read more »
Becoming A Grown-up Child
One day in April 2007 my husband and I were the adult kids in our families — we are the only adult children
— and the next day we became what we laughingly call “real grown-ups,” helping first one, then two, and increasingly all three of our parents. It’s time to give back, and we do so willingly and happily. However the process is not easy, and it is not free from anxiety and tension. Check out the As Our Parents Age About page to learn more about the mission of this blog.
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As Our Parents Age by Marti Weston is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Based on work at AsOurParentsAge.wordpress.com and AsOurParentsAge.net
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