Staying Sharp in Middle Age and Keeping It that Way
For weeks I’ve been intending to post a link to A Sharper Mind, Middle Age and Beyond, a New York Times article that appeared on January 19, 2012. The article, by Patricia Cohen, addresses mental fitness of people as they age and examines the reasons that brain power changes as people grow older.
Visit the MIDUS site.
Especially interesting is the research of a Brandeis University psychologist and principal investigator, Dr. Margie Lachman and others on aging research. Midlife in the United States (Midus) is tracking more than 7,000 people between the age of 25 and 74 as they age through midlife and into the elder years.
Some Interesting Points
- A college degree is associated with a slowdown of the brain’s aging process and longer life.
- The work of the brain that depends on accumulated information and experience gets better over time.
- Using a computer may improve mental functions in some ways.
- Less educated people appear to be able to make up for some deficits in middle age by reading, writing, and doing word puzzles.
Mothers, Daughters, and Aging
Mom, Her Mom, and Me - 1973
“Mother-daughter. Daughter-mother. With aging parents, the lines blur in ways that make you question everything you know about yourself,” writes Washington Post reporter Tracy Grant in her February 22, 2011 Momspeak column.
If you are an adult daughter with a strong and confident mom, this introduction not only rings true — it also makes you keep reading.
In her column Mothers, Daughters, and the Circle of Life, Grant deftly explores the challenges we daughters experience as roles evolve and change. Her piece is less about caregiving and more about the shifting emotions and changes as each generation of mothers and daughters confront role-reversals that are a part of the aging parent-adult child landscape.
I’ve included this photo of another era of shifting relationships, when my mom was helping my grandmother, then in her late 80s. At that point, I was clueless.
Art in a Hospital? Does it Help with Healing?
Read this short Detroit News article, Saint. Joseph Mercy Oakland Enhancing Hospital Environment, appearing in the paper on March 22, 2012.
Not only does this hospital currently display art on its walls, but it is now seeking art to purchase or commission to become a permanent part of the new South Patient Tower, currently under construction. The hospital plans to incorporate art into the actual architectural design and encourages artists to produce images that “…evoke images of peace and healing…” A link for interested artists is in the article.
By the way, this hospital has Michigan’s first senior emergency department.
The Over-Medicalization of Aging
At what point, as we age, do we become accepting of aches and pains –aging that is — and stop thinking about rushing to a physician all of the time? How do we decide whether or not to fix a problem if it has more to do with the later years of our life than with a traditional medical ailment? Can we depend on our physicians to clearly tell us when a medical problem is as easily addressed by physical therapy as by a surgical procedure of some type — especially when there are low-tech ways to improve the situation.
These are questions for our elder parents to consider; however, those of us who are older adult children also need to think about them. The medicalization of our aging — the tendency of the medical community to always to have a procedure or surgery that purports to solve a problem — potentially exposes seniors to more and more risks without really solving the problems.
To think about future medical problems in the abstract is easy but so much more difficult when they actually occur and become more personal. Aren’t we really turning our later years into big medical procedure-filled adventures rather than accepting that predictable problems will develop as we age — problems that reflect more about the way about our bodies slowing down and less about true medical issues?
An article in the February 20, 2012 Washington Post Health section features an interview with physician Norton M. Hadler, the author of Rethinking Aging, Growing Old and Living Well in an Overtreated Society. It’s worth reading this article and maybe even the book. Read and excerpt from the book.
Duplicate Discharge Orders for Elderly Seniors to Adult Child
One page of the discharge orders from my mom's emergency visit. Because it was not too serious, I visited a day or two later. Her fall resulted in a short hospitalization about two weeks later.
In this day of electronic medical records, EMR’s for short, why can’t a hospital with an e-mail or fax number on file send off a copy of the discharge orders to the adult child designated by the elder parent?
Given that the private sector has figured out a way to help adult children keep track of utility bills and bank accounts, it seems like it might be easy to implement, even while keeping privacy considerations front and center.
The opportunity to read and understand the diagnosis and the specific steps that are required for recovery would help an adult children, who cannot always be right at a parent’s side, stay informed and take more knowledgeable steps to help an elder parent recover.
How about it hospitals?
More Men are Becoming Caregivers
Click to read the Chicago Tribune article.
The Chicago Tribune has a story today (Valentine’s Day, 2012) about men who are caring for family members. In The Increasing Male Face of Caregiving Doug Wyman, who is semi-retired from a career in sales and marketing, explains how he assists his wife, who has Alzheimer’s disease. The couple has been married for 63 years.
Written by Chicago Tribune reporter Vikki Ortiz Healy the article describes the changing face of caregiving, and some of the reasons why more men are assuming the role more now than they used to in the past
A short, and compelling video, featuring the Wymans, leads off the article, but a brief advertisement runs before the real content begins.
Most Interesting Quote
In the last 15 years, the number of men caring for loved ones with Alzheimer’s or dementia has more than doubled, from 19 to 40 percent, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. The trend corresponds to the higher number of women over the age of 65 in the U.S. with the disease — 3.4 million, compared with 1.8 million men. Those demographics have changed the tone of local support group meetings by adding a chorus of male perspectives
Other Resources to Read About Men and Caregiving
- Men as Caregivers – AgingCare.com
- Men are Caregivers, Too - MedicineNet
- Caregiving: It’s Different for Men – AARP
- Life With Father – A great blog by a son who provides care for his dad.
Low Sodium Diet #IX: Making Choices that Lower the Count
Physicians are asking many of our parents to lower their sodium intake, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offers some education materials and tips.
The CDC’s monthly public health program, Vital Signs, provides detailed information on public health issues, and its mission is to encourage people to take steps that change behavior and help them lead healthier lives.
The February 2012 report focuses on lowering dietary sodium and includes a downloadable fact sheet with most of the educational information on the Vital Signs site. The graphic below comes from the sodium tip sheet, also downloadable, that illustrates steps that an individual can take to lower daily sodium intake.
The trick, of course, is finding these lower-sodium products in the grocery store, especially challenging for elders, who are less able to go to several stores to locate the appropriate foods.
Different Falls – Different Interventions
If you have aging parents who falls — and recently one of my parents took a spill — read the article about senior falling in the September 2010 Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. Mobilize Boston, the organization that conducted the research stated on its website that, ”The purpose of the study is to collect information that will help us learn how older adults can maintain their health and independence longer.” The article abstract is free, but the article itself requires payment (or you can visit the library at your local hospital).
Identifying the differences between senior falls that occurred inside and those that occurred outside, the Mobilize Boston Study followed a cohort of 765 randomly selected men and women, most over 70 years old. Researchers collected data through questionnaires and medical examinations. During a median follow-up period of 21.7 months, 1,122 total falls occurred, consisting of 598 indoors and 524 outdoors. All study participants were Boston, Massachusetts residents, and they reported falls as they occurred.
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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