What is more important for the personal health of an individual –a family history taken by a physician or genetic testing? According to an Associated Press article published in the Washington Post, while genetic testing has important uses, people should be aware that a thorough family history taken by a physician is what Cleveland Clinic geneticist, … Continue reading
Posted by Marti Weston …
Another Great MedicareBlogger Post
MedicareBlogger has another posted interesting post, this time focusing on a man who wants a cheaper Medicare Advantage plan when he really needs a Medicare Supplement plan. Medicare Advantage Selling Season, a November 18, 2010 post, conveys a lot of information in a few short paragraphs.
Senior Parents and Long Term Insurance Changes
During the time we cared for my husband’s mother and even before that when we helped a bit with his father’s care, we were continually frustrated by their long-term care insurance policies. Despite several years of required care for his two senior parents, the long-term care policies, purchased in early 1991, covered only skilled nursing facilities … Continue reading
Senior Parents: Maintaining a Bit of Their Privacy in a Digital World
If the seniors who I have as friends on Facebook are any indication, they are giving away too much personal information. However, it’s not just Facebook. Lots of things we do on our computers and cell phones require us to give away a bit of personal information. To learn more about helping your parents put … Continue reading
Medicare Part D – It’s Time to Make Choices
It’s that time of year again. I’ve just been chatting with my mother about her annual task of choosing a Medicare Part D option for herself and my dad. Each year she looks at charts, chats with friends, consults with her pharmacist, studies web sites, and finally, after a great deal of thought, makes the … Continue reading
Media Literacy and Seniors: Repetitive Ads Construct Reality
Many people say they pay no attention to advertisements. However, television watchers, especially seniors, are continuously exposed to questionable advertising selling medications, insurance, political issues, and doubt about Medicare. Content grows more and more familiar as ads repeat over and over each day — first creating questions, then worry or doubt. Though viewers feel like … Continue reading
Alzheimer’s: Helping a Parent Manage Financial Issues
Interesting article in the November 5, 2010 New York Times describing how adult children can get started helping with finances when a parent has Alzheimer’s. In Stepping in for a Parent With Alzheimer’s reporter Tara Siegel Bernard consults with financial planners, shares their ideas, makes specific suggestions about getting started, and offers tips about how to be … Continue reading
Seniors and Media Literacy: Voting, Fear, and Manipulation
For years I have read articles by Pulitzer prize-winning reporter Saul Friedman — an experienced journalist who writes engagingly on just about everything. His pieces are well-researched and timely, and often I recommend them to friends and family. When Freidman — I really think of him as Saul — left Newsday we mourned, but then suddenly … Continue reading
Protecting A Senior Parent’s Online Privacy
Every time I visit my parents, I check their computers to be sure the privacy controls are on the maximum settings. Since we all use computers all the time, significant privacy concerns exist, but seniors have even more concerns, because they welcome and enthusiastically use the added communication opportunities that the Internet provides. Moreover, few … Continue reading
Seniors and Whooping Cough Vaccine
With a pertussis epidemic in California and cases on the rise in other states, experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are recommending that elderly parents, especially those who have grandchildren or are around infants, get re-immunized against the disease. According to the LA Times report on the October 27th CDC panel … Continue reading
Green House Home Video Tour
Head over to the always information-filled and sometimes wonderfully provocative ChangingAging blog to see a guided video tour of a Green House Home. Led by elder advocate Dr. Bill Thomas, the walk-through is a must-see for anyone who wants to understand exactly what a Green House looks like as well as learn more about this … Continue reading
Great Interview With Dr. Berwick at JAMA
An article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Medicare Head Donald M. Berwick, MD, Takes on Mission of Health System Reform, should put to rest any doubt about his commitment to high quality medicine and to seniors’ access to it. The article is free and can be downloaded as a PDF. Some … Continue reading
Advertising: Do Seniors Need Media Literacy Training??
Most advertising that sells things to seniors frustrates me. An article, from the Tucson Citizen, gives but one example of just how much target people who are older, in this case by the AARP. AARP Advertising to Seniors, posted about a year ago in October 2009 by the newspaper’s MedicareBlogger, tells the story of an 80-year-old … Continue reading
An Alzheimer’s Statistic I Did Not Know
Writing in the October 27, 2010 New York Times, three prestigious AIDS advocates, including retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, call for a “man-on-the-moon” effort, setting a goal to stop Alzheimer’s, by the year 2020. Justice O’Connor, writing on the op-ed page along with medicine Nobel Prize winner, Stanley Prusiner (read his Nobel Price acceptance speech), and … Continue reading
As Our Parents Age First Anniversary!
A year ago this blog, As Our Parents Age, uploaded its first posts. A few paragraphs that I wrote in a journal about caregiving and my need to know so much more, inspired me to get started. One of my first posts described how people speak in weird ways to seniors, shortly after my dad was in the hospital for a … Continue reading
More Senior Emergency Departments are Opening
More emergency rooms designed expressly for seniors are opening, according to an October 25, 2010 article in the Detroit News, Hospitals Designing Senior ERs to Cater to Needs of the Elderly. The report, by Detroit News reporter Melissa Burden, describes how hospital systems in Michigan are are opening senior ERs for the good of older … Continue reading
Seniors’ Bank Cards: Stop Switching Them!
Three times in the last 12 months my mother has received a phone call from her bank credit card company telling her she has a wonderful opportunity to receive a new card. Three times she’s been made to feel like she has to do it. So suddenly Mom has a new card, a new number, … Continue reading
Health Care Law and Medicare
A Kaiser Health News (KHN) article written in collaboration with a reporter at the Washington Post analyzes some of the campaign claims about the health care bill, including Medicare changes and potential changes in our coverage. The piece identifies, with clear explanations, what assertions are true and what are false (or at least strongly exaggerated). … Continue reading
Retiring Near a University? Sounds Divine!
When my parents retired to the Virginia Mennonite Retirement Community (VMRC) in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, they looked forward to the many resources available to residents — a wide range of activities, the wellness center, the beautiful campus, and much more. However, another advantage of retiring in the VMRC location was the university next door. … Continue reading
Can We Walk More and Help Our Aging Parents Do the Same?
Read The Pedometer Test: Americans Take Fewer Steps, an article by Tara Parker-Pope published in the October 19 , 2010 New York Times Well Blog. Parker-Pope describes a study, in which adults wore pedometers for two days as they went about their daily activities. In the study, Pedometer-Measured Physical Activity and Health Behaviors in U.S. Adults … Continue reading
As Our Parents Age So Do We 