Mother Weston’s New York trips were legendary. Each trip included a balance of shopping, museum visits, plays, and Broadway musicals. From the early 1950’s until the mid 1980’s she and father made at least one and sometimes two trips to NYC each year usually for more than a week. Her love of Broadway musicals continued … Continue reading
Posted by Marti Weston …
Oxygen II
Mother was right. We did not know how to correctly put the oxygen tube nose piece on her head. She was agitated for a reason last night and was probably uncomfortable. Today when we went over to visit, Dolma, her caretaker showed us how to operate the oxygen. Dolma helped Mother put it on and … Continue reading
Oxygen!
Mother is winded whenever she walks a short distance. She breathes heavily and her heart races. So hospice has delivered two oxygen containers, one that stays in place and another portable device that can move around with her. The permanent one stays in one place, but has a huge tube that reaches to all of the … Continue reading
Evaluating Health Web Sites – Part II
We all learned to write essays when we were young. Our teachers taught us to introduce the important facts. With web sites the rules are the same. Usually it’s easy to identify significant information about a site, information that indicates whether a site is a reliable resource, but sometimes it’s not so easy. Many web sites often look … Continue reading
Health Info on the Web — Be Careful! Part I
Just about every time I speak with people about health issues they refer to one Internet site or another. This worries me. Too many people are finding too much inaccurate virtual information. Older adult children like me as well as senior citizens are eagerly surfing the web for medical information, however, when we go off … Continue reading
Getting Started With Hospice
Our family member with dementia is now in a hospice program. She continues to live in her apartment and to be helped by the caregivers that she is used to having as a part of her daily life. Mother was clear that she did not want to go back to the hospital for any reason … Continue reading
Assumptions About Being Old
Too often seniors who have been successful and productive individuals, are trivialized in their everyday interactions. Most often this occurs unintentionally because of unconscious assumptions about people who are growing old. But it occurs everywhere, and I believe the assumptions that greet a person of any age can often evolve into self-fulfilling prophecies. Negative assumptions … Continue reading
Dementia: Loss of Mobility
We see it coming — mother’s loss of mobility. At first she took smaller and smaller steps. Gradually those steps turned into larger shuffling steps. We bought her a cane, but she did not have the focus to understand how to use it. Little by little the big shuffles turned into tiny ones. She has … Continue reading
Keeping Our Parents and Ourselves Accident Free
Thanksgiving and Dementia — Redux
Our family member with dementia arrived at our Thanksgiving celebration sometime around 2:00 in the afternoon. Her afternoon caretaker took Thanksgiving afternoon off, and we planned to be responsible for her care until bedtime. Things went quite well, however, we now realize that if we are entertaining family and hosting festivities at our house, we … Continue reading
Scary or Urgent E-mail — Don’t Be Fooled
E-mail is the best communication tool for seniors, kids, and grandchildren and is so easy and convenient! This interconnectedness is even more important at times of family illness and when family members live far away from one another. All family members, but especially seniors, need to master some important skills and understand some key concepts, … Continue reading
Senior Adults and Falling
From the November 11, 2009 New York Times in an article by Steve Lohr … “FALLS are so harmful to the elderly and so costly to society that if falling were a disease it be deemed an epidemic.” Almost every week or so an over 70-year-old acquaintance or friend falls. According to the Centers for … Continue reading
Holidays
With three senior parents I am thinking a lot about holidays — past and future — how wonderful they can be and how to celebrate without a lot of brouhaha. I am concentrating on making each holiday, in this case Thanksgiving, special but also as simple as possible. This year we’ve navigated lots of health … Continue reading
Stages of Dementia, Part II
Keep in mind that these stages are general guidelines that help people understand dementia’s progression, and that some professionals do not use them as disease guideposts. I am applying them to the dementia that is occurring in my family. Another family may not have anywhere near the same experience. By the time stage five of … Continue reading
Stages of Dementia – Part I
When you read about dementia you learn that the disease presents itself in stages. The literature seems to describe six stages, seven if you think of stage one as the “normal” range in which most of us function. I am reconstructing these stages, attempting to understand the progression of the disease in our family. In … Continue reading
Technology and Senior Adults
Both of my parents love their computers. They use e-mail, the web, or simply pen their thoughts. My mother is a cracker-jack e-mail user, communicating with various political, church, and personal lists. My father, I think, would really enjoy a smart phone because of the easy access to resources, though he would not like to … Continue reading
Dementia is a Terminal Illness
As I understand it, dementia describes a set of symptoms — I mentioned some of these in my last post. Different types of dementia seem to have a slightly different configuration of symptoms and some can be diagnosed while others, like Alzheimer’s can be tentatively diagnosed, but only truly documented after a person dies (by … Continue reading
How Dementia Creeps into a Life
You don’t recognize dementia for a long time. In fact, why would anyone want to recognize this disease in a much loved parent? In retrospect, the dementia first came into our family several years ago. A stroke made the symptoms worse. We noticed clothes not being hung up, keys being lost, a concern about valuables … Continue reading
Phone Calls that Take Advantage
More than once a week my telephone rings and when I pick up an urgent recorded voice tells me that time is running out to make important and needed changes on my credit card (push #1 for assistance) or my car warranty. At other times I hear about the best deal for my mortgage (if … Continue reading
Pay Attention Please, Docs
Until they are pretty old and fairly tuned out, seniors like explanations. Most do not like medical tests even though Medicare pays for lots of them. My parents like their doctors and willingly get the tests if they understand why and what difference a test will make in their lives, but they want to know … Continue reading
As Our Parents Age So Do We 