This Cleveland.com article, University Hospital’s Bedford, Richmond ERs Focus on Senior Care, shares important changes at yet another medical center, changes that focus on the needs of seniors when they go a hospital’s emergency facility. How wonderful that the first senior-friendly emergency room, at Holy Cross Hospital in suburban Maryland, just outside of Washington, DC … Continue reading
Filed under aging boomers …
End-of-Life Documents — Don’t Mess Around
Many years ago, shortly after my daughter was born, my parents asked my husband and me about our will. It turned out, however, that they were less concerned about a will than they were about whether we had signed medical directives or health care proxies that defined what should be done is case one of us, … Continue reading
U.S. Adults Use Social Media: As American as Apple Pie
The Pew Internet and American Life Project recently published new social media data, this time asking why American adults use social networks. From my point of view, keeping in touch with people is a grand old American tradition, as traditional as apple pie. Over the years whether it’s over the backyard fence, via snail mail … Continue reading
More Automotive Changes for Aging Adults
A while back I wrote a post about the Ford Motor Company’s plans to increase the font size on dashboards, starting with car models in 2012. The other day, via Dr. Bill Thomas’ Changing Aging blog, I read an article with more information about automotive changes. The piece was published on the SmartMoney.com Encore blog. In A Stethoscope … Continue reading
Another Article on the Geriatrician Shortage
Read the Associated Press article in the Seattle Post Intelligencer, about the the shortage of geriatricians. In Boomers’ Aging Casts Light on Geriatrics Shortage, reporter Matt Sedensky describes the increasing shortage of geriatricians –physicians who are trained to treat aging seniors. For those of us who are moving toward retirement, this is a serious problem. Given … Continue reading
When an Aging Parent is Sick: Where to Get Reliable Information
So your parent is in the hospital or just returned from a big deal medical appointment. Or maybe it’s you, the adult child, in this situation. Physicians have diagnosed a new condition, they are prescribing medications and tests, and you are hearing — and trying to absorb — lots of unfamiliar medical information. Where does one … Continue reading
Neat Stats on Smartphone Ownership
So you have a senior parents who’s interested in smartphone? Here’s a story, and some interesting statistics to boot. Last Wednesday I dropped my iPhone on the driveway. I’ve managed to avoid such a mishap for more than two-and-a-half years, but Wednesday was my day of reckoning, I guess. The touch screen shattered like safety … Continue reading
A Tribute to the Legacies in My Parents’ Generation
I’m an adult child with aging parents, and all my life I’ve looked around with awe, observing what people my parents’ age and older have left for their families and their world. Bridges, highways, businesses, savings accounts, good schools, paid off mortgages, parks, protective regulations, Medicare, social security, you name it. Even foreign aid to build … Continue reading
Reading Glasses and More Reading Glasses
I’ve just finished reading You Can See Mortality Better Through a Pair of Reading Glasses, an essay in today’s Washington Post. The opinion piece, by Janice Lynch Schuster, looks at reading glasses — and how nearly all of us eventually require them — as a metaphor for viewing and accepting our mortality. Writing with irony and … Continue reading
Are Kids Safer When Grandparents Drive?
I’ve just read an thought-provoking research article from the journal, Pediatrics, Grandparents Driving Grandchildren: An Evaluation of Child Passenger Safety and Injuries (freely available, PDF full text or abstract. As a part of this study, the researchers from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and the University of Pennsylvania Medical School collected insurance data on 11,850 children who … Continue reading
Great KevinMD Post on Medicare Reform
Stop by the KevinMD blog and read Government Austerity with Medicare Reform as a Top Priority. The blog post, by medical student Nathanael Heckman, addresses the issue of medicare reform and life expectancy. Raising the age for eligibility is inequitable, because the rich live longer and the poorer Americans need the care that Medicare provides. … Continue reading
Things We Take for Granted Used to be New!
A humorous, but pithy reminder for everyone — adults, adult children, and seniors — everything we routinely use and take for granted was new at one time or another. The video is a Norwegian Broadcasting Network comedy presentation. Enjoy!
Conversations about Dying
“… old age is a place we have never been. We may see it up close as our parents age, but we will never know what it’s like until we’re there.” The quote comes from a piece I just read, a post by Paul Staley at the KQED Perspectives site. Staley describes a conversation that he had with … Continue reading
Jane Gross Interview: “On Being” Radio Program
For some time now I’ve listed Jane Gross’ book, A Bittersweet Season: Caring for Our Aging Parents — and Ourselves, as my current read, even though I finished reading it two months ago. I’ve kept the book posted because it is a compelling and real-life description of what it takes — the agony, challenge, love, collaboration, and … Continue reading
We Kept to the Lower Sodium Program on Vacation: Low Sodium Diet #VI
Our family vacation lasted nearly ten days, and all four of us, sometimes five, stayed on our low-sodium eating plan the whole time by doing the following. We planned our lunch and dinner menus. We kept lots of fruit and nuts around. I stored a small measuring cup with the nuts so that whenever a … Continue reading
Cultural Changes Wrought By Aging in the ‘Burbs
According to a Washington Post story, If Baby Boomers Stay in Suburbia, Analysts Predict Cultural Shift, the suburbs are already experiencing a huge cultural transition as their populations age. Many locations are already making substantial program and infrastructure changes as they prepare for what will be a wave of graying residents (sometimes referred to as a … Continue reading
5 Lessons Learned About Cutting Back on Sodium: Low-Salt Eating, Part IV
Read other Low Salt Journey installments: Senior Parents Get Started in Their 80′s: Part I, Hospital Cafeterias With No Low-Sodium Options? Part II, Making Sense of Sodium Labels and Numbers: Part III, and 5 Lessons Learned About Cutting Back on Sodium: Low-Salt Eating: Part IV. I’ve already learned five lessons as my husband and I move along, with my parents, on this low-sodium … Continue reading
Low Salt Diet, Part III: Making Sense of Sodium Labels and Numbers
Read other Low Salt Journey installments: Senior Parents Get Started in Their 80′s: Part I, Hospital Cafeterias With No Low-Sodium Options? Part II, Making Sense of Sodium Labels and Numbers: Part III, and 5 Lessons Learned About Cutting Back on Sodium: Low-Salt Eating: Part IV. Are you having trouble understanding the various terms and numbers on sodium labels? We are, too. Here’s the best explanation … Continue reading
Multi-Generational Teams Work Best: Surprise!?
Have you been ever in a work situation where you feel especially old because younger colleagues occasionally roll their eyes or flaunt their up-to-the-minute technology skills? Does this situation make you speak defensively, sometimes making jokes about senior moments or aging? We’ve all been there! Read, Why Multi-Generational Teams Are Best, over at bNet, the CBS … Continue reading
New CMS Video on Medicare Preventive Benefits
Check it out. Read the CMS press release about preventive benefits.
As Our Parents Age So Do We 