Again and again over the past five years, I’ve chatted with other adult children who are beginning to help out aging parents in a variety of ways. In each conversation I am struck by the degree of information sharing about issues such as medical care, chronic diseases, aging in place, technology, and so much more. Collaboration … Continue reading
Filed under aging parents …
How Does One Decide to Stop Getting Medical Tests?
I am astonished at the number of diagnostic tests prescribed for older seniors. When my husband’s mother was 90, she had a gynecological exam — we suggested it and the doctor carried it out — and though I knew the doctor was gentle, Mother cried out because of the discomfort. Afterward we wondered why we put … 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
Losing Our Optimistic Outlook in an Age of Change
Read Cockeyed Optimists in a Crybaby Culture, a post by Robert Stein on his blog, Connecting the Dots. Using the wonderful old Rogers and Hammerstein South Pacific song, I’m a Cockeyed Optimist as a metaphor, Stein looks at the way our American culture has changed and lost its focus on fairness while chosing the most … 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
Eleanor Clift Writes About Hospice
Journalist Eleanor Clift has written a superb article in the August 2011 publication Health Affairs about the hospice experience of her husband, journalist Tony Brazaitis, in the months before he died of cancer. It’s freely available and filled with astute observations and information — a good read for anyone, but especially for families who may have to … Continue reading
Apropos of Distracted Driving, Children, and Cell Phones
In light of my previous post about the apparent extra protective layer that grandparents have when they drive their grandchildren around, I decided to post this BMW distracted driving advertisement. I believe that telephones and texting play a big role in parents’ accidents these days. I wrote a longer post about the this BMW video … 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
Who Are These People? Health Overhaul Musings
Three cheers for the U.S. Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit, that has dismissed cases brought by Virginia Attorney General Cuccinelli and Liberty University in my home state, oops commonwealth, of Virginia. Read and listen to the NPR story at the Shots Blog. Read related articles in the New York Times and Washington Post. Who are these … Continue reading
4 Anti-Rudeness Lessons From My Mom
It seems to be in vogue to be rude. From media and shouting television personalities, to drivers, to people’s online behavior, to members of the House of Representatives, rudeness seems to be a part of our daily life. Some people seem to be proud of it. Trouble is, the behavior is mean, nasty, and downright … Continue reading
7 Communication Techniques Made a Difference at the Hospital
I’ve observed how good communication can help a hospitalized aging parent maintain an optimistic outlook. This summer Dad was admitted to Rockingham Memorial Hospital in Harrisonburg, VA (read my blog posts from RMH last May) and to section 8G at the Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, New York. Hospitalizations are an enormous challenge for a family, … Continue reading
Grandma’s On Facebook
Join Facebook? For three years I avoided the site. I knew that some of my friends from work, church, and other activities were joining, but I just did not feel like it was a fit. My daughter, then in graduate school, used the social networking site, and she occasionally suggested I get started with Facebook. Still I refrained. … Continue reading
Hospice Helps When a Parent With Dementia is Dying
Sometimes acquaintances describe how a hospice program entered the lives of an aging parent during the last week or even in the last few days of life. My husband and I are aware of just how much hospice offered to our family during the four months before his mother died. However, we have spoken with people — who … Continue reading
Green House Homes are Coming: Following the Construction #1
Earlier this month (July 2011) I took pictures (see below) of the demolition at the site of the future Green House® Homes at Virginia Mennonite Retirement Community (VMRC). In a recent article in the Harrisonburg News-Record, VMRC Vice President for Support Living, Melissa Fortner, reminded readers that the goal is for these new homes is to blend … 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
Mom and Me: Thoughts on Marginalization and Aging
Thoughts From Mom to Me As we age, we are treated differently, make no mistake about it, but until I felt it myself, it never rang true. In my professional life, from time to time I observed how people are marginalized – individuals with mental illness, immigrants, international students, people of color. Now, after years … Continue reading
Golf Carts Drive Off-Course, but Not By Seniors
Why do people who could (and should) be walking spend so much time in golf carts? Our wonderful cottage community is a delightful place to live with amazing and thoughtful people who come from near and far to spend time each summer. I think that it is one of the most pleasantly walkable places on … Continue reading
Aging Parents: Chronic Disease Complications on Vacation
What to do when an aging parent becomes ill on a family vacation? With little knowledge about the quality of care in an away-from-home location, even in a place visited for years, double anxiety is the name of the game if a loved-one is taken to the hospital. We faced this issue last weekend when, just … Continue reading
As Our Parents Age So Do We 