Filed under aging parents …

Caregiving and Snow Storms

Our area is in the middle of a huge snow storm. As we anticipated the storm, my husband and I worried about how we would coordinate Mother’s care.  Our area tends to come to a standstill when it snows, and this storm is much larger than any other December snowstorm in the past 20 years. … Continue reading →

ADL’s and IADL’s: What’s the Difference?

Links to other postings about ADL’s are at the bottom. In an earlier post I was not as accurate as I should have been about activities of daily living. The functional tasks in the daily lives of older seniors are divided into two parts, activities of daily living (ADL’s) and instrumental activities of daily living (IADL’s).

Dementia: Caregivers

Committed caregivers make the dementia experience tolerable, and tolerable is about the best we can feel as we live through this terrible disease. My husband and I are caregivers to his mother, but we also have strong, warm, and compassionate caregivers who spend much of the day with her. These women are making our experience … Continue reading →

Dementia: Mobility, Falling, and Perception

This morning mother fell. Until now she has stayed in bed until one of the nursing assistants arrives to help her get up and get dressed. Today it was a different story — for the first time she tried to get out of bed. The nursing assistant found mother on the floor in the living room a bit … Continue reading →

Seniors: Avoid Online Fraud

All of us, no matter what our ages, need to take care when we buy things online.  There is so much to learn about the  online world, and deceptive or fraudulent practices take advantage of any gap in our knowledge. When you read the rest of this post about deceptive practices related to online purchasing, … Continue reading →

Journaling Legacies

For as long as I can remember my father has kept a journal. I have memories, even from earliest childhood, of dad taking a few minutes to record his thoughts. It did not seem to matter where we were — at home, on a vacation, at the park, or attending one of his many conferences … Continue reading →

Dementia: Life in Reverse

Mother’s dementia is progressing. I’ve mentioned in other posts, that she needs a caregiver all of the time, except when she is sleeping (she sleeps soundly). She is almost always confused, asking many times a day, “What should I do?” I find myself searching the web for confirmation of what I see each day. Today … Continue reading →

Parent Legacies

I’ve been thinking a lot about legacies — those intangible gifts that my parents are handing down to me. As I watch my parents get older, and when big and  small health issues occur, I wonder what my life will be like without them. I don’t worry about helping them in these next few years, … Continue reading →

Dementia Music Therapy: Broadway Songs

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 →

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 →

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 →