QR Codes. You’ve probably seen them around — on everything from cereal boxes to magazines to advertising banners on the bus or in the subway. Lots of older adults ask me about QR Codes. A common questions is, “What on earth do they do?” QR is short for quick resource code (QR code), the scannable geometric-looking design that … Continue reading
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Lost in the Hospital: An Article to Check Out
I’ve just finished reading a Washington Post opinion piece, We Need to Take Better Care of Our Elderly by Jerald Winakur. The March 20, 2015 article describes a hospital experience of a 91-year-old woman, who may be the author’s mother. Winakur, a geriatrician, describes what happens to an elder who enters the hospital’s complex world of unfamiliar physicians, … Continue reading
About Half of All Americans Over 65 Have a Fall — Each Year
I’ve just finished reading a Washington Post article, Strategies for Preventing Falls, Which Are Especially Risky for Older People, appearing in the online edition on March 16, 2015, It reviews the risks, examines the facts about falling, describes how to check an individual’s steadiness, and makes suggestions about the various ways a person can improve balance. … Continue reading
A Great Infographic on Scams: Print, Put Together & Post
Keeping ahead of scams — a perplexing and frustrating problem. Almost every day at my house the phone rings with a suspicious caller. It’s the same at my parents home. It used to be that people needed to worry about door-to-door and telephone scams, but now there are many more. We need to caution our aging parents (and … Continue reading
Better Hospital Gowns? All Ages Will Be Thrilled!
If you are like my parents, me, or people of almost any age, you HATE hospital gowns. Sometimes putting on or wearing the gowns is worse than the test or the hospital visit. If you have ever helped an aging parent or other elder get in and out of bed with one of those gowns — or take … Continue reading
Elders and Students Living Together: A Novel Housing Idea
What if every long-term care and assisted living community had a few areas where students could live for free in exchange for an hour a day of volunteer work? Wouldn’t that create an interesting multi-age community? Well it’s been tried in The Netherlands, and it’s successful. According to a story from the Australia Broadcast Company (ABC) an … Continue reading
Elder Perspectives on Life and Love for Younger Generations
Those of us lucky enough to have aging parents who live long and remain nominally healthy are often struck by the wisdom we hear as they ruminate about relationships and love in the past. To really understand what they are getting at we must toss away any notions that our parents are merely clinging to the “good old … Continue reading
How Do YOU Feel About Getting Older?
Take a few minutes to read How I REALLY Feel About Getting Older, a Huffington Post article by Jane Gross, that reflects and reviews many of the most concrete problems that occur when people age. Gross describes the frustration of living in a society that trivializes older adults while it also turns away from the wisdom of elders. At … Continue reading
What’s Your Caregiving IQ? — Take the Quiz
Check out the caregiving IQ quiz over at the NextAvenue website. It includes some questions about how we define caregiving, what we spend on caregiving, and the costs of long-term care. I consider myself pretty knowledgeable and I missed a couple of these. After each question the quiz shares the answer and offers some detailed … Continue reading
Oliver Sacks’ Perspective on the End of His Life
The direction of every life can change in a moment. We learn this as we age and also as we support elder parents. In his February 19, 2015, New York Times’ opinion piece, My Own Life, Dr. Oliver Sacks illustrates how fast things can change. If you missed his article, it’s a stirring description of what it’s like to … Continue reading
Writing a Parent’s Remembrance, Part I
Originally posted on As Our Parents Age So Do We:
Other Posts Relating to Remembrances: After a Parent’s Death: Writing a Remembrance, Part II, After an Aging Parent’s Death: Obituaries and Remembrances, Mother’s Memorial Service When an elderly parent accumulates serious medical diagnoses, becomes weaker, and is sick more often than not, set aside…
Watching Ourselves Age With the Brown Sisters
Those of us with elder parents spend a lot of time thinking about age and change. As adult children, we observe the aging of our parents, but not infrequently we wonder aloud how they got so old. At the same time we don’t always notice how we, too, are growing older. In October 2014 the … Continue reading
Elders Share Wisdom on Love: A Valentine’s Day Treat!
Adult children learn a lot from elder parents. Take a few minutes to read Love Lessons From the Wisest Americans, published over at the NextAvenue.org site and a great Valentine’s Day treat. The article, published on February 12, 2015, will help to clear up quite a few misconceptions about our aging parents. Written by Suzanne Gerber, this piece describes … Continue reading
Does More Care Do More Good?
When we are sick, how much health care is good health care? These days when we call an ambulance, the medics rush in with all sorts of equipment and medications — called advanced life support, which replaces the basic life support that many of us learned in CPR classes. Doing More for Patients Often Does … Continue reading
Reblogged: Please, Stop Sending Dreamcatchers: Or, How I Tried to Tame Charities Asking for Money
Originally posted on mom and dad move in:
Our mailman, Chet, already struggled to deliver the bevy of catalogs my husband and I generated when it was just the two of us. But after my parents moved in, Chet fled the U.S. Postal Service for a career in nursing. I always imagined his job change…
Good-bye to The New Old Age Blog
For years now The New Old Age blog at The New York Times has been a must-read for people with aging parents as well as for people who blog about aging and caregiving issues. Started in 2008 by Jane Gross and later presided over by Paula Span, The New Old Age always had its finger on the … Continue reading
AsOurParentsAge – 2014 Review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog. Here’s an excerpt: The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 100,000 times in 2014. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 4 days for that many people to see … Continue reading
Why Can’t We Do Something About Phone Scams???
I detest scam telephone calls, and I am specially upset about how these scammers take advantage of elders. I am off work during much of the time this week, and today alone I’ve received three scam telephone calls — two from the people who claimed that my Microsoft Windows has a glitch and one from Rachel … Continue reading
Medicating Elders in Long Term Care: Is It Necessary?
If your fragile elder parent is in long-term care or assisted living and memory issues are ongoing or developing, take a few minutes to read or listen to a December 9, 2014 National Public Radio (NPR) broadcast, This Nursing Home Calms Troubling Behavior Without Risky Drugs. The piece, by Ina Jaffe, describes a long-term care community, Pathstone … Continue reading
So How Does Music Connect With the Brain?
I’ve watched in wonder as music changes people — kids, adults, people who are ill, elders, and caregivers. Of course, the movie Alive Inside visually documents how music can affect people, even those with substantial memory loss. But what exactly is happening in the brain? In the process of wondering, I came across an excellent video … Continue reading
As Our Parents Age So Do We 