Today’s NPR Morning Edition, April 20, 2010, features a story about middle age brain ability and development. Barbara Stauch, author of The Secret Life of the Grown Up Brain (Politics and Prose in Washington, DC, Amazon, Powell’s, Barnes and Noble), discusses what she has learned about the brains of 40-65 year-olds — the age-range of my brain. Stauch … Continue reading
Filed under Dementia …
Dementia: Choosing Her Own End-of-Life Strategy
Take a few minutes to read a post at the Intrepid Paper Girl blog about the life and dementia-related death of journalist Lynn Forbish. Forbish’s last years of life demonstrate how people with dementia continue to think, feel emotions, and make decisions. Her end-of-life experience illustrates the cognitive model that researcher Justin Feinstein and University of Iowa … Continue reading
Dementia Patients and Inner City Teens: Friendship
People experiencing dementia, even those with loving family members nearby, are often bored, frightened, and agitated. Rarely do they get enough socialization. An April 14, 2010, Chicago Tribune article by Ted Gregory, Elderly Dementia Patients and “At-risk” Students Create Friendships, describes a successful activity in Chicago that builds relationships between teens and elderly people living with … Continue reading
Aging Parents, Dementia, and Driving Safety: New from Neurologists
This past week the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) held its annual meeting in Toronto. At this meeting neurologists revised and updated guidelines about driving and dementia. Adult children and physicians can use the information to help determine if and when an aging parent with dementia should stop driving. Here is a list of news … Continue reading
Dementia – Emotions May Continue? PNAS Research
So interesting to read the about the research, Sustained Experience of Emotion After Loss of Memory in Patients with Amnesia (abstract), published in the April 12, 2010 early edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The University of Iowa researcher, Justin Feinstein, found that patients, while they could not retrieve memories, were … Continue reading
Writing a Parent’s Remembrance, Part I
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 time to review memories and talk about life. Engage in … Continue reading
Aging Parents: Touch Screen Technology Innovations
Aging parent supporters and caregivers know how gratifying it is to sit with an elderly parent looking through old photograph albums. While we all love to do this, uncomfortable moments can arise when parents with dementia experience anxiety when they cannot remember an event. Now comes interesting dementia research reported in the March 25, 2010 … Continue reading
NIH Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease
NIH State-of-the-Science Conference Preventing Alzheimer’s Disease and Cognitive Decline April 26-28, 2010 Bethesda, MD Register Online (there is no registration fee to attend this conference) Agenda (Monday – Wednesday proceedings) Background Information A conference to evaluate the available scientific information on Alzheimer’s disease and develop a statement that advances understanding of the issue. Health professionals … Continue reading
Boomers, Aging Parents, Dementia: New Blood Pressure Research
A new NIH research trial, enrolling 7,500 people for at least four years, will try to learn whether lowering blood pressure can help prevent dementia. Some observational epidemiologic data suggest a link between the two. This is a significant question not only for baby boomers who are helping to care for aging parents, but also … Continue reading
Dementia, Assistive Technology, and the Telephone Search
As Mother’s dementia progressed, her ability to do basic tasks, the activities of daily living, decreased. Using the telephone, a critical communication activity, was increasingly difficult. Thus we were always on the lookout for a phone that required her to do less but enabled her to communicate and hear more. Over time she progressed from the regular … Continue reading
Aging Parents: Alzheimer’s First Case
A few weeks ago the New York Times Health section mentioned the Neurophilosophy blog, though I cannot remember what post the Times was highlighting. When I explored a bit I found this interesting history of Alois Alzheimer’s first case, posted in November 2007. If you are interested in neuroscience there is a lot to read … Continue reading
Aging Parents: Caregiving and Saying Good-bye
Caregiving, especially helping to care for an aging parent who is ill and nearing the end of life, is arduous. One never stops asking questions about “doing the right thing.” Throughout this challenging time an aging child has lot of things to say, memories to review, and good-byes to be arranged for family members near … Continue reading
Aging Parents and Dementia: JAMA Study Redux
Wow! I discovered the JAMA article about dementia, hospitalization and the elderly and mentioned it here on the blog several days ago, on March 4, 2010 — before the Vital Signs blog at the NY Times discussed it on March 8th. How exciting to once-in-a-while be ahead of the Times (which by the way I … Continue reading
Hospital Stays, Seniors, and the Possibility of Dementia
…or Disorientation We have taken parents to the hospital and discovered that the hospitalization process seems to facilitate disorientation. We have also observed incidental dementia. In essence, a frightened aging parents is sick, frightened, and disoriented and loses touch with reality. One of our parents, who was already experiencing some dementia but was living securely … Continue reading
Aging and Middle Age Brain Health
Why we need to exercise … and don’t need a lot of those other products on the market… I am so tired of television, magazine, and catalog ads selling brain improvement products — to seniors as well as to people my age. They are starting to arrive regularly in my mailbox, and TV is an … Continue reading
Aging Brains: A Review of Welcome to Your Brain
If you think a lot about your brain and why it acts like it does, I’ve discovered a wonderful book. Welcome to Your Brain, by Ph.D. neuroscientists Sandra A. Aamodt and Sam Wang tells all sorts of stories and dispels lots of myths. Published in 2008, it’s filled with clear and easy-to-read information about the … Continue reading
Aging Brains: The “Senior Moment” Comment
As aging children most of us are used to hearing friends and colleagues make the “senior moment” comment. Just about any time a person has difficulty remembering something he or she will comment, “…oops, I’m having a senior moment.” I began noticing this in my late 40’s and now, ten years later, it happens more … Continue reading
NPR Story on Vaccines and Aging
This morning (February 8,2010) on National Public Radio, a Morning Edition story, “Adapting Vaccines to our Aging Immune Systems.” explained how vaccines given to seniors are not as effective compared to those administered to children and younger adults. The story describes how the body’s immune system works in general, and how a senior immune system … Continue reading
After Death Details, Part I: Grief
Grief … It has been a week since my husband’s mother died. We miss her, though we are glad she is not in the extreme discomfort that she experienced at the end. We’ve laughed and we’ve cried, more of the former, because she lived a long and rich life. Saying goodbye takes time. Photograph albums … Continue reading
The End of Mother’s Life
We were not able to follow through with the hairdresser, though we know that Mother would have loved it, even so close to the end of her life. Raymond was a master at making her feel good. Early on Monday morning mother died, perhaps from the dementia, but more proximally from congestive heart failure. She … Continue reading
As Our Parents Age So Do We 