Does musical training have any effect on the aging brain? Scientists at the University of Kansas Medical Center asked this question. They wondered whether the experience of learning and practicing an instrument and the resulting sensorimotor and cognitive abilities might help a person much later when aging changes begin to occur. In The Relation Between … Continue reading
Filed under Senior Health …
Alzheimer’s Disease – Earlier Diagnosis Guidelines
A great summary of the new Alzheimer’s guidelines is at WEB MD. The recently posted article, New Alzheimer’s Guidelines Stress Early Diagnosis by Daniel J. DeNoon, goes over some of the new diagnosis information recently agreed upon by National Institutes of Aging (NIA) and the Alzheimer’s Association expert panels. The complete guidelines were published in the Journal of … Continue reading
Aging Parents, Adult Children: Caregiving and Empathy
When you have senior parents who need increasing support, empathy is critical. You try hard, and not always with success, to understand what they are experiencing. That’s called empathy. The concept of empathy has received a bit of a bad rap the past year or two with politicians actually taking the time to deliver statements … Continue reading
Redesigned Medicare Caregiver Site: A Graphical Tour
To discover Medicare and caregiving resources, check out the redesigned caregiving website, debuting Tuesday, April 12, 2011. It’s user-friendly and graphically interesting with a focus on easy information access. At the same time updated site promotes learning, sharing, supporting, and collaborating. Adult children, even if they are not providing a huge amount of caregiving support, would … Continue reading
Medicare Projections: Congressional Budget Office
Read CBO: Seniors Would Pay Much More For Medicare Under Ryan Plan in the Kaiser Health News. A graph using Congressional Budget Office (CBO) data depicts the costs to a Medicare beneficiary (what a person will pay) in 2022 and 2030. In the article Congressman Ryan says, “Washington has been making empty promises to Americans from a … Continue reading
The Good Caregiver: Rules of the Road for Adult Children
I have just read The Good Caregiver cover-to-cover. The recently published book, by Robert L. Kane, M.D., is an all-in-one user’s guide with thorough, indexed, and therefore easy-to-find information about every aspect of elderly parent caregiving. Though he is a world-renowned specialist on aging and long-term care (Read Dr. Kane’s faculty bio), and he produces lots of … Continue reading
Pay Attention to Policy Discussions
Check out the many informational links to documents explaining proposed changes in Medicare and Medicaid at this Kaiser Health News article, Resources And Proposals On Curbing Medicare Cost Growth. If this is where we are going, people should educate themselves and understand what is going on. Stay on top of the issues. If Medicare will cost more … Continue reading
Will Concierge Medical Practices Cause Medicare Decline?
Read High-end Medical Option Prompts Medicare Worries, an article posted by the Associated Press today (April 2, 2011). The article, by health reporter Ricardo Alonzo-Zaldivar, examines the increasing number of practices that are moving toward concierge medicine (also called retainer-based physician practices). Concerns abound about how this might affect the access to care by Medicare beneficiaries. Although … Continue reading
Aging Arthritis Patients Should Keep Moving
I’ve observed quite a few people, seniors and not quite seniors, who are diagnosed with arthritis and then gradually slow down and stop moving. They stop climbing stairs and taking walks. According to a recent study this may be precisely the wrong thing to do. In 2000 the Department of Health and Human Services came … Continue reading
Different People – Different Dementias
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel published a March 14, 2011 article, The Many Faces of Dementia which describes different types of the brain diseases as well as the importance of accurately and carefully diagnosing the type of brain abnormality that is affecting each person. Collecting information for a diagnosis involves not only the physician and patient, … Continue reading
Does Part D Stand for Deficit? Read Medicare and More Column
Many of us appear to want to as much as we can get without planning or paying for it. We hate taxes, but we want a lot done for us anyway. A distant relative says about Medicare, “I deserve every penny I get, I paid for it.” My answer, yes she deserves every penny she … Continue reading
Brain 101 for Seniors and Adult Children
If someone in our families experiences a brain disease — depression, stroke, dementia, Alzheimer’s — the illnesses transport us into the complex world of neurons, plasticity, neurotransmitters, serotonin, hemispheres, and much more. Despite all that is known, the large and complex organ that determines who we are and how we think is a foreign universe. Even the … Continue reading
Signing Up for Medicare Online #1: Getting Started
A member of my family is about to turn 65, so he applied online for Medicare a few weeks ago. He learned about the online application process because we happened upon this Medicare public service video with people from the distant past — the Patty Duke Show cast (including both identical cousins — Patty and … Continue reading
Seeking Better Things to Buy as We Age…
A must-read article, In A Graying Population, Business Opportunity, appeared in the February 5, 2011 New York Times. Reporter Natasha Singer describes her visit to the MIT Age Lab as well as her experience wearing the Age Gain Now Empathy System (listen to an NPR system about these special suits), and she writes about the need for … Continue reading
Aging, Respect, Caregiving, and Honor: How Many of Us Could Do This?
For Mr. Bronson, a Neighbor’s Kind Act Led to a New Family tells the story of a couple in the Washington, DC area, John O’Leary and Nadine Epstein, who became friends and shared a home with Mr. Bronson, a 90-year-old man who had lost his home. What began as a spontaneous offer of a bedroom 25 … Continue reading
Many Seniors Don’t Know About Medicare Extra Help Subsidy
According to a January 4, 2011 Kaiser Health News (KHN) article, many American seniors who qualify for a Medicare Part D subsidy that reduces prescription costs have not signed up. The article, 2 Million Medicare Beneficiaries Missing Out On Discounted Drug Coverage, explains that the program, called Extra Help, lowers medication costs and reduces money spent … Continue reading
Be Proactive With Atrial Fibrillation!
It’s been a year and a day or two since my husband’s mother died, and frequently we think about her stroke and its effect on the last 30 months of her life. To support the health of our other senior parents and to be sure we know enough to be advocates for our own health, … Continue reading
Strokes Don’t Just Happen to Aging Parents
Many middle-aged adults listen to Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion commentaries on life, and a good number of us have been tuning into the radio program for 30 years or so. Few aspects of daily experience escape his humorous and sage observations — families, travel, children, politics, writing, arts — you name it, and not surprisingly, … Continue reading
Medicare: 2011 Updates and Innovations
If a senior parent in your family is on Medicare, or if a family member is an adult who will turn 65 in 2011, significant changes are coming in 2011 as a result of the healthcare overhaul. A total of 21 healthcare changes are supposed to be implemented, beginning January 1; however, a smaller number … Continue reading
When Social Security Says the Wrong Person is Dead
The Medicare and More column over at the Tuscon Citizen posted a December 13, 2010 story describing how the social security administration mistakenly recorded a man’s death when it was really his wife who died. In the blog post, Social Security to Local Senior: You’re Dead, MedicareBlogger explains how the problem seemed to expand in information-changing concentric … Continue reading
As Our Parents Age So Do We 