Once again a fall. This time it is a friend’s mother who fell, and today I heard that her mother’s health is continuing to decline. Senior falls are frustrating and sad, occurring frequently and causing physical problems, discomfort, outright pain, and unhappiness. Over the last four months I keep returning to the topic of seniors … Continue reading
Filed under Senior Health …
Helplessness and Aging
Watching all four, now only two of our senior parents over the past ten years, I’ve been intrigued that a certain amount of helplessness seems to surface when they encounter the medical system. When a person becomes ill or develops a chronic condition, the medical world usually goes into high gear. This is especially true … Continue reading
Senior Parents: Canes and Walking Sticks
I’ve been thinking a lot about walking sticks and canes and how they help prevent falls. After certain age, a fall almost guarantees that the activities of daily living (ADL’s) become more and more difficult thereby leading to other health problems. I mentioned in a recent posting how I worry about my mom falling, so … Continue reading
Dementia: Mother’s Continuing Decline
During the week between Christmas and New Year’s mother’ decline has accelerated. We realized a day or so before Christmas that our plans to bring her to our house were overly optimistic. She simply did not have the wherewithal to move, eat, climb the few steps or even stay awake for very long. She began … Continue reading
Late State Dementia: Concentration
By the time a person reaches late stage dementia, concentration disappears. Mother’s ability to concentrate is mostly gone. A fleeting memory, a song listened to, a story read, a much enjoyed TV news show broadcast — not one of these activities can be completed. We can start any of them and for a minute the … Continue reading
Communicating: Respect No Matter What the State-of-Mind
I’ve noticed that people at Mother’s assisted living facility, as well as many of the other people who see her daily, are respectful of her limited communication skills and try to work around her dementia disorientation. At her assisted living facility staff members always take a few moments after they enter the apartment, addressing her … 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
Senior Medicare Patients Return to the Hospital After Discharge
HEALTH in NY TIMES | December 08, 2009 Groups Try Simple Steps to Avoid Hospital Rebound By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON (AP) — Talk about unnecessary misery: One in five Medicare patients winds up back in the hospital within a month — even worse, one in four patients with heart failure. Read more @ … 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
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
Stages of Dementia – Part I
When you read about dementia you learn that the disease presents itself in stages. The literature seems to describe six stages, seven if you think of stage one as the “normal” range in which most of us function. I am reconstructing these stages, attempting to understand the progression of the disease in our family. In … Continue reading
Dementia is a Terminal Illness
As I understand it, dementia describes a set of symptoms — I mentioned some of these in my last post. Different types of dementia seem to have a slightly different configuration of symptoms and some can be diagnosed while others, like Alzheimer’s can be tentatively diagnosed, but only truly documented after a person dies (by … Continue reading
How Dementia Creeps into a Life
You don’t recognize dementia for a long time. In fact, why would anyone want to recognize this disease in a much loved parent? In retrospect, the dementia first came into our family several years ago. A stroke made the symptoms worse. We noticed clothes not being hung up, keys being lost, a concern about valuables … Continue reading
Activities of Daily Living (ADLs): The Basics
Links to Posts that Discuss Activities of Daily Living (ADLs) Are At the End of this Post I had not heard about activities of daily living or ADL’s until a year or two ago after a family member had a stroke. Essentially ADL’s are the things we all do day in and day out throughout … Continue reading
Exercise and Aging
I constantly worry about exercise, and I have observed first hand how much and how fast change occurs when an individual stops exercising. One of our family members moved to our area to be closer to us. At her old home, even at age 90, she probably walked more than a mile a day. She … Continue reading
How We Speak to Seniors
I’d love to know how many seniors are truly hard of hearing. I’ll bet the percentage is higher than the general population, but not that high. I ask this question because I’ve discovered that when people speak to seniors — in clinics, at hospitals, in stores, at the library, but especially in medical settings — … Continue reading
Going to the Emergency Room/Hospital With an Elder Parent
With all of our national health problems and the extreme burdens on hospital emergency departments, when very old senior citizens visit they require special care. Their bodies, attention spans, and fearfulness cause extreme disorientation after a short time in an emergency facility. Disorientation occurs quickly. I’ve now observed this several times now with several parents. … Continue reading
As Our Parents Age So Do We 