Alzheimer’s Drug Studies Failing, but There’s Still Optimism

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If you are the adult child of an elder, you often worry about that family member’s memory, and you are always on the lookout for potential problems. If you are like me, you comb the the scientific literature and health articles looking for information dreaming of a solution to a weakening memory.

Some days the research reports are positive, but today in the Washington Post, they were less so. The February 6, 2017 Washington Post article offers quite a bit of information about what’s happening in the area of Alzheimer’s research and it explains why scientists, while often disappointed, are still seeking explanations and cures.        Continue reading →

The Senior’s Guide to Online Safety

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connect-safely-for-seniorsAdult children often find themselves providing technology support services for their aging parents. Now there’s a new, research-based resource to help.

The Connect Safely organization has recently published The Senior’s Guide to Online Safety. The publication contains important information, it’s free, and it’s simple to download as a PDF file. Adult children may want to print the booklet and share this short and easy-to-read guide.

The Seniors Guide to Online Safety addresses a range of issues that are critical for senior and elder adults to consider and understand as they go about online activities. The guide includes safety and privacy tips, information on a range of scams, guidance about securing wifi, and advice about protecting identify and financial information. The goal is to educate older adults with information that comes from experts.

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Be Sure to Create Multi-Generational Teams

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I keep hearing about really knowledgeable and skilled people in their 50s and 60s who are searching for jobs and not getting them. As I chat with them at different times and in different places, each has a sense that age plays a role in not getting at least some of the jobs they seek.

I am reblogging a popular post from a few years ago about multi-age work teams.

Ageism in hiring practices is a terrible mistake, not just because it’s wrong, but because it weakens workplace. Multi-age teams produce better products and services and while research keeps confirming the importance or multi-generational working groups, employers are slow to catch on.

As Our Parents Age

multigenAt work do you ever feel especially old when teams or committees neglect to include veteran employees? Do you occasionally  see younger colleagues roll their eyes or flaunt up-to-the-minute technology skills when an older colleague makes a suggestion or comment?  Does this situation make you think defensively, sometimes making jokes about your senior moments or aging? We’ve all been there!

I’ve noticed that when a few people in their late fifties get together and talk about their jobs, it is not uncommon for them to mention how workplace environments, while building leadership skills in younger workers, forget emphasize how older employees continue to have much to share.

Read a June 2011 article, Why Multi-Generational Teams Are Best, over at bNet, the CBS Interactive Business Network, and feel much better about your age and the contributions that you make at work.

Two broad reasons that a variety of age groups…

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Giving vs. Receiving: Growing Older & Extreme Frustration

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Mom, Her Mom, and Me - 1973

Mom, Her Mom, and Me – 1973

Change is constant when we age, and it’s important for adult children occasionally to consider the changes in our elder parents’ lives by looking through the prisms that our parents gaze through and thoughtfully examining their perspectives.

In a conversation with my mom — who has found herself less energetic and more dependent on others — she shared her journal essay about the many changes in her life. Mom expressed her sometimes vexation with elderhood while also analyzing what causes her to often feel so frustrated.

She wrote that she had often presented talks based on the Bible verse in Acts 20:35, “It is more blessed to give to receive.” Mom noted that as she has aged, she’s realized that while there is much discourse on the “giving” aspect of the verse, there is little, if any discussion on the idea of receiving. She feels unprepared for a time in life — right now — when she gives less and receives  more. Mother’s insightful piece was published in the Virginia Mennonite Retirement Community publication, “What’s Up at VMRC?”

In her journal essay my mother writes:                      Continue reading →

The Aging Parent-Multiple Medication Conundrum

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pillsThe intersection of elderly parents and multiple medications continues to be a conundrum for many adult children. It certainly is for my family! Two recent Washington Post articles about medication issues may be useful for the children or aging adults to read and then share with one another.

In Older Patients Sometimes Need to Get Off of Their Meds, but It Can Be a Struggle, physician Ravi Parikh writes about evaluating medications with the aim of de-prescribing some of the medicines that people take. He describes the struggles that can arise when patients hesitate to go off medications that they have been taking for years, because their sense is that their medications are working. People are reluctant to associate physical problems with medications that they already take, so when new symptoms arise, many people seek a prescription for that problem and are less inclined to examine whether or not the new problem might be caused by medications they already take.

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The Anatomy of a Fall — Mine

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My Boot!

My Boot!

In April 2016 the health writer Jane Brody wrote a powerful essay in the New York Times Personal Health column, Thriving at Age 70 and Beyond. She described the importance of focusing, as we age, on a healthy life style and maintaining social relationships as well as adjusting to age-related physical changes that occur. Brody specifically noted that we need to make individual adjustments to reduce the risk of falls.

All-in-all, the article, mostly focused on women, but much also applicable to men, encouraged people to think in all sorts of ways about what they can do to stay as healthy and strong as possible as aging progresses.

I am still a distance from age 70, yet Brody’s New York Times article offered a wake-up call — reminding me to think about my own aging and any potential issues. I thought a lot about the things we have already done in our own house to prevent falling problems and considered what else we might do. And then, a few weeks later, I fell.

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