The first time I set up a FaceTime call between my parents and their adult granddaughter, I was astonished at just how much my parents, sitting in their apartment, enjoyed just waving and watching, while letting my daughter do all the talking. That was nearly four years ago when my daughter was pregnant and had … Continue reading
Elders’ Tech Skills Require Lots of Practice: 7 Recommendations
So your older aging parent really wants to get going with a digital device? If so, please think carefully about the learning process. In a well-known New York City joke about Carnegie Hall, someone asks a cab driver, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” Without missing a beat the answer is “Practice, practice, practice.” This … Continue reading
Tony Bennett, Lady Gaga, and the Miracle of Music
Click to purchase this amazing CD at Amazon. We were driving home from a delightful lunch at a Thai restaurant — my husband, me, and my mother and dad. In one of those quirks of the digital age, my iPhone connected with the car’s bluetooth function, and suddenly the car was filled with music. We … Continue reading
Every 19 Minutes A Person in the U.S. Dies from a Fall…
Check out Jane Brody’s February 25, 2019 New York Times health column Falls Can Kill You, Here’s How to Minimize the Risk. I’ve already put the most shocking information — a person dying from a fall every 19 minutes — in the title of this post. Brody talks about the dangers of falls for older … Continue reading
Confusion or Delirium in a Hospital or New Living Situation
Several older elders in my family have developed extreme confusion when they in the hospital or emergency room. Here’s what I learned about it. Continue reading
My Parents’ Move to Assisted Living
When my elderly parents, both in their 90s, moved into an assisted living community, the decision process and the move itself were arduous. In their nineties and married for nearly 70 years, they needed more support, although they did not see it that way. It was common for me to discover medicines not taken, mail … Continue reading
I Knew I Was Right to Dispose of Those Powerful Pain Killers
Recently memories about whether or not to use pain medications came flooding back after reading a New York Times article Alternatives to Opioids for Pain Relief. The article described research that compares the effectiveness of opioid and non-opioid medicines. It made me remember just how easily power pain medications have been prescribed. Physicians observed and … Continue reading
Sometimes an Article About Elder Abuse Is Just Plain Horrifying…
If you are supporting elder parents or expect to be involved with their assistance in the future, take some time to read the New Yorker article, How the Elderly Lose Their Rights. The long story, by Rachel Aviv, describes the abuses that can occur when unscrupulous people seek the guardianship of elders. It focuses on … Continue reading
Prepare Elderly Parents for Their New Medicare Cards
If you are an individual who focuses on personal data security, one of the most surprising things you discover when it’s time to offer support to aging parents is that Social Security numbers appear right on the front of the Medicare card. Americans are told not to carry their Social Security cards around, but once they … Continue reading
Plan to Help Elderly Parents Set Up Electronic Medical Records
If you assist or provide support for an older elder in your family, check to see whether you need to help out with that individual’s electronic medical records (EMRs). You may have routinely set up your own EMRs without much thought, but many elder adults have not established or have had difficulty establishing their accounts. … Continue reading
You Can’t Parent Your Parent — No Matter What
I just read a touching 2013 column about supporting elderly parents, written by Washington Post columnist, Cortland Milloy. In his column Milloy addresses the notion, so prevalent these days, that many of us are “parenting our parents.” I’ll let you read the column for yourself, but I have some firm issues when it comes to … Continue reading
Fraud, Investments, and Our Elder Parents
Check out “Why Older People are Vulnerable to Fraud & How to Protect Them, a February 2017 New York Times article that describes the ways older adults are susceptible to fraudulent phone calls and offers, especially when it concerns investments. It also makes suggestions about what people who get entangled in these offers can do. The … Continue reading
Alzheimer’s Drug Studies Failing, but There’s Still Optimism
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 … Continue reading
The Senior’s Guide to Online Safety
Adult 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 … Continue reading
Be Sure to Create Multi-Generational Teams
Originally posted on As Our Parents Age:
At 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…
Giving vs. Receiving: Growing Older & Extreme Frustration
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 … Continue reading
The Aging Parent-Multiple Medication Conundrum
The 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 … Continue reading
The Anatomy of a Fall — Mine
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 … Continue reading
Stop Saying These Three Things to Elder Adults!
When they speak to elderly seniors, middle-age children and and other adults tend to say things, often unintentionally, that demonstrate a lack of respect and empathy. Sometimes it happens when a person tries to solve a problem quickly; at others the goal is to move along getting to work or school on time. Not infrequently adult children … Continue reading
Gazing at Aging Through the Reunion Prism
Originally posted on As Our Parents Age:
When I attended my first school reunion with a family member, just a few years after graduating from college, the people attending their 35th, 45th and 50th reunions seemed really old. At a Saturday luncheon table near the back of an old-fashioned field house, we watched and clapped,…
