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 So Do We:
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…
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 So Do We:
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…
Transgenerational Products: A Common Sense Solution
Transgenerational design is a manufacturing concept for products that are useful for people of all ages and the design also ensures that older individuals will be able to use a product even as they age and their circumstances change. Some years ago when my husband’s mother was recovering from a stroke, she made it clear … Continue reading
Advice-giving, Aging Parents & Adult Children
Advice-giving can trip up the elder parent – adult child relationship and even cause painful divisions between parent and child. My mother will ask me a question and the answer is fairly straightforward, but then I’ll keep on answering, advising, really. At other times, I offer unsolicited advice about one thing or another. Usually my mother … Continue reading
When Scary Virus Messages Appear on Your Aging Parent’s Screen…
Adult children who support aging parents and their personal computers need to be aware of a threat that can pop up on a computer anytime and cause major problems if a person does not understand how to handle the threat. Our parents need to hear about this potential problem. The other day I was working on … Continue reading
Facetime: A Simple, Intuitive & Easy Way to Include Great Grandparents
My grandson is lucky enough to have two great grandparents — my mom and dad — and we use FaceTime so they can visit with the baby despite the 500 miles that separates them. He is too young to understand the importance of communicating with FaceTime. Oh, he’s interested the iPad or iPhone, and he is quite curious about … Continue reading
The Unforgettables: More on Music, the Brain & Dementia
Check out this delightful TV video about The Unforgettables — a chorus in New York City that includes people with dementia — that includes an interview with a physician who is conducting research about music and the brain.
Music, the Brain, Aging, and Memory Diseases
We live with music throughout our lives — it surrounds people no matter what their age. Children, of course, love to sing at almost as soon as they are born, but music, even for those who are not musicians, is a part of the air people breathe. Interestingly, music appears to become even more important as people age and contributes … Continue reading
An Image as a Metaphor for Dementia
Watching a much-loved family member’s gradual memory decline brings with it great sadness. We observe vast amounts of knowledge and personal connection — the inner light of an individual — disconnecting and disappearing. Recently I spent a morning looking at an amazing quilt exhibit at Virginia Mennonite Retirement Community (VMRC). The quilter, Anne Miller, created exquisite patterns, and images, and I … Continue reading
Does the Incidence of Dementia Decrease With Education?
Check out the February 11, 2016 NPR Shots Blog article, Can Dementia Be Prevented? Education May Bolster Brain Against Risk, to learn about a recent study that aimed to find out more about the prevalence of dementia using participants in the Framingham Heart Study during three periods between 1970 and the early 2000s. The Framingham Heart Study began … Continue reading
College Loan & IRS Scams — I Received Both Phone Calls Today
As if there are not enough scams, here’s another one — a college loan scam. I haven’t had college loans for years and years, but I am wondering if there will soon be a parent or grandparent component to the scam. Anyway, one more caller with malicious intent to be aware of when you answer … Continue reading
As Our Parents Age So Do We 