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
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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
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
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
Will On-Demand Services Change the Way We Age?
A great article in the December 14, 2015 Washington Post, The On-Demand Economy: Changing the Way We Live As We Age, explains how many new online services such as food delivery, rides on demand. and home services are making life much easier for elders who want to remain independent as long as possible. Most of … Continue reading
Lost in the Hospital: An Article to Check Out
I’ve just finished reading a Washington Post opinion piece, We Need to Take Better Care of Our Elderly by Jerald Winakur. The March 20, 2015 article describes a hospital experience of a 91-year-old woman, who may be the author’s mother. Winakur, a geriatrician, describes what happens to an elder who enters the hospital’s complex world of unfamiliar physicians, … Continue reading
About Half of All Americans Over 65 Have a Fall — Each Year
I’ve just finished reading a Washington Post article, Strategies for Preventing Falls, Which Are Especially Risky for Older People, appearing in the online edition on March 16, 2015, It reviews the risks, examines the facts about falling, describes how to check an individual’s steadiness, and makes suggestions about the various ways a person can improve balance. … Continue reading
Better Hospital Gowns? All Ages Will Be Thrilled!
If you are like my parents, me, or people of almost any age, you HATE hospital gowns. Sometimes putting on or wearing the gowns is worse than the test or the hospital visit. If you have ever helped an aging parent or other elder get in and out of bed with one of those gowns — or take … Continue reading
Watching Ourselves Age With the Brown Sisters
Those of us with elder parents spend a lot of time thinking about age and change. As adult children, we observe the aging of our parents, but not infrequently we wonder aloud how they got so old. At the same time we don’t always notice how we, too, are growing older. In October 2014 the … Continue reading
Help Elders Understand More: A History of the Way the Web Works
My parents and other elders often ask me questions about the Web — the way it works, how it really got started, how it’s evolved, and how why it changes so much. I have the answers to many of these questions and willingly take the time to explain, but often wish I could hand the … Continue reading
Fitness Age vs. Chronological Age
Adult children should check out the October 2013 New York Times Well Blog article, What’s Your Fitness Age? The piece by Gretchen Reynolds shares information about the concept of fitness age — it can differ significantly from an individual’s chronological age — and how researchers calculate the measurement for individuals. Reynolds points out in the article that, while we … Continue reading
Will Robots Take Care of Us When We’re Old?
Take a few minutes to read a May 2014 Chicago Tribune article, An Army of Robots May Soon be Deployed to Care for the Elderly. This piece, written by Reuters columnist Mark Miller, explores how robots may be able to perform certain tasks to support elders who can’t aways do those tasks for themselves. Innovating with robots … Continue reading
Remembering an Elder Mom Who Deeply Disliked Dependence
If you are not a regular reader of The New York Times New Old Age blog, take a few minutes to read the post by Perry Klass, M.D., She Wasn’t So Ungrateful After All. Dr. Klass, a pediatrician and a writer, penned this May 27, 2014 remembrance of her mother, Sheila Solomon Klass, also a writer, … Continue reading
Roz Chast’s Graphic Novel: Serious Humor for Adult Children Caretakers
This morning I am going to One More Page, my local independent book store, to purchase Roz Chast’s new graphic novel, Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? I’ve never read a graphic novel, although I frequently pass by them in local independent book stores. Today, however, I will buy the book and explore this new-to-me genre, really … Continue reading
Watch Out for Unexpected Recurring Charges on a Parent’s Credit Card
Over dinner at my parents’ house recently my mother commented that a recurring charge appeared on her Mastercard statement every month for at least a year. “I have no idea what it is,” she said. She had been checking her bills and was unsure about what to do. I looked at the bill and sure … Continue reading
Dad’s New iPad: How We Decided What to Buy – iPad for Dad #25
I finally figured out what iPad model to purchase for my 90-year-old dad as a Christmas 2013 present, and I thought I’d share my decision-making process here, just in case others are dealing with the same conundrum. My mom is under strict instructions to keep him away from this blog (he is a regular reader) … Continue reading
Pneumonia Vaccinaton Makes a Difference
Aging parents and elders need to get a flu shot each year, and they also need to receive a pneumonia vaccination. And just about everyone else does, too. Each fall I ask my parents about their flu shots (You can also read the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s influenza FAQ), and each year, by the … Continue reading
Keeping Elders Out of Hospitals as Much as Possible
Anyone who has spent time with an elder parent in the hospital knows just how easy it is for one problem to be solved only to have the person discharged with different problems. This is not necessarily the fault of the medical caregivers or the hospital itself — it’s a result of a system that … Continue reading
Low Sodium Thanksgiving – Third Year
I am reprising this post from two years ago when I cooked my first low-sodium Thanksgiving dinner — attending to sodium because of my father’s congestive heart failure diet requirements. Most preparations are staying the same, though I am dividing the stuffing this year into two parts. The first half I will prepare in a … Continue reading
As Our Parents Age So Do We 