If you help to support an aging parent and also like listening to folk music with strong spiritual themes (also called Christian pop), take a few minutes to listen to singer Amy Grant talk about caregiving for her aging father, a retired physician, and how these experiences influence her music. During the program, broadcast via … Continue reading
Tagged with aging parents …
Steven Colbert’s Amazing Remembrance of Mom
Stephen Colbert took a few minutes, at the beginning of his June 19, 2013 program, share and remember his mother, Lorna, who died last week in her nineties. Well worth watching. The video is courtesy of Hulu via Upworthy.
Google Calendar: Collaborating With My Mom!
Every adult child has some type of calendar issue when it comes to scheduling certain activities with senior parents. Even when parents keep track of their own affairs, adult children often need to be aware of some of the events. It’s not that I need or want to know what my parents are doing every moment … Continue reading
Businesses Profiting and Benefitting from Aging
An article in Fiscal Times, How Startups Art Profiting from Aging Boomers, describes how boomers and individuals in other age groups are creating new businesses and products that respond to the needs of people who are aging. Adult children may want to become acquainted with this business trend because products may pop up that are … Continue reading
Aging Parent Hospitalization
I’ve written about senior parent hospitalizations several times on this blog. When a parent is hospitalized, an adult child needs energy, clarity, and attention to detail. Recently Dale Carter, over at Transition Aging Parents, wrote an excellent post about her experience when her mother was hospitalized for surgery, and she includes lots of ideas that … Continue reading
Why Do I Blog? Maybe Because Dad’s Kept a Journal for 64 Years
Tomorrow I am co-leading a workshop at my school about blogging. One question I am always asked when I talk about my blogs and the huge body of writing I’ve created is, “What got me started?” In October 2009 I began work on this blog, AsOurParentsAge.net, with encouragement from my husband. His mother, Betty, was near … Continue reading
Whose Eyes Are Checking Out That Digital Content?
In his recent post over at the Changing Aging blog, Kavan Peterson describes a short video, Forwarders. Intended as a parody of people who continuously forward e-mail, the video reinforces stereotypes about elders and aging. It’s sad that this short film focuses solely on one older adult, especially since so many people of all ages … Continue reading
Are Boomers As Healthy As They Think?
Over and over the media refer to boomers as a health conscious generation, and boomers often assume that their generation is healthier than their parents’ generation. Now new research, just published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, reaches conclusions that dispute the rosy boomer heath assumptions. Using data from the National Health and Nutrition Health Examination … Continue reading
Stroke and Recovery: Changes In a Politician’s Perspective
If you have ever had a stroke event in your family, you know — as we do — about the frustrating process of recovery and rehabilitation, as well as the constant bickering with benefits providers when it comes to whether a person is making “enough” progress to merit continuing rehab sessions. If this is a … Continue reading
When the Caregiving Is For a Spouse
Check out the Washington Post article, Caregiving is Especially Complicated When the Patient is Your Spouse, an article originally published in the January 14, 2013 online edition. Written for the Consumer’s Union but appearing in the Post, the piece describes a book, The Caregiving Wife’s Handbook, by Diana Denholm, a licensed professional therapist who provided … Continue reading
Rosalyn Carter Talks About Family Caregiving
Michael Lindenmayer interviews former First Lady Rosalyn Carter in a January 17, 2013 piece at Forbes. Mrs. Carter speaks about family caregivers in the United States, noting the important role this group plays in the United States health care system. Family caregivers, she points out, provide much of the daily life support to family members with significant … Continue reading
Here’s to the Health of Remembering — Even After Forgetting
If you find yourself forgetting things (and taking more time to remember them than you want), read Dr. Bill Thomas’ post, Tip of the Tongue, over at his Changing Aging blog. He writes about the brain and presents a broad range of research findings that address memory, forgetting, remembering, age, and ageism. As we grow … Continue reading
Celebrating the Opening of Woodland Park – Part II
Several years ago, when Jody G. started working at Virginia Mennonite Retirement Community (VMRC), she watched a video about the Green House Homes that were to be built. Immediately she fell in love with the concepts and wanted to become a shahbaz, the name for each person who works in the home. I knew right then … Continue reading
Celebrating the Opening at Woodland Park – Part I
“Now I don’t mind getting old,” exclaimed Marie Detwiler, age 91, as she explored a new Woodland Park Green House Home at Virginia Mennonite Retirement Community (VMRC). She understands the Woodland Park philosophy as do lots of others attending the first of two grand opening events in Harrisonburg, Virginia. After chatting with Mrs. Detwiler, I remembered … Continue reading
Lose the Word “Spying”
Can we please not use the word spy when we discuss the needs of aging parents? Each year, during the two-month holiday season, I see an article or two urging adult children to use the holiday visits as an opportunity to spy — discretely, of course — during family gatherings. The goal is to discover … Continue reading
Making a New Year’s Weight Loss Resolution? Drive Less
If you, your senior parents, or anyone else in your family is thinking about weight loss as a New Year’s resolution, watch and listen to this short National Library of Medicine (NLM) video that explains how newly published research in the journal Preventive Medicine has found an inverse association between the number of miles a person … Continue reading
The Green Houses are Here — at VMRC!
If you’ve been following my blog for any length of time or even occasionally, you know that I’ve been keeping track of the new Green House Homes at Woodland Park with descriptions, pictures from the groundbreaking, and many construction images. The new neighborhood in Harrisonburg, Virginia, will be a special community that enables elders who have traditionally needed … Continue reading
Understanding My Aging Eyes After My Detached Retina
I’ve written several posts about eye medical care (post on cataracts – posts on detached retinas). Sometime soon I will share a bit more about my experience with cataract surgery — mine occurred several weeks ago. Recently I discovered a terrific eye education resource. If you are trying to make sense of the medical health of your … Continue reading
Inside the Dementia Epidemic: A Book Review
A few years ago, when my mother-in-law was sinking deeper and deeper into dementia, my husband and I suddenly realized, with some help from professional geriatric counselors, that the devious brain disease had been lurking for some time. Although we had noticed a number of memory issues and behaviors, we continually chalked them up to … Continue reading
Grab Bars and Railings, Not Just for Elders: My Cataract
Who knew that when we installed all sorts of grab bars and railings in our house — intended to help our elder parents — they would be useful to me years before retirement? I am using these accommodations all the time just now because I have a cataract, and those relative small but important changes … Continue reading
