Does musical training have any effect on the aging brain? Scientists at the University of Kansas Medical Center asked this question. They wondered whether the experience of learning and practicing an instrument and the resulting sensorimotor and cognitive abilities might help a person much later when aging changes begin to occur. In The Relation Between … Continue reading
Tagged with aging parents …
Changing the Home in Small Ways for Senior Residents
Read Small Changes Enough to Keep Aging Seniors in Home, an April 21, 2011 article in the Kansas City Star. Reporter Diane Stafford describes how small tweaks and novel ideas can help a seniors remain in a much-loved home. These adjustments range from grab bars and higher toilets in bathroom to throw rug removal in … Continue reading
Aging Parents, Adult Children: Caregiving and Empathy
When you have senior parents who need increasing support, empathy is critical. You try hard, and not always with success, to understand what they are experiencing. That’s called empathy. The concept of empathy has received a bit of a bad rap the past year or two with politicians actually taking the time to deliver statements … Continue reading
The Good Caregiver: Rules of the Road for Adult Children
I have just read The Good Caregiver cover-to-cover. The recently published book, by Robert L. Kane, M.D., is an all-in-one user’s guide with thorough, indexed, and therefore easy-to-find information about every aspect of elderly parent caregiving. Though he is a world-renowned specialist on aging and long-term care (Read Dr. Kane’s faculty bio), and he produces lots of … Continue reading
The Scams of Springtime (and Every Other Season)
I’ve been meaning to encourage people to read a post, Caregivers Need to be Alert to Scams that Target the Elderly, over at the Inside Aging Parent Care blog. It provides an excellent overview of scams that target people in general and seniors in particular. Scammers are sophisticated operators, figuring out where to find elderly, … Continue reading
Will Concierge Medical Practices Cause Medicare Decline?
Read High-end Medical Option Prompts Medicare Worries, an article posted by the Associated Press today (April 2, 2011). The article, by health reporter Ricardo Alonzo-Zaldivar, examines the increasing number of practices that are moving toward concierge medicine (also called retainer-based physician practices). Concerns abound about how this might affect the access to care by Medicare beneficiaries. Although … Continue reading
Senior Parent Tech Support-Advice I Wish I’d Discovered Ages Ago
This New York Times article, Five Tips for Helping Parents With Technology, provides some helpful tips for people who are troubleshooting the computers of senior parents. Gadgetwise blog reporter Paul Boutin offers common sense suggestions that can simplify over-the-phone family tech support, and it’s my view that you should consider following these ideas almost to the … Continue reading
Just Die Already???
Check out today’s post, No Need for Death Threats! over at Changing Aging, Dr. Bill Thomas’ blog. He snapped this picture of this magazine cover at the airport in Philadelphia. I am beginning to believe that the next 30 years will be generationally tough, not only for our parents but also for us, the adult children … Continue reading
Teens Mentoring Seniors and Mobile Phones
Saw this article, Want to Know What Your Cell Phone Can Do? Ask a Teenager, published in a Patch.com Reston,Virginia edition. The article describes how middle and high school students, from schools in the Reston, Virginia area, volunteered to be cell phone tutors with seniors, showing the elders how to use mobile phone features such … Continue reading
Friends or Friends of Friends: What’s the Difference?
Many of our senior parents use Facebook, and they are having great fun. However it’s important to help them understand the importance of carefully accepting friends. Seniors need to understand that strangers should never be accepted as electronic friends, and understanding the difference between “friends” and “friends of friends” is critical. The potential for privacy … Continue reading
Does Parental Longevity Predict How Long We Live?
Those of us with parents who are living long and rich lives tend to assume that we have inherited their genes and therefore possess the capacity to live at least almost as long. However, a recently published study in the Journal of Internal Medicine, published by the Karolinska Institute (a Swedish NIH), questions that assumption. … Continue reading
Senior Emergency Centers at Hospitals
If you have taken aging parents for a noisy, confusing, not to mention long, emergency visit, you will want to keep well-informed about hospitals that are developing facilities expressly tailored to seniors. Yesterday, March 14, 2011, The New York Times New Old Age Blog posted an article, Emergency Rooms Built With the Elderly in Mind. … Continue reading
Aging and Decision-Making
No matter how old we are, making decisions and choices can be more difficult when we are presented with lots of options. As we age, we may take more time to make decisions compared to our children or grandchildren, and the situation can become a source of frustration for family members. Read Why It Takes So … Continue reading
A Garden Product for Everyone — But Great for Seniors
Since we’ve been helping our parents with various tasks, we are keenly aware that some products might as well have the words AGING (or aged) etched into them. Since I avidly read posts from the MIT Age Lab, AgeTek, Laurie Orlov’s Aging in Place Technology Watch, and Eric Dishman, I know that new products aimed exclusively at “old people” … Continue reading
Banishing the Myths of Aging
The University of Pittsburgh Institute on Aging has a superb website, filled with information and resources on aging and supplemented with links that can help people solve problems and better understand medical conditions. The site is easy for seniors, families, and caregivers to navigate. Many of the resources are Pennsylvania specific, however others, like the … Continue reading
Aging, Respect, Caregiving, and Honor: How Many of Us Could Do This?
For Mr. Bronson, a Neighbor’s Kind Act Led to a New Family tells the story of a couple in the Washington, DC area, John O’Leary and Nadine Epstein, who became friends and shared a home with Mr. Bronson, a 90-year-old man who had lost his home. What began as a spontaneous offer of a bedroom 25 … Continue reading
Learning About Retinas: Aging Parents and Adult Children
You can also check out my other posts about eyes and retinas. After going through five cataract surgeries with four senior parents and listening to people fret about floaters in their eyes, I thought I knew a lot about middle age and senior eye problems. But now I know that floaters can lead to flashes which … Continue reading
Aging Parents, Adult Children: Back Aches!
Most of us have experienced back aches of some type, and a fair number of our senior parents have back pain even more often than we do. For me, the only solution is to wait out a back ache and keep moving, even if it doesn’t feel so good to move (and it doesn’t). Most … Continue reading
Senior Gait Speed and Life Expectancy
Bob (not his real name) is an active man in his mid-90’s. Whenever we made early morning visits to his senior community, we found him up and walking before breakfast. If the day was especially cold, he made rounds of the various corridors, regularly changing floors and always waving a cheerful good-morning to residents emerging … Continue reading
Dale Carter – Transitioning Your Aging Parents Book Tour
Dale Carter’s book, Transitioning Your Aging Parent, is a must read for anyone with senior parents who need extra support. The book has been well reviewed — a resource that helps right now, and honestly, it still may be a useful resource years from now when we require support from our children. Follow Dale’s blog, … Continue reading
As Our Parents Age So Do We 