If you or your parents use Gmail, as we do, be alert for the new Google Buzz. It is easy to check your e-mail and suddenly find yourself connected into Buzz, and right now if this happens there is almost no privacy. This is a newfangled social networking platform like Facebook or MySpace, but it … Continue reading
Tagged with aging …
New Old Age Blog – NY Times
Love the New Old Age blog at the New York Times. This July 1, 2008 New Old Age posting, Our Parents Ourselves by Jane Gross, sums up the perspective of aging children confronting the aging parent experience — anxiety, love, concern, frustration, respect, and more. So much to learn. So much to give back.
Health Information on the Web, Part II: Evaluating Web Sites
I am enormously frustrated when I speak with people, aging adults or otherwise, who go online seeking medical information without using effective search and evaluation skills. In this day and age, the most important web task for ourselves, our children, and our grandchildren, is to learn how to evaluate the information we find on the … Continue reading
Snow Shoveling: A Reminder About Getting Older
With all the snow in the Washington area this past week (two blizzards and about 30 inches in my neck of the woods), we are shoveling several times each day. Our work is even harder than we expected because our neighborhood snow blower needed a repair just as the first blizzard finished up. But we … Continue reading
Census Information and Aging Parents
I’ve written about seniors and aging parents and how they can interact with technology, computers, urban legends, and scams, but one aspect that I have not touched on is the upcoming census. Dale over at the Transition Aging Parents blog, has written an excellent post about helping aging parents avoid census scams. Census information gathering … Continue reading
Questions to Ask Your Physician When Medicine is Prescribed
(from the “Caregivers’ Guide to Medications and Aging” document at Family Caregiving Alliance) I have made a MS Word document with these questions so I can easily jot down answers in the space next to the question. I’ve also color-coded the questions so that some are for the doctor and others are for the pharmacist. … Continue reading
Thoughts on Medications and Seniors: Part I
Protonix, Synthroid, Lasix, Lopressor, Altace, Fosamax, Vitamin D, KDur, Coumadin and others … all medications prescribed for my husband’s mother in the last several years of her life. Mother took some of these in the morning after breakfast, others in the evening after dinner, and one was prescribed for just before bed. The Fosamax was supposed to … Continue reading
Washington Post Health Section – Aging Well
Today’s Washington Post Health and Science section has a theme, The Aging Well Issue. Article topics include Alzheimer’s/memory, aging-in-place villages, and geriatrics experts discussing “good things about aging.” The Post also has a feature on Medicare with lots of information to help children of aging parents who are helping their parents with health issues.
Snow Worries and Aging Parents
As a teacher it used to be that I thought about time off from school when snow was predicted. Now I have parent “SnowWorries,” and I rarely get around to anticipating snow days. During a big snow storm, and we’ve had a bunch this winter, my anxiety level is higher than usual. Not crazy high, … Continue reading
Seniors, Exercise, and Preventing Falls
Once again a fall. This time it is a friend’s mother who fell, and today I heard that her mother’s health is continuing to decline. Senior falls are frustrating and sad, occurring frequently and causing physical problems, discomfort, outright pain, and unhappiness. Over the last four months I keep returning to the topic of seniors … Continue reading
My Mother (Mom)
I spoke on the phone with my mother tonight. What an amazing woman! Besides being one of the Obama super-volunteers in the Shenandoah Valley last year, she is active in politics, a book club, and church, and she is always ready to get in touch with a Congressperson or Senator about an important issue (right now … Continue reading
Caregivers: Looking Back, Giving Back
We were fortunate to have people and places who helped us care for my husband’s mother. During the last year of mother’s life, things were intense, and sometimes we wished that we could be taken care of, too. Choosing to help with mother’s care and to have her near us, especially before she needed substantial … Continue reading
Mother’s Memorial Service
Other Posts Relating to Remembrances: After a Parent’s Death: Obituaries and Remembrances, After a Parent’s Death: Writing a Remembrance, Part II, After a Parent’s Death: Writing a Remembrance, Part I Our goal was to plan a memorial service that celebrated the life of my husband’s mother. As she was two months shy of her … Continue reading
Making Our House Safer: For Aging Parents and For Ourselves
My husband and I keep hearing about people who fall inside their homes, some of them older seniors and some in our age range (50’s – 60’s). Most people trip over an area rug or lose their balance in the bathroom or on steps. Check out this online PowerPoint lecture at the University of Pittsburgh Supercourse … Continue reading
Anticipatory Grief
This National Cancer Institute web site features a number of explanations and resource links on bereavement and grief. One section, titled anticipatory grief, describes how people often feel and behave when the death of a loved one is expected. This type of grief usually applies in a situation where a person is seriously ill and … Continue reading
After Death Details, Part I: Grief
Grief … It has been a week since my husband’s mother died. We miss her, though we are glad she is not in the extreme discomfort that she experienced at the end. We’ve laughed and we’ve cried, more of the former, because she lived a long and rich life. Saying goodbye takes time. Photograph albums … Continue reading
Dementia: The Hair Salon
Several weeks ago, my mother-in-law stopped going to the hairdresser. She and her caregiver had been walking down to the small salon at her assisted living facility once a week. Then one day she got up and after being dressed did not want to go. Or maybe she did not understand or we did not … Continue reading
Dementia: More Unlearning
Over the past several days a number of dramatic changes have occurred in Mother’s condition. Three days ago she could suck on a straw, the preferred way of taking in a fair amount of liquids and especially protein milk shakes. And then two days ago she could no longer use a straw. Last week she … Continue reading
How My Parents Selected a Retirement Community
My parents have moved through three or four retirement periods. At any given time, it seemed like one of them had a retirement job of some type, and my father, until a couple of years ago, accepted regular “fill-in” church assignments, helping out a church for a week or two here and there. They have … Continue reading
Late State Dementia: Concentration
By the time a person reaches late stage dementia, concentration disappears. Mother’s ability to concentrate is mostly gone. A fleeting memory, a song listened to, a story read, a much enjoyed TV news show broadcast — not one of these activities can be completed. We can start any of them and for a minute the … Continue reading
As Our Parents Age So Do We 