Gratitude really does make a difference. Some days are tough for this adult child, even though I am not a direct caregiver for my elderly parents. The amazing assisted living staff and an incredible caregiver, who visits two or three times each week, provide the bulk of the support. Yet, there is still so much … Continue reading
Tagged with Caregiving …
Five Challenges to the Elusive Goal of Aging in Place
I’ve met many older adults who want to age in place, but for many individuals it is difficult to stay in their homes. In the best situations, either the elder or a family member is able to monitor the situation, assuring that everything is in order and making changes as necessary. Designing and carrying out realistic … Continue reading
The Increasing Cost of Assisted Living
An interesting article, Why Aging Middle-class People Can’t Afford Assisted Living, recently appeared at Philly.com, the online site of the Philadelphia Inquirer. Writer Stacey Burling describes research published by the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center (NORC), a project that examined the future challenges of paying for the costs of assisted living, especially for … Continue reading
On Caregiving & Considering My Own Late Years of Life
Every time I chat with my friends and colleagues who are helping parents navigate through their older elderhood years, one person or another inevitably makes a comment about how easy it is and yes, a bit nerve-wracking, to picture being in the same fragile position as their parents. No one disputes that we all age. … Continue reading
Older Elders and the End of Life
If you are an adult child with ninetysomething parents, you are probably familiar with the drill. Like me you may receive phone calls from an elderly parent a couple of times each week, usually asking a question, describing a problem, or just expressing anxiety. Or you may hear from caregivers about a problem — a … Continue reading
Being Retired and Supporting Elderly Parents
At least once a week my day belongs to my mom and dad. We leave our house early and drive the 100 miles to their home. We visit and always have lunch together in their community dining room or at a local restaurant. Sometimes all of us attend a special event in their retirement community. … 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
Jane Gross Lecture on Caregiving and Her Family
Last fall Jane Gross, journalist and author of A Bittersweet Season, spoke about her experiences supporting and caring for her elderly mother. The presentation at Brethren Village, a retirement community in Lancaster, PA, shares observations, experiences, things she wishes she had done, and much more.
5 Family Caregiving Facts from Pew Research Center
If you provide caregiving support to a family member, take a few minutes to read a short article about Five Facts About Family Caregivers at the Pew Research Center website. The short article offers details from a survey that collected information about participants’ views concerning caring for aging parents, part of a larger Pew project that focused on … Continue reading
What’s Your Caregiving IQ? — Take the Quiz
Check out the caregiving IQ quiz over at the NextAvenue website. It includes some questions about how we define caregiving, what we spend on caregiving, and the costs of long-term care. I consider myself pretty knowledgeable and I missed a couple of these. After each question the quiz shares the answer and offers some detailed … Continue reading
Falls, Falls, and More Falls – Part II
The other day I wrote about elder adults and falls after reading Bracing for the Falls of an Aging Nation, published in the November 2, 2014 New York Times. The author, Katie Hafner, wrote about the extreme challenges of falls for aging individuals. The next day, November 3rd, part II appeared. Katie Hafner’s second piece, A Tiny Stumble, A Life … Continue reading
Nursing Home? Be Prepared to Learn
No one ever wants to think about the possibility of a nursing home. Yet long-term care may figure prominently in many of our lives. The New York Times recently published two articles by Jane Brody about how to choose a nursing home community carefully. In part one, Nursing Home Unthinkable? Be Prepared in Case It’s Inevitable, she interviews people … Continue reading
Alive Inside: Music Brings Back Memories and Dignity
Note: If after reading this post you are interested in seeing the movie, please check out my Alive Inside movie review. I discovered Alive Inside, the Sundance award-winning documentary film that demonstrates the power that music can exercise over memory loss, a few months ago when my husband and I shared an amazing experience attending the Second … 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
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
The Art of Presence for People Who Need to Know We Care
Each time a friend or acquaintance experiences an illness or death in the family, I go through the same thought process. When should I call? What should I offer? Will I intrude? What it really comes down to is this: I should stop dithering around and just do something — just about anything, really — to demonstrate … Continue reading
Aging Parent Hospitalizations and Observation Status
Just when you think that you have settled the most significant adult child-aging parent issues — when you and your parents have spoken about medical care support, finances, and the range of their end-of-life wishes — along comes another concern to worry about, and it’s one that may be completely out of our control. We … Continue reading
End of Life Choices
In June 2010 I read a chilling New York Times Magazine article, What Broke My Father’s Heart, by Katy Butler, who described how her father’s heart outlived his brain because a pacemaker kept chugging along. It kept going despite that the rest of his body, due to dementia, was giving up and shutting down. Butler … Continue reading
Do We Owe Our Parents?
I’ve just finished reading an interesting article, What Do We “Owe” Our Parents?, over on Next Avenue. In the September 12, 2013 online article author Suzanne Gerber discusses the motivations of adult children when it comes to aging parents and caregiving roles and describes a nationwide on-line survey conducted for More magazine, a publication aimed at mature … Continue reading
New Yorker Article on New Models of Long-term Elder Care
If you can locate a copy of The New Yorker May 20, 2013 article The Sense of An Ending by Rebecca Mead, it’s well worth reading because of its focus on new models of providing care to fragile elders with dementia illnesses in nursing homes. The article extensively describes the Beatitudes Campus in Arizona, but it also mentions … Continue reading
