Take a few minutes to read a post at the Intrepid Paper Girl blog about the life and dementia-related death of journalist Lynn Forbish. Forbish’s last years of life demonstrate how people with dementia continue to think, feel emotions, and make decisions. Her end-of-life experience illustrates the cognitive model that researcher Justin Feinstein and University of Iowa … Continue reading
Tagged with diseases_of_aging …
Dementia Patients and Inner City Teens: Friendship
People experiencing dementia, even those with loving family members nearby, are often bored, frightened, and agitated. Rarely do they get enough socialization. An April 14, 2010, Chicago Tribune article by Ted Gregory, Elderly Dementia Patients and “At-risk” Students Create Friendships, describes a successful activity in Chicago that builds relationships between teens and elderly people living with … Continue reading
Dementia – Emotions May Continue? PNAS Research
So interesting to read the about the research, Sustained Experience of Emotion After Loss of Memory in Patients with Amnesia (abstract), published in the April 12, 2010 early edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The University of Iowa researcher, Justin Feinstein, found that patients, while they could not retrieve memories, were … Continue reading
Geriatrician Crisis in the U.S.
Found this interesting article about the need for geriatrician. Here’s the intro. “Think about it… If the number of students doubled and the number of teachers didn’t, that would be a problem, right? Well, a parallel to this scenario is actually taking place in the health care world: our elderly population will double by 2030 … Continue reading
Aging Parents: Touch Screen Technology Innovations
Aging parent supporters and caregivers know how gratifying it is to sit with an elderly parent looking through old photograph albums. While we all love to do this, uncomfortable moments can arise when parents with dementia experience anxiety when they cannot remember an event. Now comes interesting dementia research reported in the March 25, 2010 … Continue reading
NIH Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease
NIH State-of-the-Science Conference Preventing Alzheimer’s Disease and Cognitive Decline April 26-28, 2010 Bethesda, MD Register Online (there is no registration fee to attend this conference) Agenda (Monday – Wednesday proceedings) Background Information A conference to evaluate the available scientific information on Alzheimer’s disease and develop a statement that advances understanding of the issue. Health professionals … Continue reading
Rearranging Life to Help Aging Parents
When an aging child helps to take care of an aging parent, major modifications to daily life become routine for the child and his or her family. Recently I read When Family Calls There is Only One Answer, by Mike Cassidy, published at the San Jose MercuryNews.com, making me think a lot about how my … Continue reading
Aging Parents: Explaining Congestive Heart Failure
Congestive heart failure (CHF) is a common diagnosis for seniors, and many of us will have more than one aging parents with this condition. The diagnosis, indicating a progressive disease, often requires multi-year medial care and can require invasive cardiac procedures, many medications, lifestyle and diet changes, and medical supplies such as compression stockings which … Continue reading
Aging Parents: Alzheimer’s First Case
A few weeks ago the New York Times Health section mentioned the Neurophilosophy blog, though I cannot remember what post the Times was highlighting. When I explored a bit I found this interesting history of Alois Alzheimer’s first case, posted in November 2007. If you are interested in neuroscience there is a lot to read … Continue reading
Aging Parents: Caregiving and Saying Good-bye
Caregiving, especially helping to care for an aging parent who is ill and nearing the end of life, is arduous. One never stops asking questions about “doing the right thing.” Throughout this challenging time an aging child has lot of things to say, memories to review, and good-byes to be arranged for family members near … Continue reading
Aging Parents and Dementia: JAMA Study Redux
Wow! I discovered the JAMA article about dementia, hospitalization and the elderly and mentioned it here on the blog several days ago, on March 4, 2010 — before the Vital Signs blog at the NY Times discussed it on March 8th. How exciting to once-in-a-while be ahead of the Times (which by the way I … Continue reading
Aging Parents: Asking Questions After a Death
A friend whose mother is seriously ill asked, “What do you think about after your parent is gone, the services are over, and you are moving on with life, but without the person?” My answer? We share memories and we ask questions. The memories are easy, because they come to us. No matter what … Continue reading
NIH Senior Net – A Senior Friendly Site
…and Tips for Making a Website Senior Friendly Take a few minutes to visit this NIH Senior Health site. Bring an aging parent along. Notice the great care that has been taken to make the site easy-to-read with large type and navigation links that are clear and uncluttered. This site is full of information on … Continue reading
Baby Boomers, Aging Parents, Caregiving Observations
About a month ago we attended an out-of-town gathering with fifteen or sixteen friends plus spouses, all in the 50’s – 60’s age group. Every single person we met that evening had at least one aging parent who needed caregiving and support. The variety of caregiving arrangements was interesting, and after a long evening of … Continue reading
Aging and Middle Age Brain Health
Why we need to exercise … and don’t need a lot of those other products on the market… I am so tired of television, magazine, and catalog ads selling brain improvement products — to seniors as well as to people my age. They are starting to arrive regularly in my mailbox, and TV is an … Continue reading
Aging Parents and Children: Wireless Medical Information
A few weeks age I wrote about a my mother-in-law’s atrial fibrillation, especially how she grew increasingly helpless as she felt the unusual heart beats while her physician never heard them. Even after Mother wore a monitor at home for 48 hour the monitoring it wasn’t enough to detect the problem. Additional consistent investigation was … Continue reading
Aging Brains: A Review of Welcome to Your Brain
If you think a lot about your brain and why it acts like it does, I’ve discovered a wonderful book. Welcome to Your Brain, by Ph.D. neuroscientists Sandra A. Aamodt and Sam Wang tells all sorts of stories and dispels lots of myths. Published in 2008, it’s filled with clear and easy-to-read information about the … Continue reading
Aging Brains: The “Senior Moment” Comment
As aging children most of us are used to hearing friends and colleagues make the “senior moment” comment. Just about any time a person has difficulty remembering something he or she will comment, “…oops, I’m having a senior moment.” I began noticing this in my late 40’s and now, ten years later, it happens more … Continue reading
NPR Story on Vaccines and Aging
This morning (February 8,2010) on National Public Radio, a Morning Edition story, “Adapting Vaccines to our Aging Immune Systems.” explained how vaccines given to seniors are not as effective compared to those administered to children and younger adults. The story describes how the body’s immune system works in general, and how a senior immune system … Continue reading
The End of Mother’s Life
We were not able to follow through with the hairdresser, though we know that Mother would have loved it, even so close to the end of her life. Raymond was a master at making her feel good. Early on Monday morning mother died, perhaps from the dementia, but more proximally from congestive heart failure. She … Continue reading
As Our Parents Age So Do We 