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
Tagged with emergency_care …
Aging Parents: Needed Emergency Information
Do you have all the information you need to assist your aging parents and even run their household during a health emergency? If a parent gets sick and is hospitalized, or one parent dies and the other is too grief-stricken to deal with real life for a while, do you have the necessary medical and … Continue reading
Hospital Stays, Seniors, and the Possibility of Dementia
…or Disorientation We have taken parents to the hospital and discovered that the hospitalization process seems to facilitate disorientation. We have also observed incidental dementia. In essence, a frightened aging parents is sick, frightened, and disoriented and loses touch with reality. One of our parents, who was already experiencing some dementia but was living securely … Continue reading
Helplessness and Aging
Watching all four, now only two of our senior parents over the past ten years, I’ve been intrigued that a certain amount of helplessness seems to surface when they encounter the medical system. When a person becomes ill or develops a chronic condition, the medical world usually goes into high gear. This is especially true … Continue reading
Senior Medicare Patients Return to the Hospital After Discharge
HEALTH in NY TIMES | December 08, 2009 Groups Try Simple Steps to Avoid Hospital Rebound By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON (AP) — Talk about unnecessary misery: One in five Medicare patients winds up back in the hospital within a month — even worse, one in four patients with heart failure. Read more @ … Continue reading
Senior Adults and Falling
From the November 11, 2009 New York Times in an article by Steve Lohr … “FALLS are so harmful to the elderly and so costly to society that if falling were a disease it be deemed an epidemic.” Almost every week or so an over 70-year-old acquaintance or friend falls. According to the Centers for … Continue reading