Tagged with senior _health …

Assisted Living: The Talk with Aging Parents

Recently Good Morning America’s Robin Roberts interviewed Elinor Ginzler, AARP’s Director of Livable Communities. The January 10, 2010 interview focused on tips to help aging children initiate conversations with aging parents, helping their parents think about assisted living options. The conclusion? These discussions need to gently encourage parents to embark on a healthy and safe transition. Scroll down the … 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 →

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 →

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 →

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 →

Going Back to Volunteer @ Assisted Living

Tonight we went back to volunteer at Chesterbrook Residences, the assisted living community where my husband’s mother spent her last two years. Our experience with this facility was stellar, and we both want to give something back because of how much support we received when Mother lived there, The two of us arrived in time … 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 →

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.

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 →

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 →

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 →