This morning I discovered a terrific and educational weekly radio program, Medical Edge Radio Weekend, a Saturday morning broadcast from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. The program is easily accessible on the web. From a Twitter post I learned that the today’s (February 12, 2011) broadcast featured cardiologist, Dr. Rekha Mankad. For nearly an hour, Dr. … Continue reading
Tagged with senior health …
Senior Gait Speed and Life Expectancy
Bob (not his real name) is an active man in his mid-90’s. Whenever we made early morning visits to his senior community, we found him up and walking before breakfast. If the day was especially cold, he made rounds of the various corridors, regularly changing floors and always waving a cheerful good-morning to residents emerging … Continue reading
Many Seniors Don’t Know About Medicare Extra Help Subsidy
According to a January 4, 2011 Kaiser Health News (KHN) article, many American seniors who qualify for a Medicare Part D subsidy that reduces prescription costs have not signed up. The article, 2 Million Medicare Beneficiaries Missing Out On Discounted Drug Coverage, explains that the program, called Extra Help, lowers medication costs and reduces money spent … Continue reading
Medicare Taxes and Benefits Just Don’t Add Up
A January 3, 2011 Washington Post article, Analysis Illustrates Big Gap Between Medicare Taxes and Benefits, describes an Associated Press poll that found that most people believe they deserve all of their Medicare benefits with no cuts, no increased costs, and no additional Medicare taxes, even though most have paid in far less taxes over … Continue reading
Medicare: 2011 Updates and Innovations
If a senior parent in your family is on Medicare, or if a family member is an adult who will turn 65 in 2011, significant changes are coming in 2011 as a result of the healthcare overhaul. A total of 21 healthcare changes are supposed to be implemented, beginning January 1; however, a smaller number … Continue reading
Immunization Updates? For Senior Parents and Adult Children
When we are sick or injured or when we are planning to travel, we often try to recall past immunizations as well as determine if boosters are required. Yearly flu shots and the special pneumonia shots for our senior parents are fairly easy to remember. However, the boosters that update past inoculations are more difficult … Continue reading
Three-Part Series on the Rigors of Aging Parent Caregiving
This week I discovered a great three-part series about aging parent caregiving, written by an adult child and published in the Redondo Beach Patch. I recommend taking a few minutes to read this set of short articles. When Mom Gets Old by Vanessa Poster appeared on March 15 – 17, 2010, and describes Ms. Poster’s … Continue reading
Another Great MedicareBlogger Post
MedicareBlogger has another posted interesting post, this time focusing on a man who wants a cheaper Medicare Advantage plan when he really needs a Medicare Supplement plan. Medicare Advantage Selling Season, a November 18, 2010 post, conveys a lot of information in a few short paragraphs.
Medicare Part D – It’s Time to Make Choices
It’s that time of year again. I’ve just been chatting with my mother about her annual task of choosing a Medicare Part D option for herself and my dad. Each year she looks at charts, chats with friends, consults with her pharmacist, studies web sites, and finally, after a great deal of thought, makes the … Continue reading
Seniors and Whooping Cough Vaccine
With a pertussis epidemic in California and cases on the rise in other states, experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are recommending that elderly parents, especially those who have grandchildren or are around infants, get re-immunized against the disease. According to the LA Times report on the October 27th CDC panel … Continue reading
Great Interview With Dr. Berwick at JAMA
An article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Medicare Head Donald M. Berwick, MD, Takes on Mission of Health System Reform, should put to rest any doubt about his commitment to high quality medicine and to seniors’ access to it. The article is free and can be downloaded as a PDF. Some … Continue reading
An Alzheimer’s Statistic I Did Not Know
Writing in the October 27, 2010 New York Times, three prestigious AIDS advocates, including retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, call for a “man-on-the-moon” effort, setting a goal to stop Alzheimer’s, by the year 2020. Justice O’Connor, writing on the op-ed page along with medicine Nobel Prize winner, Stanley Prusiner (read his Nobel Price acceptance speech), and … Continue reading
More Senior Emergency Departments are Opening
More emergency rooms designed expressly for seniors are opening, according to an October 25, 2010 article in the Detroit News, Hospitals Designing Senior ERs to Cater to Needs of the Elderly. The report, by Detroit News reporter Melissa Burden, describes how hospital systems in Michigan are are opening senior ERs for the good of older … Continue reading
Can We Walk More and Help Our Aging Parents Do the Same?
Read The Pedometer Test: Americans Take Fewer Steps, an article by Tara Parker-Pope published in the October 19 , 2010 New York Times Well Blog. Parker-Pope describes a study, in which adults wore pedometers for two days as they went about their daily activities. In the study, Pedometer-Measured Physical Activity and Health Behaviors in U.S. Adults … Continue reading
Aging Parents: AD8 – More Effective Alzheimer’s Screening
E-Max Health reports on an article, Relationship of Dementia Screening Tests with Biomarkers of Alzheimer’s Disease (abstract), published online by the journal Brain. The October 10, 2010 article is free, but to get the text file it’s necessary to sign up for a login name and password at the journal website. In a longitudinal study … Continue reading
The Unexpected Caregiver
Check out the radio program, The Unexpected Caregiver, broadcast on KYMN Radio in Northfield, Minnesota. Host Kari Berit and her guests discuss caregiving, communication, health, medical information, and other critical issues that arise when adult children help aging parents. I listened to the program with Connie Goldman, the program on the dangers of denying our … Continue reading
More Info on Falling – Aging in Place Tech Watch
As Our Parents Age has posted many pieces on seniors and falling — a topic near and dear after two of our senior parents fell numerous times in their later years. Over at Aging in Place Technology Watch, Laurie Orlof posted comments and thoughts about senior falls on September 12, 2010. She also reviewed some recent research, … Continue reading
Getting Ready for the Gray Tsunami… Staggering Statistics
The American Medical News, a publication of the American Medical Association (AMA), just published an interesting opinion piece, Coping with Baby Boomers and Staggering Statistics, by Ardis Dee Hoven, M.D., a AMA board member. After the statistics, she has many ideas and recommendations for physicians, medical training, especially in relation to geriatrics information.
Building a Green House Home-The Inside: Part IV
If you are an adult child who’s spent even a little time searching for the right living arrangement for an elderly parent who needs a lot of extra care, it doesn’t take long to understand the terrain. You see lots of hallways, sometimes laid out in a hub, or in a square, or sometimes just … Continue reading
Nuts and Bolts of Green House Planning: Part III
“Whatever form they take, there should always be as little distinction as possible between a Green House and the other housing nearby.” What Are Old People For? How Elders Will Save the World by William H. Thomas, M.D. (page 233) The Green House vision projected by Dr. Thomas has become a small, growing movement with … Continue reading
As Our Parents Age So Do We 