This video at Iowa Public Television features Gail Sheehy lecturing on May 19, 2010, at the Des Moines Public Library about her book Passages in Caregiving. Sheehy’s lecture, part of the library’s Authors Visiting Des Moines series, describes the “predictable caregiving crisis” highlighting problems that caregivers experience and offering strategies that caregivers can adopt to … Continue reading
Tagged with senior health …
Activities of Daily Living — Declining Proficiencies
What signs illustrate a person’s increasing difficulty performing the activities of daily living (ADLs)? At first they are not obvious. Instead a series of events and behavior changes gradually appear. Observed individually, each change doesn’t seem to represent much, but the trick is to view each observation as a puzzle piece that fits together with … Continue reading
Aging Parents, Diseases of Aging, and Sodium!
The May 30, 2010, the New York Times published an article, The Hard Sell on Salt, about our high sodium diets, the reluctance to find ways to lower the amount of salt in food, and how the food industry continues to push for its inclusion in our foods, all despite documented risks to our health in … Continue reading
New Alzheimer’s Report: Our Window on a Scary Future
If there is one word synonymous with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, it is heartbreak, though this is hardly surprising to anyone who has lived with a loved one’s progression through one of these diseases. In the beginning we can do things to keep them stimulated and engaged. By the end we feel helpless and can do almost … Continue reading
Aging Parents: Washington Post Caregiving-Financing Series
This past Sunday personal finance columnist, Michelle Singletary, wrote about her introduction to aging parent/adult child caregiving, explaining how her father-in-law, in his 80’s, requires daily assistance and has moved in with his children (her family). Writing in the May 16, 2010 Washington Post, Singletary explores the challenges that exist for her and members of … Continue reading
Caregiving: Gail Sheehy-Diane Rehm Show Podcast
If you are, have been, or will be involved in caregiving for a parent, spouse, or other family member, listen to author Gail Sheehy, discuss her new book, Passages in Caregiving: Turning Chaos into Confidence, on the Diane Rehm Show, a syndicated public radio program produced by NPR Station WAMU in Washington, DC. The program … Continue reading
Dementia: Will I Catch It?
W8J8SJ5DBYR5 Last week, after the publication of Greater Risk of Dementia When Spouse Had Dementia? The Cache County Study (abstract), practically every newspaper health section and blog was featuring this type of headline: If Spouse Has Dementia, Your Risk Rises, Too (MSNBC.com) Dementia Risk Higher if Your Spouse Has Dementia (WebMD) Spouses Who Care for … Continue reading
More on Seniors and Falling
Yesterday, May 13, 2010, the Los Angeles Times Booster Shots Blog reported yet more research on seniors and falling. This time the research comes from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, investigated how aging seniors in California follow their doctors’ medical recommendations after a fall. Check out the blog posting by Jeannine Stein for additional information … Continue reading
Aging Parents: Emergency Department Texting
According to the May 11, 2010 Washington Post, the Reston Hospital Center emergency department in Northern Virginia has added a texting service. The article, Reston Hospital Uses Cellphone Texting to Announce Emergency Room Waiting Time, explains how the hospital has enabled cell phone texting so that patients and their families can learn how long the … Continue reading
Aging Parents: Best Doughnut (Donut) Hole Explanation
I’ve been searching for a news article that best explains how the new health care legislation changes the doughnut (donut) hole prescription medication problem. The most comprehensive explanation that I have found was published by the LA Times on March 26, 2010. Written by Christopher Weaver, the article, Health Plan Closes the Medicare Doughnut Hole, … Continue reading
Dementia: The Problem of Wandering
The May 4, 2010 New York Times features a health article, More With Dementia Wander from Home, focusing on the problems families experience when a family member with dementia wanders and gets lost. The piece explains how a rising number of confused dementia patients are walking away from home, requiring the development of new policing and … Continue reading
Aging Parents: Dehydration Dangers
Warm weather brings increasing concern about dehydration, and it is especially worrisome for older seniors. I am thinking more about this today after reading an update at the Life With Father blog that describes how difficult it can be to get an elderly parent to drink enough liquids. Dehydration is a huge concern for elderly … Continue reading
Late-Stage Dementia, Hospitals, and Feeding Tubes
A professor at the Brown University Medical School was the lead author on a recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Hospital Characteristics Associated With Feeding Tube Placement in Nursing Home Residents With Advanced Dementia (abstract). Joan M. Teno, MD, used Medicare data from 2000 to 2007 to evaluate how … Continue reading
Aging Parents: Disposing of Unused Medications
If even one of your parents takes medications for a chronic condition, you know that it is not unusual for a switch or a dose adjustment. Changing medical conditions, drug interactions, and side effects in older adults require physicians to make changes, and each of our parents has experienced the need for a medication adjustment … Continue reading
Aging Parents: Hospital Acquired Infections
This year alone I know five people who entered the hospital for surgery and then became terribly ill with hospital acquired infections (HAIs), also called nosocomial infections. One person I know had a second HAI after surviving the first one. Is it unusual to know this many people, or is the problem getting worse and … Continue reading
Aging Moms, Boomer Daughters, and Granddaughters: Estrogen?
Many of our aging moms took estrogen for significant periods, and many adult daughters — like me — have taken estrogen and then stopped and started and stopped again. Some boomer adult women continue to take the medication. I keep hearing from older women, including my mom, that they did not feel as good after … Continue reading
End of Life Decisions
My post, Aging Parents: Research on End-of-Life Decisions, discussed the University of Michigan study that evaluated how a person’s end-of-life decisions are taken into consideration by hospitals and medical personnel. Pauline Chen, MD, in her regular New York Times column, also wrote about this research, sharing a personal story about her father-in-law’s death. The article … Continue reading
Stages of Dementia, Part II
Keep in mind that these stages are general guidelines that help people understand dementia’s progression, and that some professionals do not use them as disease guideposts. I am applying them to the dementia that is occurring in my family. Another family may not have anywhere near the same experience. By the time stage five of … Continue reading
How We Speak to Seniors
I’d love to know how many seniors are truly hard of hearing. I’ll bet the percentage is higher than the general population, but not that high. I ask this question because I’ve discovered that when people speak to seniors — in clinics, at hospitals, in stores, at the library, but especially in medical settings — … Continue reading
Going to the Emergency Room/Hospital With an Elder Parent
With all of our national health problems and the extreme burdens on hospital emergency departments, when very old senior citizens visit they require special care. Their bodies, attention spans, and fearfulness cause extreme disorientation after a short time in an emergency facility. Disorientation occurs quickly. I’ve now observed this several times now with several parents. … Continue reading
As Our Parents Age So Do We 