Are you tired of receiving calls from Rachel at credit card services? Older seniors, your parents perhaps, feel helpless when they receive these manipulative, and illegal telephone calls. During the last few years of her life, my husband’s mother sometimes became quite distressed when she answered the phone and heard Rachel or one of her … Continue reading
Tagged with senior parents …
Senior Parent Hospitalization Report #2: Peace and Quiet
If you like this post, please read my Senior Parent Hospitalization posts: Report #1: This Hospital Gets It, Report #2: Peace and Quiet, Report #3: Four Ways to Reduce Stress for Patient Families, Report #4: Observations from My Dad, Report #5: The Emergency Room Worked Fast, and Report #6: Learning About Cardiac Procedures and Surgeries. The last time I spent a … Continue reading
Is Your Senior Parent a Library Devotee?
Memories from the not-too-distant past … Early this week, on a tour of the Library of Congress (LOC), I took this picture of the pre-electronic era card catalog area. I also found these statistics posted by the LOC librarians on a nearby wall. Most of our parents know how to use card catalogs backwards and … Continue reading
Dale Carter – Transitioning Your Aging Parents Book Tour
Dale Carter’s book, Transitioning Your Aging Parent, is a must read for anyone with senior parents who need extra support. The book has been well reviewed — a resource that helps right now, and honestly, it still may be a useful resource years from now when we require support from our children. Follow Dale’s blog, … Continue reading
Senior-Friendly Holiday Activities and Even Oklahoma!
This past week three generations of my family (age range 29 – 87) and one small dog spent several days together. Over the 2010 Christmas weekend my two senior parents, my husband and me, our millennial daughter and her husband had great fun with one another. We especially celebrated our good health, because last year my … Continue reading
All I Want for Christmas … Caregiver Wishes Big and Small
Check out All I Want for Christmas: A Caregiver’s Wish List by Paula Spencer over at Caring.com. She starts out with the big dream items and then works toward the practical. I especially like some of the suggestions that are perfect for a teenager who is trying to figure out what to give to a member … Continue reading
Senior Parents: Maintaining a Bit of Their Privacy in a Digital World
If the seniors who I have as friends on Facebook are any indication, they are giving away too much personal information. However, it’s not just Facebook. Lots of things we do on our computers and cell phones require us to give away a bit of personal information. To learn more about helping your parents put … Continue reading
Senior Parents: What a Difference a Word Makes
Words matter, especially words that describe people who are aging. In every day conversation, disrespectful phrases such as “old people” or “old folks,” are commonly used. My parents and many of their friends detest these comments. This week I listened to a podcast of a panel discussion, produced by a well-known media outlet, and buried … Continue reading
iPad for Dad, #7 – YouTube Rocks!
Saturday featured another in-person iPad lesson. Dad now has Comcast e-mail down cold — only a bit more practice is required. So we started with serious editing techniques so he can avoid deleting so many letters and words to make a single correction. As on my iPhone, it’s necessary to click after a word and … Continue reading
Aging Parents: Mom’s Office -Too Much Paper!
Although she probably doesn’t always feel like it, my mom, age 82, is a whiz with the computer, with organizing things in general, and with all the daily tasks one needs to do (bills, calendar, etc.) to live securely in today’s world. If you have ever dreamed of getting someone to put together your yearly receipts at … Continue reading
Aging Parents: Bodies Slower but Same World View
Aging parents, we should all understand, have frustratingly aging bodies, yet many are seeing and perceiving the world just as they always have. In fact, I’ve heard them say how curious it is to look in the mirror and see themselves staring back. Some wonder, “Who is that old person looking back at me?” About 25 … Continue reading
Aging Parents Are Safer — Dr. Atul Gawande Fan Club
If I were a more avid, public, and maybe younger Facebook user, I might start a fan club for Dr. Atul Gawande and invite lots of adult children who are aging parent caregivers to join. Ever since he started writing, Dr. Gawande has demystified medicine, hospitals, surgery, public health, and public policy. In my household … Continue reading
Aging Parents: Recognizing Social Wisdom
Assisting parents with their health and other issues often keeps us focused on difficulties, so it is easy to forget just how much experience older parents have with the game of life. Now research from the University of Michigan’s Culture and Cognition Program published in the April 6, 2010 Proceedings of the National Academy of Science … Continue reading
Aging Parents: Death from Falls, Part II, Observations
Observation about Seniors and Falling (for resources on falling see Senior Adults and Falling and Keeping Our Parents and Ourselves Accident Free) Three out of four of our parents fell while they were living active lives, albeit with certain chronic medical conditions. All four attended classes or workshops on balance assessment and fall prevention. Our … Continue reading
Aging Parents: Medicare Doughnut (Donut) Hole Changes
Check out the March 24, 2010, NY Times for Tara Parker-Pope’s post, How Different Types of People Will Be Affected by the Health Care Overhaul, which also incorporates an amazing interactive graphic enabling people to see what changes will occur to groups of people who fit into various categories — fully insured and employed couple, disabled individual, couples or … Continue reading
Aging Children – Check Out this Blog: Help! Aging Parents
Recently I’ve been reading the blog Help! Aging Parents, so I decided to add it to my blog lists as well as subscribe via RSS to the most recent three posts. I like Susan’s blog mission, sharing thoughts, ideas, and encouraging our own lifelong learning as we support our aging parents. Yesterday’s post, Aging Parents, … 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
Medicare Donut (Doughnut) Hole-Health Insurance Coverage/Young Adult Kids
See links to other posts related to Medicare at the end of this posting. Many of us caring for the health of aging parents are simultaneously worrying about our children—young adults trying to enter the job market who have no health insurance coverage. Even before the recession we worried because so many of our young … Continue reading
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
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
As Our Parents Age So Do We 