The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the federal agency charged with overseeing the quality of treatment in the nation’s 15,000 long-term care facilities, recently released a final rule heralding its first major regulatory reform in 25 years. The rule is slated to be phased in over three years, beginning November 28, 2016. It […]
Updated August 2025 It doesn’t take a concerted study by a think tank to reveal that ageism is flourishing in America. Ask anyone who’s attained A Certain Age about the feelings of invisibility, uselessness, even fear and scorn imposed by those around them. Ageism is stereotyping and discriminating against individuals or groups on the basis […]
A soft-voiced man with kind eyes and an impeccably trimmed white beard, Patrick Arbore is Director and Founder of the Center for Elderly Suicide Prevention & Grief Related Services, now housed within the Institute on Aging in San Francisco. Back in 1973, he also founded the Friendship Line, which now also operates out of the […]
As a longtime counselor with the Institute on Aging’s Friendship Line, the country’s only accredited crisis intervention line and warmline focused on callers age 60 and older, I listen to and talk with dozens of callers each week—many of them anxious, distressed, in crisis, or depressed. It’s a volunteer gig, and understandably, not everyone’s bag […]
Everyone feels lonely sometimes. But when the feeling persists as a chronic or acute state of being, it can easily morph into clinical depression and suicidal ideation—especially among older people. From poets to professors, many have tried to describe and define loneliness. Harry Stack Sullivan, a 20th century psychiatrist whose studies focused on interpersonal relationships, […]
An estimated 114,000 members of the service were discharged because of sexual orientation between World War II and the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in September of 2011. Many of those who suffered that humiliation are now seniors; according to the US Census Bureau, there are 8.1 million veterans age 65 and older. Depending […]
Facing the need to restrict or stop driving is devastating for many older people. For some, it heralds the first time aging has significantly limited their lives—and brings to mind discomfiting thoughts of “beginning to slip away.” For others, it sets off a fear, and in many cases a reality, of becoming more isolated from […]
Perched in an unlikely place—atop the crest of a hill overlooking a freeway in Novato, California, just north of San Francisco—is a brain trust working to unlock the key to our futures. It’s easy to miss the turnoff to the spot, marked only by a diminutive highway sign: Buck Institute for Research on Aging. But […]
If you or yours are up against a serious illness, you will likely hear the terms “palliative care” and “hospice care” — and may even be asked to choose between them while being confused by the question. There’s good reason for the confusion. Blurred Lines By most lights, “palliative” is just a multi-syllabic word for […]
Hospice care, usually elected toward the end of life to alleviate pain and symptoms rather than cure an underlying disease, involves fewer medical interventions and technology than conventional medical care. For this reason, and the fact that the care is often provided in a home, in part by trained volunteers, it is also less expensive. […]