Most people are now aware of at least some of the more daunting facts about Alzheimer’s disease: An estimated 6.9 million Americans have the disease — a tally estimated to double by the year 2050. Nearly one of five Medicare dollars is spent on people with dementia; that amount is expected to rise to one […]
For the past four or five months my daddy has been going downhill. He’s still wrestling with a urinary tract infection (UTI) that has been going on for months. Mama is stressed and tired. Daddy refuses dialysis. He lost his bladder to cancer 16 years ago and his kidneys have been compromised ever since. He’s […]
Former President Harry S. Truman was reportedly the first person to be enrolled in Medicare and to receive the first Medicare card. It was issued to him in 1965 by President Lyndon B. Johnson, who had signed the hard-fought legislation authorizing Medicare into law in July of 1965. Applying for Medicare has since become somewhat of […]
Updated June 2025 People diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease are urged to stay active. They’re told that engaging in physical and mental exercise may be their current best hope to slow the effects of the plaque, tangles, and cell degeneration the disease causes in their brains. Yet perversely, there are few activities designed to meet their […]
Why do seniors at some point seem to just give up on life? I’m not sure about all the reasons but for my daddy, it’s when he feels incapable of doing something with purpose. Where the mind goes, the body follows. Let’s face it. Our physical ailments get much worse when we are feeling down-in-the-dumps. […]
Friends, family, favorite past times, learning and growing . . . these are just some of the things that make life meaningful. We all have to have something to look forward to, something that “floats our boat” or eventually we’ll just dread getting up in the morning. Many older people have a harder time engaging […]
People who suffer traumatic illnesses or injuries often exhibit some new and uncharacteristic behaviors afterward. Part of that may be due to the shock and strain of confronting a potentially life-threatening event, as well as the frustration of embarking on an often slow and painful process of rehabilitation. But there are also often physical and […]