Here’s yet another myth buster about growing older: Mental health disorders are not a normal part of aging. In fact, there are three “patterns” of mental health disorders commonly seen …
Continue ReadingMental Health Challenges: Help for Caregivers
Category: Caregiver Advice and Resources
The Case for Slow Medicine
“I don’t consider myself a natural-born doctor,” Victoria Sweet recently told a group gathered at San Francisco’s Institute on Aging. She then described her unlikely scholastic path to physiciandom: a …
Continue ReadingWhen the Caregiver Is the Lonely One
Potential perils of seniors suffering from loneliness are now well documented and well trumpeted. For older people, being lonely and isolated is akin to smoking 15 cigarettes a day, they …
Continue ReadingWhen Disaster Strikes: Readiness for Seniors
In November 2018, the town of Paradise in northern California (population 26,218), known for its physical beauty, friendly residents, prolific fruit crops, and annual Johnny Appleseed Festival, was decimated by …
Continue ReadingAmbiguous Loss: Mourning a Loved One Who’s Still Alive
My friend Jack texted me the link to the same article three times in two days — his brain addled by a combination of lack of sleep and the stress …
Continue ReadingA Decade of the Affordable Care Act: Has It Helped Seniors?
Nearly a decade after it was passed, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) — also glowingly or disparagingly referred to as “Obamacare,” depending on a person’s politics — …
Continue ReadingThe Age-In: A Flashback in Learning About Aging
The Age-In. It was something of a flashback — modeled after the Teach-Ins of the 1960s, which were characterized by peer-to-peer talking and listening sessions rather than the more formalized …
Continue Reading30 Years of Research on Aging: Six Scientists Talk of Top Discoveries
Most people in the U.S., where the average life expectancy is 78 years old, live about 20% of their lives with a chronic disease of aging such as osteoarthritis, Type …
Continue ReadingThe Whys and Hows of Family Councils
Robert Kriegel says it was a hefty hike of 5.5% in fees at his lifecare community in San Francisco that provided the impetus. A small group of residents who played …
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