Living in the same household as an aging parent is often the best way for an adult child to provide for the parent’s needs. About 14% of adults who live …
Continue ReadingHelping Aging Parents from a Distance
Category: Caregiver Advice and Resources
Elder Advocates Want Better Disclosure of Pandemic Data
Health authorities discourage social gatherings as a way to slow the spread of the virus that is responsible for COVID-19. Large groups of people in workplaces and schools also increase …
Continue ReadingTechnology Can Help Seniors Stay Healthy During the Pandemic
Providing senior care and maintaining social distancing may seem like incompatible goals. Some services, whether provided by home health aides or by the staff of a senior living facility, need …
Continue ReadingProtecting Seniors from COVID-19
As the country reopens and stay-at-home orders are eased, the risk to seniors from COVID-19 may increase. While the curve has flattened in some parts of the country, infected people …
Continue ReadingMental Health Challenges: Help for Caregivers
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 ReadingThe 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 — …
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