I think I was around 42 years old when I first started to worry about my parents getting older. My mom had just turned 70 and my dad, 75.
The fluctuating temperatures may make it difficult to tell that it's spring. That's why some locals peg spring's arrival to the blossoms, but here in Alexandria, we know it's tied to National Rebuilding Day -- the ultimate sign of renewal and revitalization.
If you're worrying about your mom falling and needing help, one of the most frequently used products over the years for seniors living alone is a medical alert device -- also known as a personal emergency response system, or PERS.
Now, nearly 30 years later, thoughts of Edith and her psychosis, her time with me (and my time with her) on an inpatient psychiatric unit, my attempts to understand her and care for her, have affected my work today. I struggle with this question: How can we do better?
Developing the food systems and community service infrastructure necessary to carry out these changes will be costly in the short term. We should not see these activities as expenses, but as investments.
There are nearly 10 million of you out there, adult children older than 50 who are caring for aging parents. We used to refer to a "sandwich" generation, those people who had children late in life, only to be confronted simultaneously with teenaged angst and parents who need more and more help.
Hating is a heavy weight to carry around, all day, every day, as is fear, as is self-recrimination. They cloud everything, even to the point of watering down even the best experiences in your life so that the joy those experiences should bring become not much more than mediocre, and that's no way to live.
Here's an outrage that must be changed: Big Pharma has been systematically price-gouging the Medicare program for seniors and people with disabilities -- and raking in billions in excessive profits.
Except for instances in the entertainment industry, I have never heard the words "I feel sorry for you" used as anything other than a weapon. In fact, I cannot think of a single phrase packed with more insincerity than that one.
Two dashing nonagenarian gentlemen have given new meaning to the cliche, "life isn't a sprint but a marathon." Emiel Pauwels, a 94-year-old from Be...
Last time, I talked about that maddeningly endless litany of seemingly unanswerable questions that can feel like pinballs bouncing around in your head...
Last time, I closed by talking about what it felt like when I had to admit to myself I was a victim of a crime, and that what I wanted most of all was to take back my personal power.
What we call older people is going to be a hot button going forward, and one we may want to be careful about pushing. And journalists are setting the scene right now.
For an aging person, the move to a skilled nursing facility is a costly one. Nationwide, the average annual cost of a semi-private room in a skilled nursing facility (nursing home) in 2011 was $78,110. And the cost is clearly rising.
Not that I would ever trivialize the enormity of being a 'survivor' -- after all, I'm one, too -- but once the initial relief of realizing I'd attained that goal had abated, it wasn't long before I began to wonder, "OK ... now what?"
They say kids say the darndest things. But my belief is that it's 75-year-old parents who have just discovered a new movie who really blurt out classic nuggets of truth (hell, just look at Shit My Dad Says).
Where longevity is continually affirmed, one expects to find the unexpected. Hence, "Reversible Destiny Lofts" in Toyko, Japan offer a marvelously innovative and functionally foolish way to live your days.
In Bolzano, Italy, almost a quarter of the population is over the age of 65. In fact, Italy, along with Japan, has one of the oldest populations in th...
"She's dead," my grandmother tells me with a clear look of disdain -- like someone should have seen to it that she was disposed of long ago. "Just no one has told her so."
The percentage of seniors, age 65 and older, who won't have to pay income taxes this year, is actually around 56 percent according the Tax Policy Center. Here's a breakdown of the 2012 filing requirements along with a few other tax tips to help you determine if you need to file.
Wherever our children live now or in the future, they must be equipped with the knowledge and skills to be able to contribute to their families and the economy. That means the nation, as a whole, must invest now in education and training.
In this post, I'd like to explore the necessity, challenges and goals of having end-of-life conversations once the diagnosis of a life-limiting condition is confirmed.
Today, for every person aged 65 and over, there are five people under 65 to take care of them. In 2050 there will be three people under 65 for every e...
By Lisa Ling In this piece, the host of OWN's “Our America with Lisa Ling” opens up about the episode she’s wanted to do for years -- and th...
"Can you find your heart beat?" Lou Boden walks over to a woman who has just put her hand up to the question "who can't play music?" He asks her to m...
