Author: Aging Wisdom
Are you tired of long waits to get an appointment? Rushed visits? Not being able to talk to your doctor by phone or communicate via email?
You aren’t alone. Doctors dislike it too. But because most physicians today are employees of a large medical group, they are required to complete 30–40 patient visits per day. Appointments are set to last no more than 15 minutes. This is necessary to manage a typical patient load of 4,000.
Some primary care doctors are moving away from this business-focused model of medicine.
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When it comes to mom and dad, each adult child’s relationship with their parents is different. This can trigger conflict and misunderstandings as parents grow older and family input, support, and collaboration are needed.
It’s natural for disagreements to occur, even in families with strong functional relationships. However, when parents are experiencing memory and health changes, it can create tension. Rare is the family who are all on the same page and managing decisions and tasks smoothly. …
Clash of the Siblings: How to navigate family dynamics when your parent needs helpRead More »
If you have trouble participating in conversation in a noisy room or tend to want the TV volume turned up, you might want to investigate a new category of device called an enhanced “hearable.”
Up until now, there have been few options short of a hearing aid for people with only mild hearing loss. The best have been “personal sound amplification devices” that fit in the ear like a hearing aid. While reasonably affordable and easily purchased online, they have the disadvantage of amplifying all sounds, even the ones you don’t want to hear. …
The Dance. That’s how a colleague once described the way families approach an older loved one’s journey with aging. This is especially true in their final years of life, in what our professional association colleague Amy Cameron O’Rourke calls The Fragile Years.1
It makes sense. Some days it’s a slow, beautiful waltz. Others can be a fast-paced polka. And then there’s the occasional freeform dance that is unchoreographed, a bit chaotic, later stumbling into a seemingly smooth twirl. Occasionally you’ll find yourself in an energetic Go-go. …
The Dance: Finding Balance with Helping an Aging ParentRead More »
Are you enjoying a love you never thought you’d feel again? It’s hard to be happy, though, if your children rain on your romance. Are they being selfish? Not necessarily. An in-depth study of “adult stepfamilies” revealed how disruptive it is when a parent gets involved with a new partner later in life. …
There is no single test that can determine if a person has Alzheimer’s disease. But a combination of several different tests can identify if memory and thinking problems are due to one of the many conditions that result in symptoms of dementia.
By process of elimination, doctors can determine what may be the root cause of thinking problems. Some conditions are treatable. Others are not. …
Study after study reveals that older adults with a sense of purpose, a sense of meaning in their lives, enjoy greater well-being and live longer than those without a life focus. They also have better cognitive and physical health and suffer less from depression, suggesting that purpose is an important component of a healthy and satisfying elderhood.
To explore possibilities for yourself, try this simple two-step process. …
From October 15 to December 7 each year, Medicare enrollees have the option to change their insurance plans. For prescription drug coverage, which is only offered by private insurance companies, it pays to shop around. Even if you have been happy with your current plan, drug prices and premiums change from one year to the next. It’s a good idea to compare. There could be hundreds of dollars at stake. …
Shopping tips for Medicare prescription insurance (Part D)Read More »
If your adult child has cut off contact, you are not alone. An estimated 11% of parents are estranged from their adult kids. That’s 1:8. But you wouldn’t know it to hear others talk.
There is such a stigma around the issue that estranged parents rarely talk about it with others. Instead, they tend to cover things over.
That means carrying around feelings of shame, guilt, and deep sadness, often in isolation. Sound familiar? …
Did you know that we usually outlive our ability to drive safely by six to ten years? As we age, we naturally modify how we drive to address physical changes: Stiff joints, poor vision, slow reflexes. But a time will come when it’s simply unwise to continue behind the wheel.
We do plenty of planning and preparation before retiring from work. Similarly, it’s smart to take a moment and consider the probability that you may not be driving your last few years. How can you retire from driving without giving up an active life? …