Caregiver

“Tis the season.” Winter is a special time for caution if you or someone in your family is an older adult. It is the season for the flu, for slips on icy streets, and for other dangers that are particularly great for seniors.

Chronic pain affects 1.5 billion people worldwide, an estimated 100 million of whom live in the United States. Yet we currently have no effective treatment options. Fortunately, research advances have determined some of the ways in which chronic pain changes the brain, and several promising research areas could lead to better treatment approaches.

The owners wanted a facility that would have the feel of luxurious hotel-style living, but with a home-like feel.

Too often, older Americans wind up in a nursing home not because they’re super-sick, but because they can’t get through their days safely at home.

Loss of muscle strength, speed and dexterity is a common consequence of aging and a well-established risk factor for death, disability and dementia. Yet, little is known about how and why motor decline occurs when it is not a symptom of disease.

By the year 2030, approximately 20 percent of the U.S. population (71 million people) will be over the age of 65 years (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Merck Company Foundation, 2007). Despite this current trend in aging, relatively few healthcare professionals are prepared with the expert knowledge necessary for caring for older adults. The purpose of this article is to discuss few common myths about aging (I am sure there are a lot more, but I will try and focus on the most important ones)

By Jim Fitzgerald
 CHESTNUT RIDGE, N.Y. — At the Fellowship Community’s adult home, workers are paid not according to what they do, but what they need....

When life’s challenges include memory loss or dementia, your perceptions, relationships, and priorities inevitably shift. Changes to our sleep patterns naturally occur with aging, but scientists are finding links between changes to sleep and senior memory impairment, cognitive decline, and even dementia. When we get older, we begin to forget things. That’s the common wisdom, anyway, and it’s not far from the truth. It’s long been known that sleep plays a strong role in memory consolidation, but now, research is showing that age-related changes to the sleeping brain disrupt the normal pathways to memory formation, leading to that forgetfulness we associate with growing older.

Betsy McCann and her husband, Jim Forbes, often worried that his mother was growing isolated in her Los Angeles-area home. At 90, Lois Brokus had stopped driving and was sometimes afraid to be alone in her house.

Families may have to watch for dings in the car and plead with an older driver to give up the keys — but there’s new evidence that doctors could have more of an influence on one of the most wrenching decisions facing a rapidly aging population.