Aging Parents: Important New Guidelines Could Make it Easier for Those nearing Life's End

DYING IN AMERICA AND HONORING INDIVIDUAL PREFERENCES NEAR THE END OF LIFE, with recommendations for major changes, was issued last week (9/17/14) by THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF MEDICINE'S RESEARCH ARM, THE INSTITUTE OF MEDICINE. It suggests an overhaul of current practice at almost every level.

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Aging Parents: As Mother Lay Dying

Mother was already hospitalized when I raced (flew) cross-country, rented a car, and broke every speed limit to be at her hospital bedside. Half hour later she was in a coma. Something in me (and I think in Dad) wanted her to be able to die at home. But it was Memorial Day weekend and we learned, upon asking, that getting any kind of caregiver etc. help immediately was out of the question.

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Pallative Care and Hospice Help Parents Age Well Until the End: What's the Difference?

“Perhaps the most common misconception about palliative care is that it is synonymous with hospice care; in fact, though it plays a prominent role in a dying patient’s life, it is also offered in conjunction with life-prolonging and potentially curative treatments for patients with cancer, heart failure and other chronic and life-threatening conditions.”
UCLA Medical Magazine 2009

                              Aging as well as possible, as long as possible

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Caregiving, Cancer, Computers

My brother's very good friend, age 75, has cancer. A biopsy taken today may not be back for 3-5 days, but scans show 2 highly suspicious tumors. He's in the VA hospital.  Should he come to NYC where the experts are--to Sloan-Kettering? Can I recommend someone? While I do know someone who "lives" the medical field and does thorough research, added information before action is needed.

I'm also aware that the sister whom I've never met and I assume is in her 70's, is already caregiver for 2 sisters. One, 82, is confined to a wheel chair; the other has major health issues. The caregiver sister has been the sole caregiver for several years with a little help from her 75-year-old brother. Since all the siblings live together, it's probable that she will soon have additional caregiving responsibilities because of her brother. I offer to phone her.


The sister was appreciative, basically clueless about support. Visiting nurse services? She'd never heard of them. Social services? Her mobility-challenged sister was receiving physical therapy each week--had been for at least a year--but she didn't know who arranged it and knew nothing about social services. This caring, giving woman has been caregiving in a vacuum.

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Aging Parents and Hospice: To Call? Not to Call? When to Call?

If our goal is to help parents age well until the end, I think anyone who understands the program would want to involve hospice when a parent's condition becomes terminal. How to bring up the subject of hospice, with still-with-it parents, is the bigger question.

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