Help Aging Parents: Maintaining Mobility into Old, Old Age-The Dangers of Sitting Too Much

                                  Walk More. Sit Less
How limiting is life for those with curtailed mobility?

Look around…so many people with canes and walkers as our population ages. Based on the Tufts U. publication–reprinted below–it seems their numbers would lessen if the elderly couch potatoes we care about (as well as those of us who now spend hours sitting at a desk), make it a point to take breaks for a brief walk. What could be easier?

The importance of older peoples’ walking is nothing new to longtime readers of my blog.  “If you begin a daily walking program at age 45, you could delay immobility to 90 and beyond. If you become a couch potato at 45 and remain so, immobility can encroach as early as 60.” So says Mark Lachs, author of Treat Me, Not My Age.  

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Aging Parents: Is It Better To Have A Friend Be Your Doctor?

January 20th's NY Times, Science Section's "Hard Cases" column, Too Close to a Patient for Comfort, makes the case, based on AMA guidelines and other sources, that objectivity in medical care may be compromised by doctor-friends. "Medical care supplied by a relative — or an old friend, or a trusted employee — just seems so logical. After all, who could care for you more? But that is just the problem..."
 
Two thoughts, a dilemma..and 1 good tip at the end.

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Aging Parents–New Year’s Resolution: Medication Must-Do’s

Confusion About Medications

Outdated Medications

Dependable medication reminders

An at-the-ready lest of prescription and non-prescription drugs:

Let's hope our parents don't have the first two--

 and do have the last two.

We make New Year's Resolutions when we're young. Getting our life in order is a priority for many. I'm guessing if we check with our elders, there aren't so many resolutions made--and if they're made they don't include anything related to their medications. Yet taking medications as directed, when directed, would be a worthy--and possibly life-saving--resolution to help parents age well in 2015.

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Aging Women: Incontinence----and Diapers?!*

     Just published: The American College of Physicians' New
 Guidelines re: women's urinary incontinence, triggers thoughts:

1.  An experience with Mother.
2.  One of this blog's key thoughts: Is it better for parents or better for us (in this instance the caregiver)?
3.  A prejudice about the word "diapers" used in conjunction with old/older people's incontinence.

.......The American College of Physicians' new guidelines for dealing with female urinary incontinence recommend special exercises--as opposed to medications--first. Maintaining feelings of normalcy helps parents--and everyone--age well.  

FYI: "Urinary incontinence (UI), the involuntary loss of urine, has a prevalence of approximately 25% in young women (aged 14 to 21 years) (1), 44% to 57% in middle-aged and postmenopausal women (aged 40 to 60 years) (2), and 75% in elderly women (aged ≥75 years)" American College of Physicians

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Aging Parents: Do We Support or (Inadvertently) Cripple Them?

It's easy to do things out of love and wanting to help that are not necessarily in older people's best interest. It's easy to do what we think is right--or is the only way we know how--without realizing it isn't helpful and may, indeed be harmful. What's at risk? What are the options?

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Aging Parents and Us: Must Age, Health Decline, and Dependency go Hand in Hand?

 Growing Older Doesn't Necessarily Mean Growing Old

We may question this assumption if we're in the midst of caring for aging parents with health issues. On the other hand, the results of research, published last month in the Journals of Gerontology, may be heartening for us if our parents are still relatively healthy and independent--and also heartening as we think about our years ahead.

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HOSPITALIZATION TIPS THAT LEAD TO BETTER OUTCOMES: FOR AGING PARENTS, GRANDPARENTS, OUR CHILDREN, AND US

We learn from people's--and our--mistakes.  It's especially important to be up on the learning curve, and avoid mistakes, if we're in a hospital. A sobering chain of events calls attention to:

1. a slogan
2. advice, gained from Dr.Susan Love's (surgeon and prominent breast cancer prevention advocate) hospital experience, about the importance of family.
3. information from Jon La Pook, MD (NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia U. Medical Center and Chief Medical Correspondent for CBS News) about how to get optimal hospital care.

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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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Aging Parents: Making Major Decisions-Think: Doctors, Life-saving/changing Surgery

                    How Do We Make the Best Choice?

We make many choices throughout our lives, granted some much more important than others. But how do we know we’re making a really good choice–or the best choice–when major health matters are involved?

Please view entire post on my other site: http://helpparentsagewell.com/2013/03/03/aging-parents-making-major-decisions-think-doctors-life-savingchanging-surgery/