Caring Currents

When my children were very young, the parenting books I valued most were those that helped me understand what the world looked like from a child's point of view (books by Penelope Leach, and The Magic Years by Selma Fraiberg come to mind.) Now that I'm the parent of two teenagers and a teen wannabe, I reach in moments of distress for Get Out of My Life, by Anthony Wolf, which helps me comprehend the often-baffling workings of the teenage brain.

So far, I've found two (nonfiction) books that provide an empathetic and illuminating perspective on aging. I've already discussed one of these books here: How to Say it to Seniors by Caring.com expert David Solie.

The other book I return to again and again is Another Country: Navigating the Emotional Terrain of Our Elders, by psychologist Mary Pipher. In her book, Pipher shows how our mobile, fast-paced, and fragmented modern culture has failed to create a productive, meaningful role for older people, and instead shoves them aside and ignores, infantilizes, or isolates them...  Read more

A coincidence last week leads me to mention a new addition to Caring.com -- and one that’s already making a difference in at least one person’s life.

A close buddy’s step-dad, 84ish, went to the hospital with vague symptoms of tiredness and lower body pain. He was admitted and a couple of days later diagnosed with kidney cancer that had metastasized to his intestine and possibly other places. His prognosis is terminal.

This same week Caring.com launched a new feature: “To-Do” lists. These online checklists guide you through a variety of challenging caregiving situations including What to Do When a Loved One is First Diagnosed With Cancer, and What To Do When Someone Dies. A complete list is below.

My friend had never dealt closely with a cancer diagnosis. His main “job” is to support and steer his mother, who is caring for his step-dad...  Read more

Laura Juel isn't intimidated by the world of medicine. As an occupational therapist at the Duke Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, she deals with doctors all the time, and she's used to navigating the often-bewildering ins and outs of the medical bureaucracy. Her familiarity with medicine isn't just professional, either: Her husband is a physician as well.

Nevertheless, Juel, who is also an expert at Caring.com, didn't realize how daunting it can be to oppose "doctors orders" until this past August, when her own mother was dying. Her mother, who had been diagnosed the year before with esophageal cancer, suffered a stroke in early August and was rushed to the hospital. As soon as Juel heard about the stroke, she left her husband and three young children in North Carolina and traveled to New York to help with her mother's care.

Not long before the stroke, the oncologist told Juel's mother that there was nothing more he could do, and the family knew she didn't have long to live...  Read more

When it comes to caring for older adults, signs of overall health and well-being often come in unexpected places. Here's a clue: Have you checked out your parent's toes lately?

It seems the little things matter big time for seniors. That's the premise of an eloquent article by Atul Gawande, The Way We Age Now, in the New Yorker last year, which showcased the systematic and thoughtful practices of physicians who specialise in caring for the aging and ailing. The piece has done more to advance the cause of geriatric physicians, one geriatrician told me, than any medical association could ever do (with all due respect to the American Geriatrics Society).

In the story we meet geriatrician Juergen Bludau, who spends a good deal of time carefully examining 85-year-old Jean Gavrilles' feet -- the soles, the toes, the web spaces -- though she presented with a myriad of ailments, including back pain, arthritis, high blood pressure, glaucoma, incontinence...  Read more

There's nothing sugary about this news. Last week fellow blogger Stephanie Miles reported on the catchily-named but confusing "doughnut hole," a coverage gap in Medicare Part D prescription drug benefits that choked millions of seniors last year by forcing them to pay full freight for prescription drugs they had been getting cheaply.  Faced with this out-of-pocket expense, a sizable chunk of them simply stopped their treatments.

The elderly with chronic conditions are often hardest hit by the doughnut deductible -- this year capped at $4,050 for out-of-pocket costs -- and those with diabetes are no exception. About 10 percent of people with the disease stopped buying their drugs in 2007, according to the report. For those who do keep paying, finances can get pretty tight...  Read more

True confession: I’m not a big fan of proclamation days honoring this or that thing, event, or person. So it is with some skepticism that I greet National Grandparents Day, September 7. (Yet another way for greeting card, flower, and chocolate companies to make a few bucks.)

True confession: I’m sentimental and often fall for proclamation days honoring this or that thing, event, or person when it touches me in a genuine way. I won't be lifting a finger for National Meatloaf Day (October 18), National YoYo Day (June 6), or National Pickle Day (November 14).

But grandparents? Got me. Just last week I wrote in this space about my grandmother’s vision loss, stirring all kinds of memories of this sassy woman who died years ago. It's a special relationship to be a grandchild. Not nearly as loaded as being a child; kind of once-removed from parental rules and expectations. Yet still marked by an older-younger connection, kinship, the passing of generations...  Read more

A friend got a call a while ago that sent her over the edge. Yet another of her mother’s home caregivers had quit, claiming she couldn’t take the elderly woman’s insults -- the third time this had happened in less than two years. This friend lives across the country from her mother and has to handle all of her care long distance -- by phone, email, and periodic visits.

Talk about a major drag. This was one. For some seniors, the fact that they need care is so demeaning that they simply can’t get beyond lashing out at the caregiver. It’s almost as if they’re trying to force them away. Perfectly understandable, but still hard to deal with -- especially for a caregiver.

I collected information from a variety of sources about what might help in such a situation. Turns out this problem is so common there’s quite a bit of thinking on it. Here’s a start...  Read more

After weeks of scorching summer weather, you may find that your elderly loved one doesn’t have much of an appetite – and that you don’t have any interest in toiling in the kitchen. The answer isn’t ice cream -- at least not for every meal.

Instead, slice up a watermelon. It turns out that watermelons aren’t just delicious, refreshing, and easy to consume when the temperature’s high, they're also packed with nutrients that can improve everything from your immune system to your love life.

Scientists at Texas A&M have been studying watermelons for years, and, says one, “We’ve always known that watermelon is good for you, but the list of its very important healthful benefits grows longer with each study.”

According to AgNews,Texas A&M’s website, watermelons contain phyto-nutrients, including lycopene, beta-carotene and the less well known phyto-nutrient, citruline...  Read more

You know that old adage about the elderly needing less shut-eye than younger adults? Well, recent research suggests it may be true.

To get a handle on the relationship between sleep and age, sleep scientists observed the slumber patterns of 35 men and women between the ages of 18 and 32 and 18 seniors between the ages of 60 and 72.

Study subjects were required to lie in bed for 16 hours a day. (Sheer bliss for some, no doubt, boredom for those who lay awake wide-eyed and restless). The participants lay prone for 12 hours at night and for 4 during the day for three to seven days.

During the observation period, the young adults slept more than normal. The older group slept 1.5 hours less per day on average and took longer to nod off than the younger set.

It's too soon to know for sure, but researchers speculate that what many elderly and their caregivers (both personal and professional) label insomnia could be a completely normal, age-related shift in their internal body clock...  Read more

I’ve had a slew of questions lately from Caring.com readers asking what to do when their elderly loved ones refuse to bathe, shower, or clean their bodies in any way. Talk about a major stressor. This is one. And it’s all too common. To all those out there in this situation -- you aren’t alone. A few things really can make a difference.

Understanding helps. There are all kinds of sensible reasons why older people don’t want to bathe. These include:

• Fear of falling
• Lightheadedness or dizziness
• Not strong enough to get in or out of the tub on their own, but don’t want to admit it
• Water too cold or too hot; temperature never feels right
• Annoyed or scared by the sound or feel of water; common with people with Alzheimer’s or dementia
• Depression, a kind of passive giving up on life

Try to narrow down what’s going on with your parents...  Read more