Medical Concerns

Yoga for Alzheimer's Patients: Mindfulness and Movement

Even when Alzheimer’s disease makes almost everything unfamiliar, positive quality of life is still within reach. But it takes adaptability and flexibility around the present circumstances and challenges. Luckily, yoga is an excellent practice in flexibility: for the body, the mind, and the spirit. Whereas Alzheimer’s is a disease of disconnection, yoga is a science and practice of connection.

Signs of Stress in Seniors: How to Recognize Stress Early and Generate Resiliency

Stress and aging go hand-in-hand over the whole course of our lives. More than just a mental-emotional experience, a stressful situation triggers biochemical responses that kick our bodies into high gear so we can better handle that situation. However, we aren’t meant to be in this high-alert mode for long periods of time, let alone long periods of our life. While stress hormones and tension can be truly important reactions in times of real danger, when our stress response is getting triggered regularly in the context of everyday situations, those physical and chemical reactions take a toll on our health and on our ability to be resilient and cope with stress in general.

How to Make a Living Will and Advance Directive With Your Aging Loved One

Mary was devastated. Her mother-in-law Sara had been in a serious car accident and had barely survived the crash. Sara hadn’t regained consciousness after the crash, and because she didn’t have an advance directive or living will, she was kept alive on a ventilator for months. Each day when she went to the hospital to see Sara, Mary wondered if this kind of care is what Sara would have wanted.  

How Can Seniors Strengthen Their Immune System and How Can You Help?

I wish there was a natural, sure-fire way to immunize my garden against weeds, especially as I’m getting older and my back and my joints don’t hold up as well to the stooping and pulling. I can mulch the area; that helps. And I can keep up the health of my purposeful plants, so their roots and bulk discourage unwanted visitors from rooting themselves. I do these things and try new ideas that come my way because I’d much rather build the health of my garden from the ground up than try to chase away invaders after they’ve already gotten comfortable.

How Seniors Can Prevent Pneumonia: Winter Health Tips

After my father had his stroke, I lived in rolling fear, peaking every cold and rainy spell, that he would catch pneumonia. It became almost an obsession of mine, heightened in my imagination by the cruelty of it: this strong man who took on everything in the world, being felled because his weakened immune system couldn’t fight off some bacteria.

The Best Gifts for Someone with Osteoarthritis

My friend Doug lives with osteoarthritis, and it has gotten worse as he’s aged into his seventies. He says the worst part for him is not the discomfort, but the fact that he feels so limited by his arthritis and can’t do all the things he once loved to do. He looks out the kitchen window and mourns that he’s had to let the garden go because it involves too much up-and-down movement and too much work with his hands and arms. And whereas he once used to bring all of his summer vegetables into the kitchen to work into fresh recipes, even cooking has become a difficult chore.

Palliative Care vs Hospice: Choose the Right Care for Your Aging Loved One

Sandra felt paralyzed. She sat silently at the kitchen table with her head propped against one hand and replayed the events of the day in her mind, trying to make sense of them. She’d picked her aging father up at his apartment earlier in the day thinking that it was going to be a regular day full of doctors appointments, but it ended up turning into her biggest nightmare.