Recent Articles on Aging
Another Delicate Topic With Aging: When Is It Time to Give Up Guns?
In a nation with widespread gun ownership and an aging population, firearm removal has been added to the burdens of caring for older relatives — alongside seizing the car keys and taking away the checkbook.
Experts in public safety and geriatric care say that relatives often lack guidance in navigating these difficult conversations. Instead, they are sneaking guns from the homes of parents with Alzheimer’s, covertly disabling pistols belonging to aging sharpshooters, and in many cases avoiding the topic altogether, something that concerns people working in medicine and law enforcement.
This article contains suggestions for negotiating this difficult topic.
The New MIND Diet May Help Prevent Alzheimer’s
Research has found that a new diet plan – called the MIND diet – can have a profound impact on your brain health as you age, and can even lower your odds of getting Alzheimer’s disease.
The MIND diet takes two proven diets – the heart-healthy Mediterranean diet and the blood-pressure lowering DASH diet – and zeroes in on the foods in each that specifically affect brain health.
The Savvy Senior
This web site is new to me:
Welcome to Savvy Senior! A nationally syndicated information column devoted to older adults and the families who support them. Researched and written by senior advocate, author and NBC Today show contributor Jim Miller, Savvy Senior is published in more than 400 newspapers and magazines nationwide.
The home page contains a list of senior resources broken into categories such as Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security; end of life issues; travel; and state and local resources.
Sibling Rivalry: The Grown-Up Version
Welcome to sibling rivalry, the grown-up variety. There is no law that says we have to love the ones we were raised with, or even that we must reconcile before the grand finale. But as millions of baby boomers hit Act Three, the issue is rankling a generation that grew up believing in sharing, openness and the concept of “closure.”
This article describes how adult sibling rivalry is currently represented in popular culture:
On stage in New York recently, “The Humans,” “Dot,” “Familiar,” “Hold On to Me Darling,” “Buried Child” and “Head of Passes” all touch on siblings dealing with money, memories and taking care of ailing parents. The television show “Transparent” may purport to be about a 70-year-old man-turned woman, but it is really about the family’s next generation, acting more like children than children. The Netflix series “Bloodline” has just returned for a second season and deals with four siblings, one of whom — spoiler alert — drowned another at last season’s end. In the film “Alice Through the Looking Glass,” sibling rivalry nearly stops time.
Three books on the best-seller list deal with feuding siblings, including “The Nest” (“Jack and Leo were brothers but they weren’t friends”; “Miller’s Valley,” in which two sisters live on the same property but don’t speak to each other; and “The Nightingale,” about two very different sisters during World War II.
© 2016 by Mary Daniels Brown
Retreading for Retirement 