Month: August 2016

Last Week’s Links

LA art exhibition look at dying through words, photos

Four years ago photographer Andrew George approached the medical director of a Los Angeles hospital with an unusual request: He wanted to meet and take photographs of people about to die.

There was nothing macabre about the request, George says. He simply wanted to learn of and reflect the wisdom these people had gained in the hope that others could discover how to lead better, more fulfilling lives.

Read what George learned about the hopes, dreams, happy memories, and regrets of his participants.

Relationships with family members, but not friends, decrease likelihood of death

For older adults, having more or closer family members in one’s social network decreases his or her likelihood of death, but having a larger or closer group of friends does not, finds a new study that will be presented at the 111th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA).

Will Your Prescription Meds Be Covered Next Year? Better Check!

The battle continues to rage between drug companies that are trying to make as much money as possible and insurers trying to drive down drug prices. And consumers are squarely in the middle.

This article from National Public Radio (NPR) suggests checking with your insurer to see if your prescriptions will be covered next year. If your insurance company drops coverage of one or more of your medications, you may have to consult your doctor about replacements.

New Clues in the Mystery of Women’s Lagging Life Expectancy

While the life expectancy of American women has remained stagnant, the cause or causes of this stagnation has eluded researchers. But new research has “found that many common demographic traits — whether a woman is rich, poor, unemployed, working, single or married — might not be as important as the state in which she lives.”

The finding that the social and economic environment of states affects women’s life expectancy but not men’s surprised researchers: “Women have consistently had longer life expectancy than men, and still do, though less so than 30 years ago.” Another surprising conclusion from the research is that people’s environment can be just as important to their health as their individual behaviors (such as exercise and healthy eating).

© 2016 by Mary Daniels Brown

Three Things Thursday

Thanks to Nerd in the Brain for the weekly challenge Three Things Thursday:

three things that make me smile: an exercise in gratitude – feel free to steal this idea with wild abandon and fill your blog with the happy

three-things-thursday-badge-new

I have missed several weeks of Three Things Thursday because of a couple of family situations that required drop-everything-and-go travel. I’m glad to be back.

Memories from New England

My husband and I grew up in Connecticut, lived most of our adult lives (42 years) in St. Louis, then retired to Tacoma, WA. The first of our unexpected trips required a return to Connecticut, where I waxed nostalgic over several things emblematic of the region.

(Click on any photo to see a larger version.)

(1) White Birch Trees

white birch trees
white birch trees

These beautiful trees (Betula papyrifera) are all over the wooded areas of New England. I didn’t realize how much I love them until we moved to the midwest, where these trees don’t grow. Their white bark with narrow, horizontal black lines peels off in sheets. The bark is water repellant, and Native Americans used birch bark to build canoes.

I was glad to be reunited with birch trees when we moved to Washington State. Many of the trees here are not as white as those in New England. White barks signifies older trees;  younger trees have light brown bark. Birch is a short-lived species that doesn’t do well in humidity, which may account for the color difference between New England and Pacific Northwest trees. The birch trees here are definitely recognizable, though, and are one of the first natural phenomena I noticed when I moved here.

Also known as paper birch, these trees are among the first to grow after forest fires. They provide winter forage for moose.

(2) Buildings with Several Numbers

Elton Tavern, Burlington, CT, USA; built in 1810
Elton Tavern, Burlington, CT, USA

These plaques are on the Elton Tavern in my hometown of Burlington, CT (shown in the feature image at the top of this post). When I was a kid, the building was a private house. The local lore was that the building was originally an inn where George Washington stopped for the night on his travels. In more recent years the town historical society has bought and refurbished the building, but I haven’t been in town to attend the now annual Tavern Day that features colonial crafts and history. The road on which the building sits has always been called George Washington Turnpike.

Plaques such as these mark buildings all over New England. In many town centers you’ll see houses with a street number on the left of the front door and the date the house was built on the right. New Englanders take their early history quite seriously.

(3) White Clapboard Churches

Burlington Congregational Church, Burlington, CT
Burlington Congregational Church, Burlington, CT

This is the Congregational Church in Burlington, CT, which was founded in 1774. You’ll find a church that looks almost exactly like this one in most New England towns. This is not surprising, since the right to worship as they chose was what brought most early settlers to the area.

© 2016 by Mary Daniels Brown

Last Week’s Links

Here are some articles from around the web that caught my attention over the last week.

Alzheimer’s Patients Keep the Spark Alive by Sharing Stories

This heart-warming article reports on an eight-week storytelling workshop at Northwestern University that helps couples coping with Alzheimer’s disease stay connected:

Each couple’s story serves as a reminder of both the good and challenging times they have shared, experiences both poignant and humorous that reveal inner strength, resilience and love and appreciation for one another that can be easily forgotten when confronted by a frightening, progressive neurological disease like Alzheimer’s.

Don’t Throw Out Your Organ Donor Card After 65

I’ve been signed up as an organ donor since early adulthood, but lately I’ve been wondering how useful my organs would be now that I’m approaching 70. This piece explains how age makes those of us over 65 “particularly desirable as donors, living or dead, for older recipients, who represent a growing proportion of transplant patients.”

Diet, exercise reduce proteins linked to Alzheimer’s disease, study says

A healthy diet, physical activity and normal body mass index have been connected to overall better health, with a new study at the University of California Los Angeles suggesting the combination of healthful choices may help prevent Alzheimer’s disease.

Just in case we needed yet another reminder of the importance of healthy eating and exercise.

Virtual reality treadmills help prevent falls in elderly

A small study suggests that adding a virtual reality obstacle course to treadmill workouts may help prevent falls among older adults:

“Our idea was to use the virtual reality environment to safely train both the motor or gait aspects that are important to fall risk, while also implicitly teaching the participants to improve the cognitive functions that are important for safe ambulation,” said lead study author Anat Mirelman of Tel Aviv University in Israel.

© 2016 by Mary Daniels Brown