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Confessions of a Worrywart September 21, 2022 by Flora Davis - My mother used to do what I call “prophylactic worrying.” In the late afternoon every weekday, she’d worry about my father, who was driving home on a busy highway where there were lots of car accidents. She once admitted she…
Old Is Beautiful September 9, 2022 by Marc Blesoff - Last month, Joni Mitchell performed a 13-song set at the Newport Folk Festival. It was her first time back to Newport in 53 years. It was her first, full-length, live set in over 20 years. It was her first public…
Keep Up! August 12, 2022 by Pepper Evans - When chatting with others, do you ever struggle to feel “in the know”? This is how I’ve been feeling about my place in society lately. The world is changing, and I don’t want to be left behind. My daughters do…
Ageism Affects Us, Both Physically and Mentally August 8, 2022 by Ashton Applewhite - Ageism affects how our minds and bodies function, and not in a good way. We’ve known that for a while, thanks in large part to the work of Yale’s Becca Levy, PhD, whose groundbreaking work, Breaking the Age Code: How…
Cool It July 16, 2022 by Pepper Evans - I don’t like summer. There. I’ve said it. Seaside, poolside, outdoor activities—not my thing. I hibernate in the summer. An unseasonably hot day in May caused me to miss out on a community Spring Fling arts-and-crafts event I looked forward…
Just the Facts July 12, 2022 by Flora Davis - In this age of online falsehoods and conspiracy theories, it’s sometimes hard to figure out what’s true and what’s not, so I was fascinated when I read about a study done early in the pandemic. It set out to determine…
Percolating Conversations June 21, 2022 by Marc Blesoff - One of the ongoing workshops that I facilitate is an all-men’s group. For the last several years, once a month, eight of us get together. Camaraderie, angst, disagreement and humor circulate around the general topic of aging. It is a…
The Paradoxes of Aging June 17, 2022 by Ashton Applewhite - I recently came across a passage about contemporary aging so concise and insightful that I had to post it. It’s from a review by eminent gerontologist Thomas Cole of Aging and the Art of Living (2012) by Jan Baars. We…
Overdosing on Sleep June 10, 2022 by Flora Davis - I used to worry about my late husband because he spent so much time sleeping. Sometimes he’d log a solid eight hours overnight and then refuse to get up in the morning, dozing on until early afternoon. I assumed, as…
Bathing Demystified: Finding a Better Way June 2, 2022 by Maggie Sullivan - This is the third of three blogs about dementia and bathing. You’ll find part 1 here, and part 2 here. People with dementia may not be able to tell you why they don’t want to bathe. But the more you…
Escaping Our Same-Age Silos May 18, 2022 by Ashton Applewhite - I often point out that age has far less to do with compatibility than we think it does. There are exceptions, of course: reproduction is largely a young person’s game, along with extreme sports. Age differences can’t be wished away,…
Bathing Demystified: What’s Going On? May 4, 2022 by Maggie Sullivan - This is the second of three blogs about dementia and bathing. You’ll find part 1 here and part 3 here. Resistance to bathing is common in people with dementia. But it often blindsides the family caregiver because it seems out of character for…
Aging behind Bars April 26, 2022 by Marc Blesoff - The United States has the largest prison population in the world. What’s that got to do with aging? you may ask. Well, people 50 and older are the fastest-growing segment of the US prison population, increasing 25 percent from 2009 to…
Aging, Fast or Slow April 19, 2022 by Flora Davis - When my daughter became pregnant for the first time at 45—with no help from modern medicine—she was told she was probably aging slowly, since it’s rare for women to conceive at that age. She might even be a future centenarian. …
Bathing Demystified: The Person Comes First April 6, 2022 by Maggie Sullivan - This is the first of three blogs about dementia and bathing. You’ll find part 2 here, and part 3 here. I didn’t know enough. I knew that people with Alzheimer’s and other dementias are sensitive to temperature, so I heated the bathroom…
Confessions of a Night Owl March 22, 2022 by Flora Davis - Sometimes after midnight, as I start for bed, I look out my bedroom window and feel a pang of loneliness. I live in a retirement community, and in the many windows of the apartment building across the way, only a…
We Can Teach This Old Dog New Tricks March 11, 2022 by Marc Blesoff - Over the past several months, I’ve had some tight, lower-back pain that has limited my mobility. Even after consulting my doctor and stretching, I just couldn’t shake it, so I decided to try something new for me. I’ve started to…
Setting the Table March 8, 2022 by Pepper Evans - As the eldest daughter in a big family, it fell to me to set the table as my mother prepared dinner each night. Once my father arrived home from work, all seven of us ate together. I grew up with…
Being with My Aging February 18, 2022 by Marc Blesoff - It is a poignant time of year and a poignant time of life. Aging can give us the opportunity to be aware of what we may have previously taken for granted. For me, the recent holiday season highlighted relationships and…
Writing Our Lives February 15, 2022 by Flora Davis - As a journalist, I explored all kinds of subjects for magazines and book publishers, but I almost never wrote about myself—until I joined a writing group called Reminiscing on Paper. Most other members were there because their adult children wanted…
A Hidden Epidemic Threatens Older Adults: Malnutrition - For most of her life, Jenny Anne Horst-Martz’s mother worked hard to stay slender. But now, at age 90, her mother struggles to keep enough weight on. The problem started a few years ago when her mother was injured in…
The Parade of Aides - Working as a caregiver for a friend or family member is a rewarding but stressful job. When my mom qualified for an aide (thanks to the pooled income trust and Medicaid), it gave me a break during the day to…