Commission on Aging

Throughout the United States, there exists:

“an invisible, isolated army, carrying out increasingly complicated tasks and experiencing challenges and frustrations without adequate recognition, support, or guidance, and at great personal cost.” [1]

Do you want to know a secret? The secret shame of many seniors is that too many of them do not have enough money to buy food.

Does your pulse quicken or do the jitters start when you think of having to do your income taxes? If so, you’re not alone. It is stressful, but there are simple steps you can take to make the process easier. Here are some pointers.

Have you heard the “B” word lately? By the “B” word, we mean “balance.” There’s the balance that we apply to our check books; the balance that we apply to our diets; and the balance that we apply, or at least try to apply, to our work, to our volunteer activities, and to our personal health and well-being. But there is another important “balance.” It’s the balance that enables us to walk safely on most surfaces, go up and down stairs without incident, stand up quickly from a sitting position, and generally continue to live our lives without the risk of falls.

The loss of someone or something that we mourn over or grieve about carries with it a heaviness. Yet, if such heaviness comes with loss, it makes no sense; because when you think about it, loss should lighten one’s burden. It does not. It can drag one down, even when we are surrounded by caring people who try to hold us tight, hold us up, hold the burden for us. But when grieving, few of us allow such intrusion. We are attached to our world the way it was before the loss. We are blinded from seeing a new and different future, a future that could not possibly be acceptable to us.

We are now in the Open Enrollment period for individual health coverage under the Affordable Care Act (AKA “ACA” or “Obamacare”). But let’s be honest: many of the individual health plans offered under the ACA do not seem particularly affordable.

You have a Medicare prescription drug plan (PDP or Part D plan), but you are finding that the premium for the plan and the costs for your medications are taking a big bite out of your income. Is there any way to cut the costs?

Bob tried to keep a sense of humor about some of the behavioral changes that he was noticing in his 72 year-old mother, Maggie, but, over the course of a year, the behaviors were also irritating at times. Her lack of focus in telling a story; misplacing things, such as a very large sum of money; and using the wrong words, such as referring to peanut butter as “meat” were examples of behaviors he didn’t understand but accepted as a “new norm,” given his mother’s advancing age.