Elder Care Cafe

There is a right way and a wrong way to take prescription medication. Your doctor prescribes, your pharmicist fills, now it is time for you to take your medicine. After several days, or possibly a week, you notice you don’t feel any better than you did before you started taking your medicine. So what do [...]

[Read more →]

Recent tough talk by the American Heart Association (AHA) has drawn strong rebuttal from the Sugar Association and the American Beverage Association. The AHA announced recently that Americans need to dramatically cut back on the amount of sugar they consume. According to the AHA, women should eat no more than 100 calories of added processed [...]

[Read more →]

Don’t put a period where God has a comma - Shari Rose Shepherd As caregivers, there comes a time when we must say goodbye whether we are caring for a family member or patient, or a special loved one.  It is something we have all had to do at one time or another. What I have learned [...]

[Read more →]

You know those annoying calls you get about the warranty on your car, especially annoying when your car is an older model no longer under warranty, or you don’t even own a car? Well, as of September 1, 2009, such calls are now banned. The prerecorded telemarketing calls are no longer allowed into your home or [...]

[Read more →]

Suzanne Mintz of the National Family Caregivers Association (NFCA) is asking all NFCA members, friends, and caregivers to speak to their senators and representatives about health care reform. We have an unprecedented opportunity to bring about the health care reform that is so desparately needed. Here is her letter:

[Read more →]

A growing trend in recent years is to choose natural, or green, funerals and burial sites. Many cemeteries are running out of room, people are growing more aware of the impact on the environment that the typical modern funeral yields, and as funeral and burial costs rise, natural funerals and burials are becoming more attractive [...]

[Read more →]

When my mother first showed signs of dementia, one of the early casualties of the disease was her inability to read the books she so loved. A number of times I sat on the sofa with her as we looked at magazines such as Ideal with its beautiful color photographs and large print. I am [...]

[Read more →]

Congratulations to Judge Sonia Sotomayor on her confirmation today as the nation’s first Hispanic Supreme Court Judge. After a rough few weeks of listening to the posturing of the older white male conservatives on how biased a female Latina would be – does anyone get the irony here? – Sotomayor has reached a milestone in [...]

[Read more →]

Because I am still recovering from Monday’s birthday party, I thought I would stay away from serious subjects for today. There will be time for seriousness tomorrow. Today I am still slightly hunger-over from the sugar rush. The birthday cake was delicious. However, as I was relaxing and thinking about the fact that this is [...]

[Read more →]

The Geneva-based World Health Organization (WHO) announced Thursday July 17, 2009 that the H1N1 flu is the fastest moving pandemic ever, and that there was no longer any reason to continue counting every case. Now national health authorities only need to report clusters of severe cases or deaths caused by a new virus. A pandemic [...]

[Read more →]

On the mid-Michigan home front, an East Lansing Democrat is the lead sponsor of a bill before the state House of Representativess that would increase the penalties of those who are convicted of abusing elderly family members. Due to the increased abuse of senior citizens, state representative Mark Meadows is seeking to increase the penalties [...]

[Read more →]

Following months of quietly checking out numerous churches to call his spiritual home, President Obama made a surprising choice. He followed his predecessor, George W. Bush, and decided on the nondenominational Camp David church. After the public circus when visiting local Washington, D.C. churches, he decided he wanted to worship far away from the public [...]

[Read more →]

Today Americans around the world celebrate the freedom gained two hundred and thirty-three years ago. Irregardless of what you think about the United States, and yes we do have our problems, the freedoms that we take for granted should not be denied.

[Read more →]

In the I’m-not-really-too-surprised department, the US Census Bureau released data recently indicating that the world is on the brink of an explosion of senior citizens throughout the world and in the US. We have known for quite some time that the baby boomer tsunami was coming through, so it’s not really a surprise that the [...]

[Read more →]

Yard sale! Garage Sale! Whatever name you want to call them, they are not going away anytime soon. My mother was never a fan of garage sales, although she would sometimes go with my aunt. Then in later years, she and my dad had several sales in their back yard as they attempted to rid [...]

[Read more →]