Elder Care Cafe

One of the greatest gifts my parents ever gave us was to prepay their funeral arrangements. The second best was to choose, pay for, and place their headstone on the plot they had already purchased. Everything was ready years before my mother passed away. The cemetery they chose was the same one that my grandparents [...]

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The hot topic in elder care today is the surfacing of a February 26th 911 call from an independent living home nurse to a dispatcher requesting assistance for an 87-year-old woman who needed cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). The tape of the call that just came to light was played repeatedly on news outlets as people listened [...]

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Many people have an aversion to discussing a will, let alone creating one for themselves. While some people think the topic is too morbid to talk about, a last will and testament is important no matter how old you are. While it is a wise decision for anyone above the age of twenty-one, it is [...]

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One of the most stressful times in one’s life is when they are trying to help someone who is coping with loss. How do you comfort a friend who has lost a loved one or close friend? This question has haunted people of every age group over the years. Learning how to help a friend [...]

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One of the downsides of being a senior citizen is that you are going to face a higher incidence of people dying than you may have seen in other stages of your life.  While all of us have attended funerals through the years, because of the stage of life we are in as senior citizens [...]

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As people approach their senior years they tend to start putting their affairs in order in case of sudden death. They want to make sure it’s easier for others to manage their estate after they are gone and that their wishes are carried out.  If that is you, there are several things you need to [...]

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The older we get, the more opportunities we have had over the decades to face the loss of a loved one. Although we often know when someone is ailing and the end is near, there are times when grief seems to find a way to sneak up on us when we least expect. Now that [...]

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Fitness guru Francois Henri “Jack” LaLanne died Sunday, January 23, 2011.  LaLanne was born September 26, 1914. He came to the attention of most people when he started his popular fitness program on television which ran from 1951 to 1985. As a stay-at-home mom in the early 1970s, I remember religiously watching his show and [...]

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As of the beginning of 2011, Medicare now covers voluntary advance care planning, otherwise known as end-of-life planning.  A provision so controversial that the Democrats dropped it from the health-care reform bill when Republicans made it a hot topic, Medicare has approved the practice that includes annual checkups, or wellness visits for those who are [...]

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Helping your elderly parent cope with the death of their spouse can be daunting because at the same time you are grieving the loss of your mother or father. We discussed in part one the importance of the funeral process in allowing natural grieving to begin. We also mentioned how the first days and weeks [...]

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Perhaps the most difficult task you will ever face is to help one of your parents cope with the loss of his or her spouse. The greatest loss for any elderly person is the death of a spouse. It will be a traumatic time for the whole family because as much as mom lost her [...]

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