Part of the VITALITY ARTS SPECIAL REPORT Poet and teacher Zoë Bird began the weekly class at Cerenity Senior Care in St. Paul, Minn. with a simple greeting: “Good morning, poets.” She walked around the circle, greeting each of the eight participants by… Continue reading
Have you heard the best part of having Alzheimer’s? You can hide your own Easter eggs! Ouch, sorry. This article isn’t about that kind of humor and dementia — unless the cognitively impaired person in your life is the sort who finds bad-taste jokes fun… Continue reading
(This article appeared previously in Kaiser Health News.) At first, Dr. Robert Zorowitz thought his 83-year-old mother was confused. She couldn’t remember passwords to accounts on her computer. She would call and say programs had stopped working. But o… Continue reading
A few years ago, researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine gave us yet another reason to worry about getting Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias: They demonstrated an association between hearing loss and cognitive decline. Spec… Continue reading
The truth: Alzheimer’s and other dementia diseases are always a burden on loved ones. The lesser-known truth: Dealing with the diseases can provide positive impacts of a temporary or even lasting nature. Two sisters, Heidi O’Neill and Amy Springer, bot… Continue reading
Larry Curley is a member of the Navajo Nation who, with members of the National Tribal Chairmen’s Association, founded the National Indian Council on Aging (NICOA) in 1976. NICOA is a nonprofit that advocates for health, social services and economic we… Continue reading
Moving from home to a residential care facility can be a difficult transition for older adults. But for those with dementia, leaving the familiar surroundings of home often proves to be especially challenging. A recent study by researchers at the Unive… Continue reading
Later life is an adventure with both light and dark moments, says Sheila Malkind, 80. And fittingly, she promotes that philosophy each year at the Legacy Film Festival on Aging, which she founded in 2011 and has directed ever since. Some of the films a… Continue reading
(Lourdes Ballesteros uses a pen name to protect the confidentiality of her husband’s health information.) As the oldest daughter in a Cuban family with an extended-family tradition, I was raised with “unofficial” training as a caregiver. In other words… Continue reading
Liz Kozlowski and her staff at Brookdale Senior Living’s Westlake Village, outside of Cleveland, knew that resident Ed Petrigac and his wife Yvonne had started an auto parts business. But it wasn’t until they read his life story that they realized he a… Continue reading