confronting aging, a world in transition
Menu

weekly blog--one for the ages

Laughter Really Is The Best Medicine

7/25/2019

0 Comments

 
The New York Times holds an annual competition for lexophiles, people who love to play with words. Some examples below.
​
You can tune a piano, but you can’t tuna fish.
To write with a broken pencil is pointless.
I changed my iPod's name to Titanic.  It's syncing now.   
England has no kidney bank, but it does have a Liverpool.  
Haunted French pancakes give me the crepes. 
This girl today said she recognized me from the Vegetarians Club, but I'd swear I've never met herbivore.   
I know a guy who's addicted to drinking brake fluid, but he says he can stop any time.   
A thief who stole a calendar got twelve months.   
When the smog lifts in Los Angeles U.C.L.A.   
I got some batteries that were given out free of charge.   
A dentist and a manicurist married.  They fought tooth and nail.  
A will is a dead giveaway.   
With her marriage, she got a new name and a dress.   
Police were summoned to a daycare center where a three-year-old was resisting a rest.   
Did you hear about the fellow whose entire left side was cut off?  He's all right now. 
A bicycle can't stand alone; it's just two tired.
The guy who fell onto an upholstery machine last week is now fully recovered. 
He had a photographic memory but it was never fully developed.   
When she saw her first strands of gray hair she thought she'd dye.  
Acupuncture is a jab well done.  That's the point of it.   
I didn't like my beard at first.  Then it grew on me.   
Did you hear about the crossed-eyed teacher who lost her job because she couldn't control her pupils?   
When you get a bladder infection, urine trouble.   
When chemists die, they barium.   
I stayed up all night to see where the sun went, and then it dawned on me. 
I'm reading a book about anti-gravity.  I just can't put it down. 
Those who get too big for their pants will be totally exposed in the end.

0 Comments

Mind Games

7/18/2019

0 Comments

 
Until a few years ago, many researchers thought more women were living with Alzheimer's because they live longer than men. New research suggests that differences in the brains of women and men may be more of a factor, along with social and genetic differences. 

One recent study looked at sex differences involving a toxic protein called tau, which tends to spread like an infection through the brains of people with Alzheimer's. It concluded that tau is more spread out in women with mild cognitive problems and is able to move more easily from one brain area to another. Another study looked at how work and family experience affects women's risk of memory problems in later life. The study of more than 6,000 women born between 1935 and 1956 found that working outside the home is good for the brain.

Meanwhile, testing for Alzheimer’s disease can be a long, costly, and tiresome process. However, researchers around the globe are trying to come up with a blood test to detect the early onset of Alzheimer’s. A group at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston has developed a blood test that evaluates the level of tau before a patient is even showing signs or symptoms of the disease.

Learn More:

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/07/17/742372403/researchers-search-for-reasons-why-womens-alzheimer-s-risk-is-higher-than-men-s?utm_campaign=KHN%3A%20Daily%20Health%20Policy%20Report&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=74734757&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_al8wZ05EFGKctin7u7Ly307WEiVjCij06pPas8i5U3I0fNkpL4c0khP-V0aS_Wj9GoYMGpGNWVkENP3KlDvHREScCTw&_hsmi=74734757 


https://www.alzheimers.net/12-3-14-blood-test-detects-alzheimers-early
0 Comments

Sudden Death

7/11/2019

0 Comments

 
My mother-in-law passed away two weeks ago after a short stay in the same hospice where her husband died nine years earlier. The hospice overlooks Long Island Sound and it is probably one of the prettiest settings to spend your last days. 

More to the point, hospices focus on the palliation of a chronically ill, terminally ill, or seriously ill patient’s pain and symptoms, and attending to their spiritual and emotional needs. But for anyone who has had a loved one in this situation, watching the patient slip from consciousness to unconsciousness and finally death can be a long drawn-out affair. So much so that it opens the Pandora Box on taking preemptive action before one’s health declines, especially if you have dementia.

More seniors are weighing the possibility of suicide, experts say, as the baby boomer generation, known for valuing autonomy and self-determination, reaches older age at a time when modern medicine can keep human bodies alive far longer than ever before. The idea that suicide can be a well-reasoned decision, not a result of emotional or psychological problems, remains highly controversial and runs counter to many societal norms, religious and moral convictions, and the efforts of suicide prevention workers who contend that every life is worth saving.

Maine recently became the ninth state to allow medical aid in dying, which permits some patients to get a doctor’s prescription for lethal drugs. That method is restricted, however, to people with a terminal condition who are mentally competent and expected to die within six months. Currently, patients who aren’t eligible for those laws have to go to an underground practice to get lethal medication or simply stop eating.

For me, the option of choosing a peaceful end in the future is as much an inalienable right as health insurance.


Learn More:

https://khn.org/news/rational-suicide-seniors-preemptive-death-medical-aid-in-dying/?utm_campaign=KHN%3A%20Daily%20Health%20Policy%20Report&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=74017878&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_RTC9yYE1T3SvaXbgrtgYtzrkyTDmtlm8sWL6X1GYUXbC--MZ6gZTr776F9-NAWZPUwdIasKoh-Iv19aBRW9sMth7l-g&_hsmi=74017878
​

https://www.confrontingaging.com/vsed-primer.html

0 Comments

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
    • Caring for Elderly Parent
    • Eating & Exercise
    • Emerging Technology & Concepts >
      • End of Life Options/Issues/Grieving >
        • VSED Primer
    • Entrepreneurship
    • Health Challenges
    • History of Aging >
      • Ancient Egypt, India, China
      • Before 1500
      • 1500s & 1600s
      • 1700s & 1800s
      • 1900s & 2000s
      • Early New England (1600s)
      • Quest To Look Young
      • Books
    • Housing Options & Aging in Place Guide
    • Insurance, Security, Fraud
    • Intergenerational Programs
    • LGBT
    • News & Trends
    • Positive/Successful Aging
    • Retirement/Estate Planning
    • Science of Aging
    • Support Resources
    • Travel
    • Weekly Blog
  • About
  • Contact
  • Home
    • Caring for Elderly Parent
    • Eating & Exercise
    • Emerging Technology & Concepts >
      • End of Life Options/Issues/Grieving >
        • VSED Primer
    • Entrepreneurship
    • Health Challenges
    • History of Aging >
      • Ancient Egypt, India, China
      • Before 1500
      • 1500s & 1600s
      • 1700s & 1800s
      • 1900s & 2000s
      • Early New England (1600s)
      • Quest To Look Young
      • Books
    • Housing Options & Aging in Place Guide
    • Insurance, Security, Fraud
    • Intergenerational Programs
    • LGBT
    • News & Trends
    • Positive/Successful Aging
    • Retirement/Estate Planning
    • Science of Aging
    • Support Resources
    • Travel
    • Weekly Blog
  • About
  • Contact