Since 2009, Paula has written the New Old Age, a column about aging and caregiving that appears twice monthly, online and in the print Science Times. It draws on research findings from major journals, interviews with expert sources and the experiences of elders themselves. The New Old Age has explored an array of topics pertinent to older adults: ageism, senior living options, health issues from alcohol abuse to vaccination, overdiagnosis and overtreatment, employment discrimination, the effects of COVID-19, end of life issues.
A prime example of elderspeak: Cindy Smith was visiting with her father in his assisted living apartment in Roseville, Calif. An aide who was trying to induce him to do something — Ms. Smith no longer remembers exactly what — said, “Let me help you, sweetheart.”
Even before Georgia Outlaw met her new nephrologist, she had made her decision: Although her kidneys were failing, she didn’t want to begin dialysis.
Ms. Outlaw, 77, a retired social worker and pastor in Williamston, N.C., knew many relatives and friends with advanced kidney disease. She watched them travel to dialysis centers three times a week, month after month, to spend hours having waste and excess fluids flushed from their blood.
The encounter happened years ago, but Beverly K. Brandt remembers it vividly.
She was leaving her office at Arizona State University, where she taught design history, to run an errand for her ailing stepfather. He had moved into a retirement community nearby after his wife, Dr. Brandt’s mother, died of cancer.
Kathy Fitts loved her roomy house in suburban Atlanta. But after her children moved out, and the pandemic exacerbated the isolation she often felt as a divorced woman, she left for Latitude Margaritaville, a Jimmy Buffett-themed housing development in Daytona Beach, Fla., for those “55 and better.”
Visiting a friend who had relocated there, “I thought, wow, these people are having a good time,” Ms. Fitts, 68, said. She bought a two-bedroom villa and settled in almost two years ago.
This month, as the patient lay anesthetized on a table, a cardiologist made a half-inch incision through the skin of his chest. She removed a small implanted heart monitor with failing batteries and inserted a new one.
The patient, like many older males, had been diagnosed with cardiac disease; the monitor would provide continuing data on heart rate and rhythm, alerting his doctors to irregularities.
On Thursday mornings, Julia Sadtler and Debora Dunbar log onto Zoom to talk about caring for their husbands with Alzheimer’s disease, in hourlong conversations that are usually informative, sometimes emotional and always supportive.
Both men are patients at Penn Memory Center in Philadelphia, which began this mentorship program for caregivers in September. By design, the two women are at different stages.