coping

Social Fabric: The Key to Senior’s Quality of Life….

February 8, 2020

Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.—Aristotle After completing one of these Social Fabric Mind Maps you can suggest and provide more recreational activities, social outreach, and other ways to provide social support…

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Higher Levels of Depression in Married Caregivers

February 18, 2017

“We also found that caregivers who are married and caring for a family member with a diagnosis other than cancer, such as Alzheimer’s disease, had higher levels of depression,” says Debra Parker-Oliver, professor of family and community medicine at the…

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The Wrong Future

April 23, 2015

Caregivers experience a wide range of stressful situations that require a singularity of focus. While hyper-focus works in the short term, in the long term it takes an insidious toll. Health, activities, friends and finally the future all fall by…

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Poetry and Aging Parents, Part 4

March 31, 2015

Adult children live in a bittersweet world of loss and gratitude regarding aging parents. Barbara Crooker’s poem All Saints Day captures this emotional mixture as it attends her mother’s leaving… All Saints Day By Barbara Crooker It’s one day past…

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Poetry and Aging Parents, Part 3

January 25, 2015

The loss of an aging parent is not an isolated event. Rather, their passing is part of the thinning social fabric of middle age and beyond. Siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins friends, associates and casual acquaintances all start to take their…

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Poetry and Aging Parents, Part 2

December 9, 2014

We back into life review on the path to the end. Dana Gioia moving poem The Lost Garden captures the cognitive melody of recalling who and what has come to define us as well as the wisdom of “wanting nothing…

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Poetry and Aging Parents

August 31, 2014

The drama of aging parents takes courage and poetry. Mark Halliday’s moving poem about the legacy of his aging parents reminds us that every life longs for a narrative, albums that celebrate the journey and comfort the hearts of those…

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The Right Words…

August 21, 2012

We are always searching for the right words when a death occurs. We mean well but our attempts to comfort may painfully produce the opposite result. This blog post by Carole Brody is a “refresher course” in how our words…

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So what’s in the world come over you…

June 22, 2012

The title of this blog is taken from John Prine’s song “Speed of the Sound of Loneliness,” which seems apropos for an article on the profound impact of loneliness on the health of aging parents. Here’s the first punch line:…

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The Wrong Signals: Shutting Down Change Before It Starts

July 30, 2011

How do we help our aging parents consider making positive changes in their lives? We want to help, and feel we have good ideas that could improve their quality of life. For example, we would like for them to consider:…

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