photo courtesy of flickr and grant neufeld

This article was wriiten by Julie Connelly in the April 2, 2009 edition of The New York Times -

DOCTORS ARE OPTING OUT OF MEDICARE

EARLY this year, Barbara Plumb, a freelance editor and writer in New York who is on Medicare, received a disturbing letter. Her gynecologist informed her that she was opting out of Medicare. When Ms. Plumb asked her primary-care doctor to recommend another gynecologist who took Medicare, the doctor responded that she didn’t know any — and that if Ms. Plumb found one she liked, could she call and tell her the name? (more…)

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photo courtesy of flickr and onkel wart

I found this article in the New York Times. My mother died of COPD, better known as emphysema. Upon reading this article I naturally wondered if my mother would have stopped smoking had she been told earlier in her life that smoking was aging her lungs prematurely. Having my mother die of COPD caused me to be an advocate in support of any assistance which helps an individual stop smoking. As we get older, our lungs are aging normally and the cigarette smoking speeds up the aging of the lungs. Why cut our lives short? No one deserves to die of COPD and certainly no family deserves to watch their loved one die of any type of lung disease.

New York Times

Reminder to Smokers: Your Lungs Are Aging
By NICHOLAS BAKALAR

A simple discussion of lung capacity appears to double the rate patients follow a doctor’s advice to quit smoking. (more…)

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Increasingly, many older people who live alone are not truly alone. They are being watched by a flurry of new technologies designed to enable them to live independently and avoid expensive trips to the emergency room or nursing homes.

Bertha Branch, 78, discovered the power of a system called eNeighbor when she fell to the floor of her Philadelphia apartment late one night without her emergency alert pendant and could not phone for help.

A wireless sensor under Ms. Branch’s bed detected that she had gotten up. Motion detectors in her bedroom and bathroom registered that she had not left the area in her usual pattern and relayed that information to a central monitoring system, prompting a call to her telephone to ask if she was all right. When she did not answer, that incited more calls — to a neighbor, to the building manager and finally to 911, which dispatched firefighters to break through her door. She had been on the floor less than an hour when they arrived. (more…)

Filed under: Aging, Assisted Living Centers, Caregiving, Nursing Home, Senior Health, Senior Safety, senior lifestyles | No Comments »

(Photo courtesy of blackbirdboy and flickr)

Oprah Winfrey had the most fascinating show on today. She had a guest, Dan Buettner, who has written a book entitled, “The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who’ve Lived the Longest”. The blue zones are different areas around the world where people are living the longest, healthiest lives. The author interviews people in the blue zones and then shares what they are doing to find joy in aging. The picture of the wine glass above should be one clue as to what others are doing to live longer! Here is a list of 9 behaviors Dan believes will help us grow into some of the best years of our lives: (more…)

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This brief report, which originally aired on KOAT in Albuquerque, talks about the results of a study conducted in the Netherlands related to the use of testosterone to slow or reverse the signs of aging in older men.

Filed under: Aging, Life After 55, Senior Health, senior lifestyles | No Comments »