With Halloween upon us, now is the time when we present you with this year’s scariest stories. From one typo costing you your computer to loved ones with Alzheimer’s owning guns, we uncovered some scary ground. To celebrate Halloween, we’ve ranked our scariest articles from least to most scary (but you be the judge) for […]
Veterans May Have a Higher Risk of Getting Alzheimer’s
Currently, 1 in 9 Americans over the age of 65 (44 million people worldwide) live with Alzheimer’s disease. These numbers are staggering! Even more startling, is research cited in the Los Angeles Times that reveals that veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) are 60% more likely to develop Alzheimer’s or a late form of […]
Caregiving: Where Clinton and Trump Stand
According to a recent AARP study, approximately 34.2 million Americans have provided unpaid care to an adult age 50 or older in the prior 12 months. Nearly half of these caregivers provide care to someone 75 years old or older (47%), and in most cases, the main reason their recipient needs care includes “old age” […]
How Can I Reduce My Risk of Alzheimer’s?
Q. Several of my relatives on my mother’s side of the family have had Alzheimer’s, including my aunt, my uncle, and both my grandparents. My father’s sister currently has it too. I am concerned for myself and my own children, and I want to do whatever I can to reduce our risk of the disease, […]
What if Everyone in Your Town Had Dementia?
Grocery store in Hogeweyk, Amsterdam Imagine this . . . you have a friend named Sally who is in the advanced stages of dementia. She getsup in the morning, and wanders out to the supermarket in her nightgown. She passes others with dementia on the sidewalk, but doesn’t take much notice. She doesn’t know why […]
A Parent has Alzheimer’s and a Gun. What Do You Do?
Ever since Gregg Schnepp retired, his favorite activity has been gathering with his friends at the shooting range. According to his wife, Joanne, who is a strong believer in the right to bear arms, “shooting is about his only interest in life.” However, as a 70-year old with both mental and physical decline, it is becoming unsafe for Gregg to carry a gun. Joanne knows she has to talk to her […]
Discriminated Against for Having the “Wrong Type of Illness”
Long-term care services, whether provided in institutions or in the community, are essential to the well-being of many elderly and non-elderly people with limitations in performing daily activities. In the United States, in particular, long-term care is disastrously expensive. And, when it comes to benefits, some people are discriminated against simply because they have the […]
Should My Uncle With Dementia Still Be Driving?
Dear Commander Bun Bun, My dad broke the news to me that his brother has dementia. I have always been close with my uncle, so I was quite upset to hear about it. He told me that he will be driving to our house next weekend to visit. Driving? What if he loses his way, […]
Is it Dementia or Adult ADHD?
Ginny is a 58-year-old widow who struggles each day with where she puts her keys, her cell phone, her purse, and even sometimes her coffee cup after she fills it with coffee. She often has trouble following conversations, and after about 15 minutes, she doesn’t remember much of what was said at all. After observing […]
Would a Pet be Beneficial for my Mom with Alzheimer’s?
Dear Angel, My mom has Alzheimer’s and I am thinking about bringing a cat into the house to help calm her down when she gets agitated. Is pet therapy effective for those with Alzheimer’s and do you think it’s a good idea for someone like her to have a pet like you? Thanks, Kat Formamma […]
Alzheimer’s Lost Memories May Be Recoverable
Jennifer was 42 years-old when she was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s. She was heartbroken at first, wondering if she would remember the details of her first love, her child’s wobbly first steps, her overseas travels, or her 20-year career as a pediatric nurse. These things were all significant to the fabric of her life so […]
Does it Matter Whether You Visit a Loved One with Alzheimer’s?
Kathleen’s grandmother, Ruth, has Alzheimer’s and is in a nursing home. When she first moved in, Kathleen’s mother and her uncle would visit often, bringing Ruth her favorite foods, musical recordings, and photos to hang up in her room. As time progressed and Ruth’s condition worsened, the visits began to taper off. Now, no […]
Stop Playing Those Mind Games?!?
Example of a Lumosity Game Brain teasers and mind games sure seem like a good way to keep your mind sharp. In fact, in a recent study published in the Journal of American Geriatrics, it was found that cognitive exercises help older adults hold on to improvements in their reasoning skills and processing speed for up to 10 years. If this is true, […]
How to Stave Off Dementia
Q. I am in my mid 50’s and have a history of dementia in my family. My mother, three of my aunts, and one uncle died from it, and I want to do whatever I can to protect myself from the disease, if at all possible. My cousin lives in Japan, and he told me […]
Top 15 Articles of 2015
From the 50th birthday of Medicaid and Medicare and the 80th birthday of Social Security to the once-a-decade White House Conference on Aging, we covered a lot of ground in 2015. It was a year that included a new act being passed in Virginia to help special needs families, overtime pay for caregivers, and amazing new technological innovations to help seniors age-in-place. At the Farr Law Firm, […]
What Can Be Done with $350 million? (a lot, we hope)
Alzheimer’s research got a $350 million boost last week, when President Barack Obama signed the FY2016 budget into law. This historic amount marks the largest boost ever for federal Alzheimer’s research funding — a nearly 60 percent increase over FY2015 funding levels. Alzheimer’s is the only cause of death among the nation’s top 10 that cannot be prevented, cured, or even slowed. Today, there […]
How to Survive Adult Sibling Conflict Over Elder Care, Inheritances, and More
Q. Last week, my sister, my brother, and I traveled with our families to visit our 82-year old mother for Thanksgiving (I didn’t have to go too far, since she lives ten minutes away!). Although mom says she is “just fine,” we noticed several memory lapses and other signals of her waning health throughout our […]
Holiday Gifts for a Loved One with Dementia
Dear Baxter, I would like to buy a holiday gift for my grandmother with dementia. Do you have any ideas about what I should get for her, that she could appreciate. Thanks, Aggie Ift-Forgrama — Dear Aggie, Shopping for holiday gifts for loved ones can be challenging, especially if the person has dementia. You may be unsure about […]
Seniors Should Be Thankful For This. . .
This week, we celebrate Thanksgiving, making it an ideal time to give thanks and reflect on the positive things that have happened over the past year. Below are twelve of our blog articles from 2015 that make us and many of our clients thankful (chronologically listed from newest to oldest): Amazing new technology helps seniors […]
How Do You Tell Loved Ones That You Have Alzheimer’s?
Greg O’Brien and his family (source: onpluto.org) Fifty-nine year old Greg O’Brien lives a healthy and happy life. He exercises every day, makes a good living, and spends lots of quality time with his wife and three children. Five years ago, Greg started to notice changes in himself. He was forgetting things, and his judgment sometimes seemed impaired. Meanwhile, his own mother was dying of Alzheimer’s disease. Greg […]