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Cathie Ramey,
October 22, 2007
One of the first realities of aging, along with gray hair,
is the inability to read without glasses. But, for many, that may be the
most attention their eyes get for years. When
I read Cecily O’Connor’s story
about eye health, I realized more than half of all adults will
experience some form of eye disease as they age. Macular degeneration robs us of our central field of
vision. Undetected glaucoma can silently steal our sight, and cataracts leave us
seeing through a cloudy veil. Are you
overweight? Complications of diabetes can lead to severe vision loss, even
blindness. Only with regular eye
exams can these conditions be found early enough to diagnose and treat before
vision loss is permanent. None of us is free from the possibility of
eye disease, but you can see it coming if you look.
Tom Murphy,
October 17, 2007
Americans spend trillions, with a T, each year trying to cheat death. We'd
save a lot of that if we did what our moms and doctors have been trying to pound
into our thick skulls: wash your hands, eat sensibly and get some exercise. If
we did those three things a bit more, we'd not only have a lot less cancer,
heart disease and diabetes, but we wouldn't be passing around the killer staph
infection MRSA like a bowl of salted peanuts. The potentially fatal disease is
drug-resistant and harder to kill than cockroaches in a New York walk-up. But
you can help avoid it by washing your hands and keeping bandages on your
boo-boos. Or you could act like a numbskull and run up huge medical bills trying
to survive it. Your choice.
P.A. MacLean,
October 2, 2007
Medicare premiums will near $100 a month in 2008 for the 43 million
elderly Americans who are covered. That
3.1% rise in premiums
may not worry you yet, but it probably concerns your parents. To
put the number in perspective, the premium has doubled since 2000.
Remember, the government opened Medicare to private plans and the
insurance companies promised market efficiency would bring more benefits for
less cost. But that doesn’t
appear to be the way things are working out.
In addition, the patient deductible for Medicare-covered hospital stays
jumps to over $1,000 next year as well. Somebody in Congress better mind the store. So far, there is plenty of posturing for political advantage, but not
much action.
P.A. MacLean,
October 2, 2007
Hard
as it is caring for an elderly parent, it you’re one of millions of people who
also handles a parent's finances, then you’ve also had to deal with the Medicare
bureaucracy. If getting old
isn’t for sissies, then unraveling Medicare red tape requires the stamina of
Rocky Marciano. First,
you may not know the medical services mom or dad received.
Bills are no help because they usually just state, “total amount
due.” Want help?
Don’t try calling the Medicare helpline, a privately contracted affair.
Waits are long. The staff, under
pressure to keep up a high volume of call responses, have even hung up on callers
if the answer wasn’t satisfying. So the government decided to use automated answers. The results: an
Inspector General's
report found only five of 206 people who called got an answer to their
question from the automaton. We
just may be doomed.
Cathie Ramey,
September 27, 2007
Baby Boomers and their parents are getting closer to their dream of staying at
home as they age. Not only is there a growing use of adult
day care services, as explained in Cecily O'Connor's story on RedwoodAge.com,
but the Department of Health and Human Services announced an $8.8
million dollar infusion into nursing home diversion programs in 12
states. At
a time when nursing home costs are skyrocketing and Americans are relocating
to foreign soil in order to pay for care, it seems that our government is
beginning to take note. In order to qualify for Medicaid
many older adults and those with disabilities are often forced to spend down
their assets. Services such as feeding, dressing
or bathing can often be provided in the home, but may require the hiring
of caregivers and not everyone has the financial resources to do so. Sadly,
alternatives are limited. Home is much more than a place to eat
and sleep; it represents who we are and where we've been. Giving
people a better opportunity to remain in the environment that encompasses
their life story is truly a gift from the heart.
Cathy Bowman,
September 22, 2007
When it comes to health questions, too much information can be a bad thing.
One night my urine turned bright pink. After I Googled myself into a lather, I
figured out the culprit: beets. Oops! With all the information floating around
the web these days, it's easy to turn into Woody Allen. Remember his
hypochondriac in “Hannah and Her Sisters?” A new study shows boomers rely
primarily on their doctors for health advice – yet they also go online and
talk to friends and family. Ultimately, it's a question of faith. Do you rely on
your doctor in the face of an illness? Do you whine to your best friend? Do you
use your intuition as your guide? A lot of people – myself included –
“don't want to bother the doctor” unless it's something big. Of course, if
you happen to have a physician in the family who lives 3,000 miles away, you
call them first. "Hi! How are the kids? Um, by the way, I have a rash shaped like
Italy on my foot. It won't kill me, right?" When I call my brother the doctor, he
kindly tells me what I already know: If you have any concerns, call your doctor.
Cathie Ramey,
September 18, 2007
Boomers
are eating healthy snacks yet four out of five of them are overweight. Something’s
just not right here. The truth is, no
matter how healthy our snacks are, if we’re consuming too many calories every
day, obesity is just a forkful away. Appearances
aside, the chronic illnesses that result from obesity will launch boomers into a
downward spiral of disease, disability and decline faster than you can say
Titanic. As a group of people who plan to
work longer, play harder, and look younger than any generation before us,
we’re missing one really big point and that is, in order to pursue these
admirable goals as we age, we need to be relatively free from chronic illness.
The link between cardiovascular disease, diabetes, joint pain and obesity is
well established. This is not to say we
shouldn’t enjoy a scoop of our favorite ice cream now and then, but I
encourage everyone who wants to optimize their aging potential to do it through
exercise, portion control and all-around healthy eating. While it’s a good
start, I think we all know it’s going to take more than choosing an apple over
a maple scone to realize a long and healthy life.
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