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.