Age Happens: Causes of Memory Loss and Dementia, The
Strokes are the second leading cause of cognitive loss late in life. A person's language and memory system may be compromised by a major stroke, or by a series of small strokes that gradually diminish a person's cognitive capacity. The leading cause...
Age Happens: Healthy Lifestyle Can Slow Signs of Aging
A healthy lifestyle can help slow many of the physiological changes that are part of aging. People who age well eat right, exercise, and stay involved and active.
Age Happens: Assisted Living
Problems with declining health or increasing disability can make it difficult for the elderly to manage on their own. About 1 in 5 elderly people need help performing daily living activities. The Over 60 Health Center in East Oakland provides assist...
Age Happens: Chronic Conditions of Aging
In an ideal world, all of our diseases and problems would be compressed into the very last few years of life. But the reality is that people tend to get more chronic illnesses as they grow older. In this segment several chronic conditions that affec...
Age Happens: Aging and Cognitive Loss
The most alarming condition for many elderly people is the possibility of cognitive loss. Significant memory loss, dementia, is not normal. In addition to memory problems it is related to problems with language or spatial skills, judgment and reason...
Family Violence: Hidden Victims: Siblings and the Elderly
Certain victims of family abuse are referred to as "hidden," and receive little public attention. Violence between siblings is one such form. The stories of victims of sibling violence interviewed by researcher Vernon Wiehe give voice to their pli...
Final Chapter: Death Isn't What It Used to Be
A century ago, most people spent their last hours of life at home surrounded by family and friends. More recent generations have experienced death in the hospital often shrouded in machines and tubes. For many people death is a subject they choose n...
Final Chapter: Prolonging Life: A Patient's Choice
Some patients faced with a terminal illness do not want to prolong an existence that to them is subhuman. In the 1970s and '80s the medical profession felt it was their professional and legal obligation to do everything possible to prolong life. Cou...
Final Chapter: Hospice Care
Hospice care, palliative care for dying individuals, is lauded by patients and their families. It can be provided in the home or in specialized care settings, and allows patients and their families to experience love and support during their final d...
Final Chapter: Helping People Through the Dying Process
The subject of death is often as uncomfortable for doctors as the general public. Their focus is on healing and saving people; death is the enemy. There was a time when doctors did not always reveal that a patient's condition was terminal. Today pro...