Aging

Californians with Medicare coverage would no longer be surprised by huge medical bills stemming from “observation care” in hospitals under legislation that state lawmakers approved overwhelmingly last week and sent to Gov. Jerry Brown to sign into law. The sticker-shock can happen when people go to the hospital but health care providers are not sure […]

SANTA MONICA, Calif. — Dominick Bailey sat at his computer, scrutinizing the medication lists of patients in the geriatric unit. A doctor had prescribed blood pressure medication for a 99-year-old woman at a dose that could cause her to faint or fall. An 84-year-old woman hospitalized for knee surgery was taking several drugs that were not […]

Everything initially went well with Barbara Charnes’ surgery to fix a troublesome ankle. But after leaving the hospital, the 83-year-old soon found herself in a bad way. Dazed by a bad response to anesthesia, the Denver resident stopped eating and drinking. Within days, she was dangerously weak, almost entirely immobile and alarmingly apathetic. “I didn’t […]

Dementia took over Pauline Finster’s 91-year-old mind long ago and she may die without having another real conversation with her daughter. After Finster broke her hip in July 2015, Jackie Mantua noticed her mother’s speech ebbing until she only said “hi,” or that she felt fine. Mantua last heard Finster speak six months ago. Finster’s […]

A federally funded project that researchers say has potential to promote aging in place began by asking low-income seniors with disabilities how their lives at home could be better, according to a study released Wednesday. At the end of the program, 75 percent of participants were able to perform more daily activities than they could […]

Elderly Americans’ well-being is at risk unless the U.S. does much more to help millions of family caregivers who sacrifice their own health, finances and personal lives to look out for loved ones, reported a study released Tuesday. Nearly 18 million people care for a relative who is 65 or older and needs help, yet […]

Your 80-something-year-old dad has just been admitted to the hospital’s intensive care unit after a stroke or a heart attack. Now, he’s surrounded by blinking monitors, with tubes in his arms and alarms going off around him. You’re scared and full of uncertainty. Will the vital, still-healthy man you’ve known recover and be able to return […]

Ask Kathy Kenyon about what it’s like to be a family caregiver, and she’ll give you an earful. On several occasions, doctors have treated this accomplished lawyer like she was an interloper — not the person to whom her elderly parents had entrusted health care and legal decision-making. Kenyon wasn’t told how to identify signs that […]

BEVERLY HILLS — Sitting beside a neatly made crib, 88-year-old Vivian Guzofsky held up a baby doll dressed in puppy dog pajamas. “Hello gorgeous,” she said, laughing. “You’re so cute.” Guzofsky, who has Alzheimer’s disease, lives on a secure memory floor of a home for seniors. Nearly every day, she visits the dolls in the home’s […]

LOS ANGELES — Rini Kramer-Carter has tried everything to pull herself out of her dark emotional hole: individual therapy, support groups, tai chi and numerous antidepressants. The 73-year-old musician rattles off the list: Prozac, Cymbalta, Lexapro. “I’ve been on a bunch,” she said. “I still cry all the time.” She has what’s known as “treatment-resistant […]