Aging

Robin Bolduc isn’t the type of person who takes “no” for an answer — particularly when it comes to fixing her husband’s wheelchair. Her husband, Bruce Goguen, 69, is paralyzed from multiple sclerosis. And without his chair, he would be stuck in bed, at risk of developing pneumonia or pressure sores that could lead to […]

Older adults who have survived covid-19 are more likely than younger patients to have persistent symptoms such as fatigue, breathlessness, muscle aches, heart palpitations, headaches, joint pain, and difficulty with memory and concentration — problems linked to long covid. But it can be hard to distinguish lingering aftereffects of covid from conditions common in older […]

Elizabeth Melville and her husband are gradually hiking all 48 mountain peaks that top 4,000 feet in New Hampshire. “I want to do everything I can to stay healthy so that I can be skiing and hiking into my 80s — hopefully even 90s!” said the 59-year-old part-time ski instructor who lives in the vacation […]

Los adultos mayores que han sobrevivido a covid-19 son más propensos que los pacientes más jóvenes a tener síntomas persistentes como fatiga, falta de aire, dolores musculares, palpitaciones, dolores de cabeza, dolor en las articulaciones y dificultad con la memoria y la concentración, problemas relacionados con covid de larga duración. Pero puede ser difícil distinguir […]

Mariel needed a new gastroenterologist. Having just moved back to San Antonio, the 30-something searched for a doctor to manage her Crohn’s disease, an inflammatory bowel condition that is successfully managed with medications and lifelong monitoring — including regular colonoscopies. Mariel booked an appointment and learned she would be on the hook for a $1,100 […]

Can’t see the audio player? Click here to listen. Click here for a transcript of the episode. When a listener wrote to us about a pricey colonoscopy quote, we got curious. It turns out, a few years back, investors identified gastroenterology as their next hot-ticket item.  Private equity companies are the house-flippers of the investment world, […]

Something strange happened between the time Linda Griffith signed up for a new Medicare prescription drug plan during last fall’s enrollment period and when she tried to fill her first prescription in January. She picked a Humana drug plan for its low prices, with help from her longtime insurance agent and Medicare’s Plan Finder, an […]

Patricia Keys, 71 and a stroke survivor, needs help with many everyday activities, such as dressing and bathing. Her daughter Christina, who lives near her mom in Vancouver, Washington, cares for her in the evenings and pays about $3,000 a month for help from other caregivers. Christina Keys, 53, was thrilled three years ago when […]

In his State of the Union address last month, President Joe Biden focused attention on how private equity ownership of nursing homes can affect residents’ health. “As Wall Street firms take over more nursing homes, quality in those homes has gone down and costs have gone up. That ends on my watch,” Biden said. Those […]

People’s beliefs about aging have a profound impact on their health, influencing everything from their memory and sensory perceptions to how well they walk, how fully they recover from disabling illness, and how long they live. When aging is seen as a negative experience (characterized by terms such as decrepit, incompetent, dependent, and senile), individuals […]