Life Done Right™

It’s the new year, so stop talking about cleaning out those overstuffed closets and do it today! There’s no more excuses, especially if you read about how clutter and lack organization might be a sign of a depression. Remember Jack Nicholson in The Shining, where he’s sitting at that table typing the same sentence [...]

The notion of zapping the brain with a couple jolts of electricity in order to shock it out of depression seems about as informed as applying leeches to the body in an effort to rid the blood of unwanted impurities. When all else fails, though, and the days are growing darker by the minute, I [...]

How do you define conscientiousness? According to a couple of researchers, it’s mostly those “things our parents told us to do.” You know, like finish all the food on your plate regardless of portion size. Or take out the trash. Or mow the lawn. Why does it matter? Because your level of conscientiousness just might [...]

Elderly suicide rates by state for 1999-2004
Imagine coming home from work to find this on your grandmother’s door: “Don’t come in by yourself. Get somebody to come with you. Sorry, Love Beale.” 72-year-old Anne Beale Golsan had shot herself in the head. Depression is usually a lifelong condition. Whether it leads to someone deciding [...]

The burden of the caregiver is relentless. Quite often the health of the caregiver deteriorates at the same or accelerated rate of the person they are trying to help. Adult day care centers are designed to provide activities for those suffering from dementia or Alzheimer’s disease. The problem: caregivers think nobody can take care of [...]

Alzheimer’s disease just may turn out to replace the word cancer as the most feared diagnosis. Aside from people living longer, there must be some logical explanation for why the human mind is susceptible to this horrible condition. Someone recently declared, “I’d rather have a physical illness than a mental illness any day!” If that [...]

The dark side of aging is the fact that memory takes a rain check but fails to honor its promise of recall. A name or face that was as familiar as a hundred dollar bill burning a hole in your pocket suddenly vanishes on the spot. Can anything be done about this tragedy? Researchers have [...]

This is a sad tale. An 85-year-old Bulgarian man jumped out of a hospital window to meet his fate. That’s no way to end your life on the planet earth.
Elderly Bulgarian Jumps off Hospital Window, Dies

The Doctor’s Dream, Ackermann aquatint, 1813
Dr. Atul Gawande offers a glimpse into the world of geriatric medicine in his recent article for the New Yorker. Geriatric medicine, it turns out, is not such a hot choice of profession for most doctors. The field, in fact, has declining enrollment. Dr. Gawande reports, “Despite a rapidly growing [...]

© Zed Stri
Some days fatigue sets in and despite your best efforts, it’s a losing battle. There’s nothing you can do accept surrender your body to your mind and call it an afternoon. Photographer Zed Stri caught the moment to remind us of our mortality.

Announcement:
Alzheimer Day was established to showcase Alzheimer’s research conducted at Northwestern and bring this information to the community. The day begins with a lecture by an outstanding researcher followed by 45-50 poster presentations by Northwestern clinicians and scientists who are conducting basic science, clinical and social science research in addition to developing new programs and [...]

Five million people currently have Alzheimer’s Disease, a form of dementia that mucks up the brain chemistry required to make the rest of your body work. This is the first article I’ve read that suggests this disease is in fact a disease and not some rite of passage that comes with growing older. Is this [...]

It’s tough when your best friend is about to die. Words just seem like gasps of air that completely fail to communicate the emotion that lives inside you. How do you talk about anything without suggesting the end is really the end. It’s strange that for most of our lives we go about our business [...]

Would you want to know at a young age if you were going to suffer Parkinson’s Disease, Alzheimer’s Disease, or some other terrible genetic mutation when you got older? Now that the Genome is pretty much mapped, the ability to test for particular diseases is going to become more common. The fallout from learning about [...]

Authorities: Elderly Couple Robbed In Rockingham County
WXII ThePiedmontChannel.com via Yahoo! News Thu, 08 Mar 2007 5:58 AM PST
Authorities said an elderly couple lost several hundred dollars after two men entered the home and claimed they worked for a heating and air conditioning company.
Elderly woman mauled by show dog
Boston Herald Thu, 08 Mar 2007 1:42 PM [...]

Get ready for Shirley MacLaine and Olympia Dukakis starring together in a movie called Poor Things, to be directed by the cousin of the director responsible for Borat. The script “was inspired by real news events and crime scandals surrounding recent arrests and convictions of elderly women for various “grandma gang” exploits, which have included [...]

This documentary is not for everyone, but that said, it offers, at least based on the trailer, a profound glimpse into the human condition. There comes a snapping point for some that resolves itself through the quest to end their life. The question then becomes where? For some, it’s the Golden Gate Bridge in San [...]

As the dark days of winter approach, maybe now would be a good time to find out if your mood swings are the result of depression or a fondness for being a spoiled brat. The web being a source everything these days even offers up treatment plans for depression. So quit losing friends and start [...]

If you thought age brings maturity, forget it. There’s a stunning study out that says women in their 40’s HATE their bodies. Baby Boomers are going to do for plastic surgery what the intermittent windshield wiper did for cars…wipe away all those tears.
Women in their 40s are developing eating disorders because they hate the way [...]

When you walk by a pet store and see that doggy in the window, does it make you pause and wonder what if…what if I simply walked in and bought that abandoned dog and took it home and fed it and played with it and just plain loved it. Would it love me back?
Howell Raines, [...]