Why is it that families are kept so far out of the loop when it comes to a loved one’s health?

The quick, easy answer, of course, is the nation’s health insurance portability and accountability act (HIPAA). Physicians are able to share only certain information with the family unless the patient agrees to more. The problem is that the patient might be too elderly, addicted or mentally ill to cooperate or even understand what they are agreeing to (or simply stubborn).

Certainly individual civil liberties must be taken into consideration. This writer, in fact, is more than moderately liberal.

But there is a blurry but significant line that puts human wisdom to the test, as we evaluate true need for family assistance.

As they age, our parents might need more help. But you might not know exactly how to lend a hand or even where to start. Plus, what do you do if your parents balk at your attempts to assist them?

While every situation is unique, Christina Steinorth, MFT, a psychotherapist and author of Cue Cards for Life: Thoughtful Tips for Better Relationships, offered her suggestions for helping aging parents.

1. Empathize with your parents.

Sometimes you might be taken aback by your parents’ frustration, moody behavior or neediness. In fact, on some days, they might be downright unpleasant to be around. But it’s important to be empathetic and understand where they’re coming from. According to Steinorth, “Aging is a series of losses — loss of employment, health and energy, friends, mobility, and independence.” Consider how you’d feel if you were in their situation, she said.

There’s a disconnect between how we treat sick people and how they want to be treated, according to Letty Cottin Pogrebin, author of the new book How to Be a Friend to a Friend Who’s Sick.

We stay silent. We say stupid things. We go from being sensitive, sensible, kind adults to rambling niceties or making downright rude remarks.

Illness, understandably, makes us nervous.

Fortunately, Pogrebin’s book helps us navigate the muddied waters of illness and mortality. It’s packed with practical tips and valuable insights.

Pogrebin was inspired to write the book after observing the varied reactions from her own friends to her breast cancer diagnosis. Some friends misunderstood her needs and acted awkwardly. Others were supportive and compassionate.

In the book, she shares these personal experiences, along with powerful accounts of people offering support to others. She also shares the words of almost 80 of her fellow patients at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. She interviewed these individuals to find out how they really wanted to be treated.

I’m sitting down for my yearly physical with the blood pressure machine in view. From the displeased expression on the nurse’s face, I gather it wasn’t a perfect reading. Instead of jotting the numbers down in her notes, realizing that I’m probably just nervous (because I do have “white coat syndrome”), she sighs and expresses the urgency to take my blood pressure again and again, until she’s satisfied with the result.

Then, I walk into the lab next door for a blood test and the line I hear is: “Oh, your blood pressure was high, let me see if I can draw your blood now.”

Wait, what? Do they actually think that these comments will make me feel more relaxed?

This guest article from YourTango was written by Leslie Rouder.

The challenges facing a person who is married or in a relationship with someone who has untreated Attention Deficit Disorder or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADD or ADHD) can be difficult to navigate.

These challenges may be completely hidden to the rest of the world. No one seems to understand what you struggle with. Your spouse is such a “great guy” and may appear “together” to everyone else.

This article attempts to address some of the predictable patterns that one may experience being married to someone with ADD or ADHD and why it creates such difficulty. 

Being married to someone with untreated ADD is often fraught with a predictable progressive pattern that goes from happy to confused to angry, and finally, to hopeless. How does this happen and why is this so predictable in couples whose spouses have untreated ADD or ADHD?

If you’re a parent, educator or someone who works with kids in some other capacity, you know how frustrating and challenging it can be when a child misbehaves.

At school, teachers face varying forms of misbehavior: A child may wander around the classroom when he is supposed to be working at his desk, or talk out of turn when she is supposed to raise her hand. 

Parents often confront issues such as siblings squabbling at dinnertime, or children whining or throwing tantrums when they don’t get their way.

Most of us know someone who has mental illness. For some of us, it is a loved one or a family member. For others, it may be a friend, classmate or co-worker. People who suffer everything from depression and bipolar disorder, to severe anxiety and even schizophrenia.

Some of us live closely with such folks, responsible for their care and their very lives.

Sadly, there just aren’t a lot of resources or support for such caregivers. What information and support that is out there is often lacking. I hope this blog by Tamara Hill, MS can change things.

This blog is primarily about the challenges facing family, friends, and caregivers who have a family member with an untreated or severe mental illness.

Isn’t anywhere safe anymore?

You can send your kids off to the movies — and they may get shot. Or they might go to hang out at the mall — and risk getting shot. Or to high school or college — where they might get shot. Kids get kidnapped on their way home from school and abducted out of their beds.

Now 20 first graders have been gunned down in their first grade classrooms.

In the last few years, our national sense of safety has been repeatedly shaken. We can’t take it for granted that when innocent kids do innocent, everyday things, they will risk nothing more than a belly ache from eating too much popcorn or an argument with a friend.

Nearly one-third of people caring for terminally ill loved ones suffer from depression according to research from Yale University. About one in four family caregivers meet the clinical criteria of anxiety. And a recent study found that 41 percent of former caregivers of a spouse with Alzheimer’s disease or another form of dementia experienced mild to severe depression up to three years after their spouse had died.

Caregivers are so vulnerable to depression because they often sacrifice their own needs while tending to their loved one and because of the constant stress involved.

So here are 12 tips to help protect you from anxiety and depression and to guide you toward good mental health as you care for a relative.

Last week the Boy Scouts of America released their records detailing the history of sex abuse in the group.  They titled these files the “perversion files.”  The purpose of the files, kept since at least 1919, was to keep a record of pedophiles to ensure they did not re-enter the organization.

However, they show that some abusers slipped through the cracks, others were given a second chance and include evidence of some failures to take proper steps to report suspected abuse to authorities.

The Boy Scouts have issued an acknowledgement that in some incidents their response was “insufficient, inappropriate and wrong” and have apologized for their mishandling of certain situations.

And let’s not forget that generations of boys have had healthy, positive, life-affirming experiences with the Boy Scouts.  This current report, which involves a small fraction of the millions of volunteers over the years, should not discount the positive aspects of the organization, the skills it has taught and positive values it has instilled in many boys

At the same time, are there lessons to be learned from the report?

I very much appreciate Dr. Grohol’s taking the time to comment on my essay about physician-assisted suicide. I have great respect for his wisdom, judgment and fairness, and I recognize that reasonable people will disagree on this hotly-contested and complex issue.

I certainly don’t pretend to have reached any final “truth” in the matter of physician-assisted suicide (PAS). At the same time, I believe that Dr. Grohol’s conclusions (1) rest on several misapprehensions regarding my own position; the ethical responsibilities of physicians; and the relevant medical facts pertaining to terminally ill patients.

Dr. Grohol argues that the debate is really “…about patient empowerment, human dignity and choice.”

I fully agree with Dr. Grohol that the patient’s autonomy is of great importance; indeed, autonomy is considered one of the four cardinal principles of medical ethics, along with benevolence, nonmalfeasance and justice (2).

But sometimes, medical ethics must set limits on a patient’s autonomous requests, even in the context of an understandable choice on the patient’s part. Thus, a patient may feel completely justified and “empowered” in requesting that the dose of her pain medication be doubled, even though that would be extremely dangerous to her health.

No one wants to be told he or she has cancer.  The initial lack of control and feelings of helplessness are often traumatic experiences. The usual reactions are anger, depression and terror-laced anxiety.

While survival rates for many cancers have improved, there are quality of life issues following the diagnosis, including the emotional difficulty of coping with the anniversary date.  Survival rates are measured in 1-, 5- and 10-year markers.  This often creates an emotional conflict as the diagnosis date approaches.  Each year provides a measure both of success and trepidation.  Diagnosis day is when the war on cancer begins in your body.  It is sometimes shortened to military lingo for the day an attack or operation is launched: D-Day.

As with most traumas, people can tell you the vivid details of their diagnosis. They remember the time, what was said, what they did, and what they felt.  D-day is etched in their psyche, and as the anniversary date approaches, so does the anxiety.

But one woman, Jen Cunningham Butler, has done something different. In honor of breast cancer awareness month I wanted to tell you her story.