Older people cared for in specialized geriatric hospital units tend to decline at a slower pace than those given conventional hospital care, recent research suggests. Aging brings a certain amount of natural deterioration in cognitive performance, ...

When I was in graduate school in the mid-1970s, I felt strangely out of sync with my fellow students. Then I happened on Worlds of Pain, a groundbreaking book by Lillian Rubin about working-class life ...

Further evidence has come to light that drinking coffee may have a protective effect against dementia. Dementia and Alzheimer's disease are common problems in the elderly population. Although research is improving our knowledge of the ...

By the time she got into her 90s, my grandmother was a wise woman indeed. She was wise about life. She was also wise about death. As the youngest of eight, she had outlived all ...

When my grandfather's mother died in 1900 in rural Maine, it was his aunt who stepped in to raise him and his baby sister. When my friend Jill lost her mother in the 1950s, her ...

My friend Richard shook his head as he told me the story of his latest visit with his mother, Harriet, now in her late 80's. "I'd really like to see Mildred," she said. "So why don't you ...

Table of Contents: An Introduction to the Depression Series Types of Depression Symptoms of Depression and Mania Causes of Depression Depression in Women, Seniors and Children Diagnostic Evaluation and Treatment How to Help Yourself if You ...

"At first, I felt like I was being unfaithful to my late husband," says Paula, a 65-year-old widow who recently began dating again. Sam, a 70-year-old retiree, wants to date, "But my grown kids don't ...

On the old television show "The Golden Girls," four, over-60 widows live together, providing each other companionship, friendship and emotional support. Many seniors, however, lack this kind of social network. In fact, loneliness is a ...

A combination of trends is sparking heightened interest in generational issues. For one thing, people are simply living longer due to advances in medicine and preventive health. It's more common today, as opposed to 50 ...

You have an unexplained desire to buy a sports car. You're happily married, but you have started fantasizing about younger women. You go on a crash diet, and dream about starting over, being free. Does ...

If you or a grandparent plan to help your child financially, before or after death, you'll have to make special arrangements. Because of the laws surrounding public disability benefits -- benefits your adult child could ...

For lots of us baby boomer parents, it’s a surprise. Having done our best to move out of our own parents’ homes as soon as we could to assert our independence and get on with ...

Experts recently have shed light on the link between general anesthetics and cognitive problems. Anesthetics have been thought to cause cognitive dysfunction for a long time — the link was first highlighted in the 1950s. But ...

Folic acid supplementation could effectively prevent dementia in some people, recent research suggests. The possibility that low folic acid is a modifiable risk factor for dementia has been extensively studied. Dementia is linked to the ...