The Over 65 Blog
This is an archive. The Hastings Center is no longer currently maintaining this project.
-
Living in the Land of Limbo
This is not an impartial review. I’m a great admirer of Carol Levine’s work on family caregiving. Though we’ve never met in person, Carol has written seven terrific posts for Over 65. But despite my conflict of interest, I guarantee that if you read Living in the Land of Limbo: Fiction and Poetry about Family…
-
Fathers, Sons, and Books
In November, 2012, I wrote a post about my mother’s hospice care. Mom died peacefully on January 6, 2013 at the age of 93. This post is about my father. Over the past three weeks I have spent more “quality time” with my father than ever before. We have had a lot to review about…
-
Perry’s Graduation
My granddaughter Perry graduated from high school in June. It was a wonderful event on a beautiful day and she made us proud by winning a prize for her work in the social sciences. What made that event extra special was that she has lived with us for all of her 18 years, and this…
-
Seventy-five Year Old Doctors Talk about Death
Here’s what George Eliot wrote in Silas Marner about how the elderly contemplate the prospect of death: “…it is often observable, that the older a man gets, the more difficult it is for him to retain a believing conception of his own death.” I observed the opposite at my fiftieth medical school reunion in June.…
-
A Living Resume
On the occasion of my last birthday, a friend asked how it feels to be growing old? I proffered first, the old bromide that in my head I feelabout thirty, but my body groans a wholly different story. Then I joked that when people intone, “Well, you’re only as old as you feel,” I reflexively…
-
Will guilt keep me from doing what is best for my Alzheimer spouse?
I met Vickie in Your Father’s Mustache, a sing-along place in Greenwich Village 46 years ago. She had long dark hair and wore a poncho like Clint Eastwood in Fistful of Dollars. She was singing and swaying with such joy. She had the kind of face you could look at the rest of your life. …
-
Robert Frost and the Decline of the Medical Profession
The title of this post is deliberately mysterious, but you’ll understand it at the end. At my 50th medical school reunion in June, my classmates agreed that while the goals of medicine are as valid as ever, the profession itself is in decline. Here’s a quote from the Preface to our reunion book: “A frequent…
-
Dementia and the Goals of Care
Even though you think and behave perfectly normally, you might already have Alzheimer’s disease. In fact, you might warrant the label of “pre-clinical Alzheimer’s disease” for a full 20 years before graduating to the full-fledged condition. That according to the latest definition of Alzheimer’s put forward by the National Institute on Aging together with Alzheimer’s Association…
-
A Retirement Community’s Private and Public Affairs
Our move from the Washington area to a retirement community in Baltimore called Roland Park Place came five ago when, I was 81 and my wife, Pat, was 80. It was concerns about our health and a concerted push from our seven children that propelled us to decide to move. It had become more noticeable that Pat might have Alzheimer’s. For me,…
-
Aging with Purpose
Near the end of my clinical career as a psychiatrist, I, like so many other psychiatrists, was required to do more in less time. In order to use that precious time as best as possible, I wondered if there was anything else I could do to offset that limitation. Soon, I recalled the landmark book…