Drug Complications: Is Medical Marijuana Truly a Viable Option?

By Liz Seegert
After Jane broke her ankle, walking even short distances was a painful challenge. The 63-year-old had been an avid hiker and gardener and was stifled by her limited mobility. To make matters worse, she couldn’t tolerate the side effects of prescription painkillers.  Read more...

New Laws Block Little Fraud—But Many Older Voters

By Paul Kleyman
Much of the reporting about the voter ID laws many states have passed in recent years has centered on how they often block access to the polls by lower income, minority and naturalized citizens. But a subtext has been the barring of many older people from their right to vote.  Read more...

What Is Old Age For?

By William Thomas, MD
Old age is humanity's greatest invention, and on an even deeper level, it invented us. Old age transformed the way our most distant ancestors gave birth, reared their young, lived together, and fed themselves. Later it propelled the development of culture, language, and society.  Read more...
 

Three-Generation Households: Are They History?

By Flora Davis
Nestled within the American psyche is a nostalgic image of a three-generation household: an older couple sitting by the fire with grandchildren playing about their feet while the children’s parents look on fondly. Yet in the 21st century, so few families include live-in grandparents that some social critics have accused Americans of abandoning the older generation. Surely, they scold, grown children usually took in their aging parents in the past.  Read more...
 

Adrift in Time

September 22, 2016 By Maggie Sullivan
I was taking my mother to Maine to visit her brother. They had lived in New Jersey within a few blocks of each other their entire lives until, due to her dementia, she moved in with me. A month later, he and my aunt moved to Maine to be near their daughters. I knew my mother missed him, so I thought this trip would make her happy. Indeed, she was overjoyed when I told her we were going.  Read more...

Age Takes Center Stage around the Brexit Vote—Not in a Good Way

September 14, 2016 By Ashton Applewhite
On June 23, 2016, a referendum (a vote in which everyone of voting age can take part) was held to decide whether the United Kingdom should leave or remain in the European Union. Leave won by 52 percent to 48 percent. The unexpected result generated widespread shock—no surprise, given the far-reaching economic and political consequences. What did take me aback was the vitriol directed at older voters, who were blamed in appalling terms.  Read more...