Dealing with Your Digital Afterlife

By Mary Jacobs
Sara Ivey, 63, calls it one of the few gifts of cancer: time to plan.

When her husband, Jerald Sluder, was diagnosed with advanced melanoma, the Dallas couple had time to organize his affairs before his death in December 2016 at age 64. In addition to drawing up a will and advanced health care directives, they assembled a list of login information for his email and social media accounts as well as his banking and investment accounts.  Read more...

Chinese American Families: Stressed Out over Caregiving

By Lotus Chau
Almost three in four Chinese American family caregivers say they feel the stress and burden of caring for their elderly parents, according to a recent study from Rush University Medical Center and Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.  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...
 

Lying to Mom?

August 14, 2017 By Pepper Evans
A few years ago, a New York Times New Old Age blog had me thinking about my mother's later-life driving. The blog is about lying to an older person, ostensibly for his or her own good. In one tale, a grown daughter sabotages her mother's driver's license renewal to avoid confrontation over concerns about waning driving skills.  Read more...

Health experts are talking about…

August 11, 2017 By Liz Seegert
…how drinking coffee may help us live longer. Coffee lovers, rejoice. In the largest look so far at the effects of drinking coffee, it turns out that those of us who drink about three cups a day may live longer than our non-coffee-drinking counterparts.  Read more...