Honey, Sweetie, Dearie: The Perils of Elderspeak August 28, 2025 - Elderspeak is a kind of baby talk sometimes used when speaking to older people, especially those living with dementia. Elderspeak is common and it’s alienating. Journalist Paula Span reports that in one study, nursing home staff used elderspeak in 84…
Medical Research Is Shortchanging Older Women July 27, 2024 - In the past, scientists assumed that males and females were so much alike that the results of studies done on men applied to women as well. They don’t. For this article, journalist Judith Graham asked top doctors and medical researchers…
Do We Simply Not Care about Older People? April 23, 2024 - The COVID-19 pandemic would be a wake-up call for America, advocates for the elderly predicted
Changing the Way You Think about Aging Can Improve Your Life December 28, 2022 - People’s beliefs about aging have a profound impact on their health, influencing everything from their memory and sensory perceptions to how well they walk, how fully they recover from disabling illness and how long they live. 
A Photographer’s Rich Portrait of Aging November 22, 2022 - What happens when a 70-something professional photographer sets out to record her own body as she ages and the bodies of other, older people, sometimes naked and sometimes not? In this article, Journalist Judith Graham interviews the photographer, Marna Clarke,…
COVID Spotlights the Ageism in Health Care April 21, 2022 - Earlier this year, the World Health Organization announced a global campaign to combat ageism—discrimination against older adults that is pervasive and harmful but often unrecognized. 
Minister for Older Adults Has Seen How Pervasive Ageism Is February 25, 2022 - Later life is a time of reassessment and reflection. What sense do we make of the lives we have lived?
Bob Blancato: Fighting Elder Abuse through Politics November 11, 2020 - In 1981, a US Senate committee released the first congressional report on a problem that was gradually coming to light—one that was “shameful” and “alien to the American spirit.” It was being called elder abuse. 
Why Black Aging Matters Too September 9, 2020 - Old. Chronically ill. Black. People who fit this description are more likely to die from COVID-19 than any other group in the country.
Is Aging a Disease? June 24, 2020 - The first depiction of humanity’s obsession with curing death is The Epic of Gilgamesh—which, dating back to at least 1800 BC, is also one of the first recorded works of literature, period. 
A Doctor Speaks Out about Ageism in Medicine March 24, 2020 - Society gives short shrift to older age. This distinct phase of life doesn’t get the same attention that’s devoted to childhood.
Starving Seniors: How America Fails to Feed Its Aging September 13, 2019 - Army veteran Eugene Milligan is 75 years old and blind. He uses a wheelchair since losing half his right leg to diabetes and gets dialysis for kidney failure.
And he has struggled to get enough to eat.
Bucking Ageism in Philanthropy November 6, 2018 - There are a lot of problems in the United States. Take the fact that our country is aging. By 2035, Americans 65 and older will outnumber kids for the first time in our history...
What’s Missing in Philanthropy? October 8, 2018 - Every year, American grantmakers donate tens of billions of dollars to nonprofits, to help make the world a better place. Yet only 1 percent of those dollars goes to aging-related projects...
Margaret Morganroth Gullette: Revolutionist against Ageism April 20, 2018 - Ageism did not end with the 20th century. But there were hopes. Feminism had brought changes for women, rights movements had brought changes for black people and disabled people, and the—well, there was no widespread, organized movement for older people. 
Don’t Deny Your Age—Celebrate It! March 7, 2018 - Recently someone asked me if I would participate in a talk called "Don’t Let an Old Person Move into Your Body." I thought about it for several days, and then I declined.
Marc Agronin: There’s Power in Growing Old January 21, 2018 - Marc Agronin, MD, knows old age—as much as a 51-year-old could anyway. In particular, he knows difficult old age.
What’s a New Word for ‘Old’? January 10, 2018 - Warren Wood is old. He’s proud he’s old. He advertises the fact that he is old by wearing a cap that says UFO in red letters. “What’s UFO?” people ask. “United Flying Octogenarians,” Wood, 86, of Carmel, CA, happily responds.…
How to Challenge Ageist Language January 10, 2018 - For people sensitive to words and the connection of words, beliefs and behaviors, the last linguistic battle was probably against sexism in language—the so-called “generic he,” the misuse of “girl,” the exclusionary words like “chairman” and “statesman,” the rise of “Ms.” as a title.
Blame the Man, Not His Age April 4, 2017 - It started well before the stunning 2016 election. Politico’s Michael Tortorello asked in a February 28 posting, “Is Donald Trump Too Old to Be President?” As his birthday loomed in June, USA Today’s Bill Sternberg posted, “Trump at 70, Just the Way He Is.”
Gaming: A Way to Exercise Older Brains - Video games have always been part of Shawn Etheridge’s life. His interest was first sparked as a young teen, when he toted rolls of quarters to a nearby mall to play arcade games like Pong. As a young adult, as…
A Silent Killer in My Family - At my annual physical, I brought a list of concerns, feeling uneasy after learning that three of my siblings have high Lp(a), a form of cholesterol that increases the risk of heart and vascular disease. “I think I should get…