Category: Aging

Medicare Open Enrollment Is Complicated. Here’s How to Get Good Advice.

It’s a complex program with many options — as well as confusing rules and nuances. Here’s how to get reliable guidance.

These Front-Line Workers Could Have Retired. They Risked Their Lives Instead.

An investigation by KHN and The Guardian shows that 329 health care workers age 65 or older have reportedly died of COVID-19.

Long-Term Care Workers, Grieving and Under Siege, Brace for COVID’s Next Round

As the coronavirus surges around the country, workers in nursing homes and assisted living centers are watching cases rise in long-term care facilities with a sense of dread. Many of these workers struggle with grief over the suffering they’ve witnessed.

Prayers and Grief Counseling After COVID: Trying to Aid Healing in Long-Term Care

With employees emotionally drained and residents suffering from loss, many nursing homes and assisted living centers are working with chaplains, social workers and mental health professionals to help people deal with the effects of the coronavirus.

Seniors Form COVID Pods to Ward Off Isolation This Winter

Older adults are deliberating what to do as days and nights turn chilly and coronavirus cases rise across the country. Some are forming “bubbles” with small groups of friends who agree on pandemic precautions and will see one another in person. Others are planning to go it alone.

They Work in Several Nursing Homes to Eke Out a Living, Possibly Spreading the Virus

An analysis of location data from 30 million smartphones found that facilities across the country that share the most workers also had the most COVID-19 infections. The “Kevin Bacon of nursing homes” in each state — the one with the most staffers working at other nursing homes — was likely to have the worst outbreaks of coronavirus contagion.

Despite COVID Concerns, Teams Venture Into Nursing Homes to Get Out the Vote

In North Carolina, staffs at nursing homes and assisted living facilities are prohibited by law from helping residents vote. So community members fill the gap, venturing into some of the places hit hardest by the coronavirus.

Older COVID Patients Battle ‘Brain Fog,’ Weakness and Emotional Turmoil

Seniors tend to have more serious symptoms than younger coronavirus patients, including the aftereffects of hospital-based delirium. Doctors recommend physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy and cognitive rehabilitation.

As Californians Get Older and Less Mobile, Fires Get Hotter and Faster

Retirement areas are increasingly being built in the idyllic wooded fringe of towns and cities. Being close to nature also means being in the path of wildfires.

Pandemic Erects Barriers for Prized Bloc of Voters in Nursing Homes, Senior Facilities

Voting is a point of pride for many older Americans, and senior living facilities in past years have encouraged the civic act by hosting voting precincts, providing transportation to the polls and bringing in groups to help explain election issues. But fears of the spread of the coronavirus among this vulnerable population make voting more difficult this year.