If you take care of your parents or other elderly, how are you preparing to age gracefully?
Experiencing firsthand how difficult an aging alcoholic, quadriplegic, post stroke, narcissistic, demented or simply ‘nothing’s wrong with me, I can drive, I don’t need those meds, I don’t need to go to a nursing facility’ kinda parent surely gives you some insight on what to do, what not to do and how to prepare for our own aging and eventual demise.
How do you plan to age gracefully and what advice do you have for us all?
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Stay active. It really is “use it or lose it” with physical and mental abilities.
My aunt and uncle are both 90. My uncle has always used a treadmill or standing desk for his computer and pulls long hours in front of it still doing pro bono legal work even though he’s been “retired” for several decades. He walks to the grocery store and carries the groceries home. He walks barefoot around the block every morning and has a body weight fitness routine he does every other day. He’s doing just fine, his brain wheels turn a little slower but they work just as well as ever.
My aunt got very sedentary around age 75. Her mother developed dementia around that age and she just sort of settled in and waited for it to come. Maybe it is hereditary and there was no point in doing anything else, maybe not. She’s wheelchair bound now, just from lack of strength, not really any medical issue. She can take a few supported steps to transfer, but that’s it. Her short term memory is gone, I go have lunch with her twice a week and she knows who I am, but as I’m leaving she’ll say she’s sorry we couldn’t have had lunch while I was there and it’s a shame I can’t visit more often. It’s not really out of bounds for 90, but I’d rather take my uncles route than hers.
My mom stayed fit and walked everywhere, and was a teacher and curious lifelong learner& traveler sort of person and still got dementia before she died. Her mom too. Honestly it terrifies me but there is only so much you can control. I do work out and stay fit and so far so good, I honestly feel great. My hope is that science comes through with a good treatment, and between me & my husband we have a lot of children to hopefully help some if we need it.
and this is why we should be rioting in the streets about the state of the medicinal industry, we could have the ability to cure terrible ailments like dementia and cancer, but because that's not actively profitable we only allocate some token amounts of funding to the research, and what few treatments we do have are hideously expensive for many people to the point that they might as well just spend the money on enjoying their last few years of life than spend it on extending their lives by a few more years..
We as a society have just decided that profit for a couple thousand rich people is more important than ourselves being able to continue living.
Thank you for this rant and I agree, I ought not need to spend years being greedy as fuck just to be able to afford end of life care.