012 – Q&A: Answers to Your Questions On Aging & Health

In This Episode:

Dr. K answers nine audience questions related to the health of older adults:

• How many extra opinions to get from different doctors when you have a serious condition?
• What causes legs to feel unbalanced and prone to falling?
• How to deal with declining abilities, dementia, and physical dependency when you don’t have family to provide care or money to hire someone?
• Is there a way to recapture sexual activity after three impotent years?
• Why doesn’t Medicare cover hearing aids?
• Why is it so difficult for people to admit they are aging and why do we shove aging people aside? What can be done about this, to help us prepare for an aging society?
• Is chronic muscle pain an indication of old age and is it bad to ignore it?
• What does conservative treatment for severe chronic kidney disease involve and what happens if you decide to not start dialysis?
• What is normal aging in the area of memory loss?

Related Resources:

• 4 Steps to Get Better Advice From Doctors
• Be a Prepared Patient: Seek Knowledge About Your Health
• Be a Prepared Patient: Make Good Treatment Decisions
• UpToDate.com

• Why Older People Fall
• 005 Expert Interview: Otago & Proven Exercises for Fall Prevention

• Eldercare Locator (use to find local Area Agency on Aging)
• Family Care Alliance Care Navigator
• Addressing Medical, Legal, & Financial Advance Care Planning
• Sexual Dysfunction in Males

• Medicare.gov: Hearing & balance exams & hearing aids
• AARP: Paying for Your Hearing Aid: Where to go for financial help
• The Hurdles to Getting Hearing Aids
• Hearing Loss Association of America’s: Hearing Loss Basics
• Frameworks Institute: Reframing Aging

• MayoClinic.com: Fibromyalgia
• The 2015 American Geriatrics Society Updated Beers Criteria: Medications that Older Adults Should Avoid or Use with Caution
• Are Over-the-Counter Anti-inflammatory Pain Relievers Safe for Older Adults?

• Kidney Disease, Kidney Failure and Palliative Care
• Conservative management of end-stage renal disease
• Palliative care: End-stage renal disease
• What is Hospice?

• Cognitive Aging: Progress in Understanding and Opportunities for Action
• 10 Early Signs and Symptoms of Alzheimer’s