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Keeping Your Parents Healthy
By Sheryl Gay Stolberg
Smart strategies to get your parents the best possible medical care.
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Clearly, modern medicine is helping people live longer. But that doesn't mean it's become more attuned to meeting the unique needs of people in their 70s and beyond. On the contrary, the health-care system often works against older Americans. While all medical schools require doctors to be trained in pediatrics, only a handful require training in geriatrics, the specialty that focuses on promoting health and preventing disability in older adults.
All too often, experts say, treatable illnesses in older people are misdiagnosed, or dismissed as a normal facet of aging. For example, a 75-year-old can have a heart attack without chest pain. The confusion caused by a hearing problem can be mistaken for Alzheimer's disease. And mental fogginess may be caused not by dementia, but by dehydration, which occurs with greater frequency among the elderly because they are more likely to forget to drink enough water (or they may take high-blood-pressure pills that deplete the body's water content).
The following tips from experts and boomers caring for elderly relatives will help you get the best medical care for your aging parents. Resources are given throughout; find those specific to your area through the eldercare service locator (800-677-1116; www.eldercare.gov), run by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
1. Help your parent choose the right primary-care doctor. Bette Kerr of New York City remembers how painful it was to watch her mother, a music teacher, decline to the point that she could no longer play her beloved piano. Even more painful, Kerr says, was the doctor's willingness to chalk up her mother's problems to old age. His attitude, she says, was "You're old, you're expendable. It's like an old car—you expect it to break apart."
"Old does not equal sick," counters Dr. Kenneth Brummel-Smith, president of the American Geriatrics Society. "If you have a doctor who is not enthusiastic about trying to help an older person do better in life, then you probably need a new doctor."
The first new physician you approach should be a referral from someone you know and trust. If that's not possible, says Brummel-Smith, look for a board-certified doctor in family or internal medicine, who has, ideally, a certification in geriatrics. The Administration on Aging (202-401-4634; www.aoa.gov) and the Alzheimer's Association (800-272-3900; www.alz.org) offer excellent resources. For specific information on caring for relatives suffering from Alzheimer's disease, request free booklets about home-care options from the AARP Andrus Foundation (800-424-3410; www.andrus.org).
Once you have found a potential new doctor, set up a 20-minute "get-acquainted" appointment. Look for obvious tip-offs that older patients are welcome (is the office accessible to people who use walkers or wheelchairs?) and ask specific questions:
- Do you have many older patients?
- What do you like about geriatrics?
- How do you feel about patients who may disagree with your medical advice?
- How do you feel about working with patients' families?
- Do you visit your patients in the nursing home and hospital and personally manage their care?
No doctor will score perfectly. What you are judging here is the physician's honesty and demeanor, and how comfortable you and your parent will feel working with him or her.
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