Category: Column

  • The Stages of a Family Caregiving Career

    Family caregivers of older adults undergo fairly predictable stages in their caregiving careers. Each stage brings different challenges and requires different kinds of help for both the care receiver and family caregiver.

  • Need to Work? Need to Earn?

    Need to work? Need to earn? If your answer is “yes” to either question, then here are three immediate actions that will improve the return on your most important investment — YOU!

  • Who’s Turning 65 This Year?

    What do singer Cyndi Lauper, comedian Tim Allen, wrestler Hulk Hogan, attorney Marcia Clark and politician Jeb Bush have in common? They were born in 1953 and are turning 65 this year, along with many others who may not enjoy fortune or fame. Celebrity or not, if you share their birth year and you or…

  • Living in the Moment with Momentia

    Momentia (rhymes with dementia) is an arts-based movement targeting persons with dementia and their care partners that “celebrates life in the moment.” It is a strengths-based grassroots movement to empower and energize those impacted by memory loss to remain connected and active in the community.

  • Sharing Personal Wisdom and Values

    Most of us recognize the importance of establishing a legal will to document and ensure that our material goods are passed on to the persons and/or causes of our choice. But how many of us have written comparable documents to ensure that our values and beliefs, our parting thoughts and wishes, also are documented and…

  • Keep that “Spring” in your Step!

    As a Medicare educator and radio host, it’s my passion to keep up with changes that impact Medicare beneficiaries. My radio listening audience is well into their 60s and 70s and octogenarians listen, too. Some are ’69 and ’70 graduates of Roosevelt, Kalani, Kaimuki, and McKinley high schools. Each year, they sponsor “Battle of the Bands”…

  • Mom Had ‘A Good Death’

    On a Sunday morning this past July, Alice Hu Chew Yee, 81, asked her family to gather by her hospital bed, where she expressed her love to each member, listened to her favorite music played by her son and son-in-law, and helped to plan her own funeral, right down to flower arrangements. The next day,…

  • Benefits of Volunteering for Seniors

    Volunteering — an activity that is voluntary, unpaid, structured by an organization and directed toward a community concern — is as beneficial for the older adult who engages in it as it is for those on the receiving end. While fewer older adults volunteer compared to those who are younger, persons age 65 and over who do volunteer spend…

  • The Search for Ancestors

    I’ve been researching my ancestors for about 20 years. On my Hawaiian side, I’ve gone back five generations, and three generations on my Filipino side. I get so excited when I connect the dots in my family tree and discover a new family member, because I now have a name and story to share with…

  • The Best is Yet to Be

    On a frosty winter’s morning, my fellow seminarian, Cal Chinen, picked me up in his old beige Volvo. We drove across the Columbia River from Portland, Oregon, to Washougal, a small town at the foothills of the Cascade Mountains in Washington State. We were responding to a senior citizen’s request to do some yardwork.