Kari Berit Discusses The Unexpected Caregiver More than 30 million Americans are caring for someone over the age of 50.  And many of them find themselves to be unexpected caregivers.  The Unexpected Caregiver is a new book by Kari Berit, who has been a family caregiver and worked with older adults for nearly two decades [...]

Celebrating another year today: Comedian Ruth Buzzi is 72. Actor Mark Goddard (Lost in Space) is 72. Comedian Gallagher is 62. Actor Robert Hays (played Ted Striker in Airplane) “Superwoman” Lynda Carter is 57.

Thank you to Changing Aging reader and interviewee Dr. Brent Ridge of Martha Stewart Living who shared with us a very moving, authentic, up-close photo essay done by one of his friends on caring with a father with Alzheimer’s.  View it here at www.dayswithmyfather.com. Media always talk about women being caregivers - and statistics show that [...]

Actress Gloria Dehaven is 83. Country singer Tony Joe White is 65. Larry Manetti, who played Rick on Magnum P.I. is 61. Singer David Essex is 61. Guitarist Blair Thornton of Bachman-Turner Overdrive is 58. And actor Woody Harrelson will soon be living fully after 50.  He turns 47 today.

Ecumen customer Hardy Rickbeil has set a lot of goals in his life and reached them.   He recently reached another one:  His 100th birthday. Everyone knows Hardy in Worthington, Minn.  A community leader, he built several businesses there that employed many people in Worthington.  Today, as a resident of the Ecumen community of The Meadows of [...]

Here are a some notable birthdays for today.  If you have a birthday, or want to celebrate someone’s birthday,  please add it in the comments section below. Actor Orson Bean (Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman) is 80. Actress Louise Fletcher 74. Game show host Alex Trebek is 68. Singer George Clinton 67. Singer Don Henley is 61. Actor-comedian-director Albert Brooks is 61. Actor [...]

Father Time is not always a bad parent, and, though he tarries for none of his children, often lays his hand lightly upon those who have used him well. - Charles Dickens, Barnaby Ridge, 1841

Thanks to Barbara La Valleur, who directs a local block nurse program in St. Paul: .   She wrote this letter to the editor in today’s Minneapolis Star Tribune about how her organization’s work is keeping people at home longer, at a much lower cost than institutional care . . . and outlines the opportunity we [...]

Mary Alice Ryan is president and CEO of St. Andrew’s Resources for Seniors, a multi-faceted non-profit senior housing and services organization in St. Louis, Missouri.  She wrote a great article on  transforming long-term care financing that you can read here.

It’s unfathomable that Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama are not discussing long-term care financing reform as part of their health care and economic policy and visions.   Ecumen today distributed a news release that gives them 10 Reasons to Start Discussing Long-Term Care Financing Reform. Below is a copy of it. Ecumen Provides Presidential [...]