How do you create a senior care community that truly enhances the lives of their residents?  By doing the right things for the right reasons.  Vitality, joy and celebrating the excitement of living was exactly what I felt from the time I entered the doors of Cherrywood Village Retirement Community in Portland, OR last week.

Comparing apples to oranges is a phrase to describe something which is both the same and different simultaneously depending on your point of view. When someone says "you're comparing apples to oranges" they're really saying "Why are you trying to compare those things? You can't compare apples to oranges, they're just not the same thing."

No misspelling here.   Who needs  AGE-u-cation?  Our care teams, family members, elder care providers, hospitals,  business community, churches, non-profits need to be MUCH better AGE-u-cated®!

At least that's what they say here in Texas, when it's 80 degrees one day, and hitting the freezing mark the same night.  We've barely had a winter to speak of this year, so my recent trip to experience the Boston blizzard was an adventure and a treat.  So what does the weather have to do with aging and dementia you ask?

Love is in the air during this week of celebrating Valentines Day. My parents were married on Valentines Day, 1941, so this day always makes me reflect on their 56 years together. Both raised during the tumultuous depression years, they built a successful life together from humble beginnings. True partners in business and life, they raised 5 daughters, and enjoyed many triumphs and together faced many challenges along their journey. Their love certainly endured the test of time.

Welcome to the world of healthcare! Having just moved to a state with a very large senior population, many of whom have mild to moderate dementia, my story of navigating the healthcare maze should make us all sit up and ask ourselves how our seniors, especially those with dementia, can traverse this insanity.   Here is my story:

Through the years I've had the great privilege to work with thousands of elders and families as my professional career in senior care began in educating families and faith communities.   I will never forget one of my earliest conversations with a couple who had attended a caregiver support group in which I was facilitating.  Emotionally, they shared how their parents had served faithfully in their church for over 40 years and now that they were homebound, the they felt as if they had been forgotten.  This tugged at my heart, as I remembered how vitally important the church was to my own aging parents and how much that care and compassion for our parents comforted us as adult children.