Aging

The aging family dog relies on a comfortable routine to manage life. Slowing down is just fine. Needs are simplified: a little less food, shorter walks, a bit of help getting into the car. Decisions about health interventions are made with the perspective of limited time left. Still, there is delight in sharing life.

Moms: We all have one. At some point, they leave us. In my case, the end was bittersweet, knowing that she lived too long and would never have wanted her days to end in a nursing home. Can’t we do better than this?

We all love touch. So why are people in need of it the most often denied it? Old people and injured people often lie in their beds or live in rehabilitation environments: places where touch is rare.

We give in too often. Whether it is to an injury, disease, age, or to loneliness, the affliction overwhelms our potential. In such cases, the Latin expression Illigitimi non carborundum—“Don’t let the bastards get you down”—applies to all.

We have all become hypersensitized to the effects of the things around us, the activities we do, and the food we put into our bodies. If each activity has a negative and positive effect, can we score them? Here is my effort to create the “Stone Aging Impact Score” with each activity having a negative or positive effect on a scale of minus 10 to plus 10.

Drop dead in your 100s, playing some sport. This is our goal for our patients. If they can stay fit, recover from illness and injury, and keep their eye on the ball; dropping dead in action at 100+ is a great goal. Here is how to get there and how not to:

As we age, we develop three major physical weaknesses: Weak muscles, weak bones and poor balance. Since we all want to live well until the day we die, how do we solve these three problems?

The care and feeding of the aging ski knee is all about empowering people to enjoy the freedom of movement. It starts with desire and ends in ski heaven.

Legendary swimmer, Diana Nyad, was told multiple times to abandon any thought of swimming 103 miles nonstop from Cuba to Florida. Her shoulders, she was warned, simply would not hold up. They were wrong.

Of all my patients, regardless of age, those who are happiest seem to share one activity secret. They each add a new sport or activity every six months