Hasta La Gadget!

Just like our parents worried about us getting sick or hurt, there comes a time when we as adult children start to worry about the health of our parents. Perhaps we notice changes in their energy, memory or coordination. Maybe we see them struggling to keep up with household chores, meal preparation or personal care, like bathing or taking medication as prescribed.

At some point, health issues can make it very difficult to live alone. At the same time, our parents — like most of us — probably dread even the thought of ending up in a nursing home and instead hope to remain in their home until their last day. Throw in the concern of being a burden, and you might be the last to know how much trouble your parent is having living independently.

Source: Ed Yourdon/Flickr

So what can you do if you fear your parent can no longer live by themselves? Here are a few things to consider:

1. Are they safe? Your parent might be doing things differently than they did in the past, but that doesn’t always mean they can’t care for themselves. It might seem odd if your parent who for years loved to cook now prefers to eat a sandwich or heat up a microwave dinner for most meals. Or if they faithfully kept their yard mowed perfectly and now don’t mind if it gets a little long or if some weeds move into the flowerbed. Interests, energy levels, and much more can change as we age. And we adapt, sometimes changing how we do things. So instead of comparing what your parent is doing now to the way they did it in the past, it’s better to just consider whether what they are doing today poses any risk to their health or happiness.

2. What resources exist? If you are starting to worry about whether your parent might need additional help, it never hurts to investigate how and where that help can be obtained. A good place to start is with an online search for elder care or programs for seniors. The federal government’s U.S. Administration on Aging also has set up a website to help you find services based on zip code. You can visit it by clicking here or you can also call them directly at 1-800-677-1116. AARP is also a good resource. These sites not only can help you find everything from in-home assistance to end-of-life care, but they also provide information on costs and whether financial assistance is available.

3. What is best for them? If and when the time comes that your parent can’t live safely on their own, it is time to look closely at what is needed. If can be tempting for many of us, especially if we live faraway and can’t be there, to find a retirement community or nursing home that offers a full range of services, including meals, help with daily tasks, medication management and onsite medical care. And to be fair, that is sometimes what is needed and can be both a benefit to your parent and give you peace of mind. But sometimes less dramatic changes will work. If your parent simply can’t care for their home like they used to, would they prefer to move to a smaller place or hire someone to handle upkeep like cleaning or yard work? And if a move to assisted living is necessary, try to consider what hobbies and interests bring them joy. For example, if your parent loves to garden they might prefer a retirement community that has a plot of flowers or vegetables for residents to enjoy and care for. Or if they like to go shopping and dine out, try to find a facility that offers transportation and assistance so they can do so. Before lobbying for one alternative over another, make sure you have talked with your parent about their wishes for the future.

When the times comes, most of us don’t like to admit that we can’t do the things we used to do. Especially when it also threatens our independence and how others view us. So if your parent is struggling to live independently, they likely won’t be eager to share that information, especially with their children. By staying observant and encouraging honest conversations, however, you can help your parent get the assistance they need to live a safe and meaningful life.

Patrick O’Brien is CEO and co-founder of Executor.org, an online resource that helps executors manage their responsibilities and duties in this complex role. The tool includes a helpful step-by-step interactive guide for executors and invaluable tips on everything from planning a funeral and keeping beneficiaries happy to dealing with grief and managing estate assets.

Please check out other articles in this series:

What Your Aging Parents Aren’t Telling You – I’m Having Memory Issues

What Your Aging Parents Aren’t Telling You – I’m Incontinent

What Your Aging Parents Aren’t Telling You – I’m Overspending

What Your Aging Parents Aren’t Telling You – I’m Depressed

What Your Aging Parents Aren’t Telling You – I’m Sick

Earlier on Huff/Post50:

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It came like a flash in my mind. A simple question with a simple answer.

“If I forgive him, would it help me?”

Suddenly a voice inside my head said, “Yes!!!”

So, I immediately envisioned an image of my abuser standing in front of me as I confronted my memory of him.

I said without reservation, “I forgive you completely from my heart and I send you my love for your own healing in your own time.”

That was it. Just that simple.

And then I let it all go on the inside … the 10 years of verbal and mental abuse, the numbness, the emotional toll, the screaming, the nasty language, the sexual innuendos, all the damage he had done.

I just let it all go.

The next moment I felt a great weight lift off of my chest. I felt light and giggly. I also felt like I had somehow finally done something I was meant to do. I felt a freedom I had not known before.

In a moment of true forgiveness I never saw coming, I realized that my body, mind, heart, and spirit weren’t meant to carry these burdens. I had done in an instant what seemingly I refused to do for thirty years. A smile came to my face, the first one in a long time.

Forgiving didn’t come easy for me. I fought it like the dickens.

It came after decades of struggling, searching, and wishing things were different than they were.

Could I have forgiven him 30 years ago? Yes, but I didn’t know how and I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It didn’t seem like the right thing to do at the time.

Now it did because this day I was ready for peace more than the pain. The day I forgave him was the day I decided to set this situation right on my own terms no matter how much time had passed.

What took me so long?

Through ongoing forgiveness research and a full examination of my thoughts, heart, and belief systems, I discovered several reasons why I struggled to forgive.

Here are my Top 3:

1. I Needed Redemption — nothing is worse than feeling the pain of getting hurt and not getting closure. I hung on thinking he would eventually do the right thing and apologize. How could he not? Life didn’t force him to make it right. Sometimes the other person is unaware they injured us.

That didn’t keep my mind from wanting him to take action and admit his mistakes.

We want people to take responsibility!

Most of the time, the apology never happens. It didn’t come for me.

However, all is not lost. We certainly can redeem all parts of our pain through forgiveness. We can vow to make it right within us, regardless of what the other person does or does not do. It’s the kind of redemption that comes from love and allows the fear of our painful memories finally fall away for good.

2. I Needed Answers — thoughts racing through my mind were why me? If he hadn’t been in my life, I would be so different!

Those were the victim cycles I experienced in the aftermath of that time.

How could I forgive without answers, without so much as an explanation? Talking to him again was out of the question. So, I learned how to create answers for myself.

Was this experience really meant to happen to me or for me?

After a lot of soul-searching and professional help, I came to the understanding that the true answers to healing were inside of me.

Could abuse lead to the experience of something better?

Yes, I decided it could.

Instead of wishing the experience never happened, I assigned a different meaning to it.

I used the situation to my advantage. I decided that the 10 years of abuse and 20 years of searching were meant for me on the journey of healing my soul and eventually to understand the incredible power of forgiveness.

I managed to find as Dr. Napoleon Hill described as the “the seed of equivalent benefit” in my pain.

Today, I help others find peace. That would have never been possible had I not went through what I did in childhood.

Your pain can become your purpose if you will allow it.

In the final analysis, I never needed answers from him. What I truly desired was to provide myself with the answers of how I was going to turn the situation around to benefit the remainder of my life. The first act of moving forward was to forgive him.

3. I Felt Good in Resentment — maybe you have felt it … holding on to the possibility that one day I’ll get even had me feeling good about keeping the resentment going. Let me be honest, it felt really good to vent, cuss, and stir my hatred of what happened over and over.

After a while, the circle of resentment started to hurt and began affecting my physical health. The taste in my mouth changed. I gained weight. I felt dense and lethargic. Something had to give.

What I didn’t realize is that the unforgiveness was causing my body, mind, and spirit great harm. Replaying anger released harmful chemicals in my body that protected me, yet help me build walls of fear that kept me isolated and unable to move forward.

The very moment I forgave him, the walls of fear came tumbling down and the freedom I felt was a spiritual light and newness helping me to expand the view of the situation.

So, what did I learn?

I learned that I held on tight in resentment because I thought it would help me get even. I thought it would provide the answers I needed from him. I thought it was safe, keeping the anger alive, groveling in excuses, and waiting for it all to come full circle.

Our thoughts can deceive us into an endless cycle of survival until we are ready to break free and thrive again.

Forgiveness was the magic key that brought the separated parts of me back to wholeness.

Forgiveness was the only true answer to peace, freedom, and final internal reconciliation with him and with myself.

Forgiveness was my redemption, my answer, my way to finally heal my life.

Is it time for you to heal what is hurting you?

Photo Credit: FreeImages/scem.Info

Earlier on Huff/Post50:

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This article first appeared on my column in Forbes.

Talk of the coming “second machine age” seems to be all the rage. Machines will “man” factories, assist the aged, drive cars, drop bombs and packages and can help us with Internet shopping. Russian entrepreneur, Yuri Milner, Stephen Hawking and Mark Zuckerberg are even plotting to send a fleet of robots to Alpha Centauri. There is much debate over whether, with this much incursion into our lives, the bots will take away our livelihoods. The optimists argue that they will simply free us up to make more of our lives.

Regardless of how our new relationship with automation technologies develops, I am truly excited about the possibility that a certain class of bots might, in fact, make a dramatic difference to our lives – by extending them. A reality of aging societies is that we must contend with an increasing rate of colonoscopies, angioplasties and even nastier procedures. I take great comfort in the musings of the physicist, Richard Feynman, who spoke way back in 1959 of “swallowing” the surgeon as an alternative to all the nastiness.

In other words, bots can do good simply by being good for us.

Worried about how real all this might be? Feynman’s fantasy is not that far-fetched. I would divide the possibilities into three categories – the Now, the Soon, and Never-Say-Never-But-Don’t -Bank-on-It.

Now

A little over 50 years after Feynman’s call to swallow, the FDA approved an ingestible device that transmits data on what time a patient might have taken her medication, the type of medication and other biometric information. The FDA also approved a pill that can take pictures and transmit video from inside the colon – for many, a more appealing prospect than the alternative of a colonoscopy. Of the several cameras-in-pills in development, there is one that applies fluorescence endoscopy and helps advance cancer detection. I have spoken with physicians – noted for their aversion to change — who are genuinely excited about such possibilities.

Soon

The plot thickens. A step further, the field of “edible electronics” brings even more intriguing ideas: ingestible devices, often called “nanobots,” that can perform biopsies, perform surgical procedures and even deliver drugs. These developments combine silicon-based circuitry, biodegradable materials, such as gelatin and indigo, and batteries that run on stomach juices, giving new meaning to the concept of the “potato battery.”

Last year, a University of California, San Diego team used micro-motor powered nanobots, propelled by gas bubbles produced by reactions with the stomach juices, inside a live mouse. These developments have been quickly followed up by even more efficient “micro-swimmers”, which are swarms of magnetically charged particles orchestrated by a combination of chemical bonds and magnetic forces; they open up clogged arteries by delivering drugs to soften the arterial plaque, drill into it using each individual particle’s rotation causing a string of such particles to twist like a corkscrew, and leave anti-coagulant medication to inhibit further blockage. Ingeniously, these micro-swimmers might re-purpose existing medical devices: adapted MRI machines can steer these magnetically charged bots – like drones – inside the body. Given such creativity in bypassing some of the high capital investments up-front, I am more sanguine about the plans for human trials as early as the end of this decade.

Micro-swimmers could displace some of the most commonly sought interventional procedures – stenting and angioplasty – increasing success rates from 60 percent for those with chronic total occlusion to, possibly, 80-90 percent. This is on top of reducing both recovery times and surgery risks. Furthermore, the micro-swimmers could carry drug payloads targeting a wide range of pathologies, from cancer cells to infections.

Never-Say-Never-But-Don’t -Bank-on-It

Perhaps the most ambitious – and least realistic — of all of these imminent breakthroughs is one envisioned by serial inventor and Google’s director of engineering, Ray Kurzweil. He predicts that, by the 2030s, nanobots attached to our brains “will provide full immersion virtual reality from within the nervous system and will connect our neocortex to the cloud.” It would be easy to write Kurzweil off as another frothy techno-futurist, except that, as reported, he has, since the 1990s, been right in his techno-predictions about 86 percent of the time. Kurzweil does not get to such high marks as a futurist by being modest in his futurism.

As long as you are not completely creeped-out by cameras in your gut or bots in your brain, it is natural to ask: what could stand in the way? I see three main hurdles.

The first hurdle has to do with how soon the various technologies are developed, can be made to work safely inside the human body without rejection, while the complementary ecosystem matures. This means that nanobot swarms are, at least, 10 to 30 years away.

A second hurdle involves getting buy-in from the different constituencies involved – the FDA in the U.S. and their counterparts elsewhere, medical professionals, insurance companies, and, most significantly, from creeped-out patients. Of course, this will also require entrepreneurs and their investors to come on board, despite the unfamiliarity of the risks. Never under-estimate the barriers attributable to buy-in, especially in the healthcare business.

A third hurdle relates to privacy concerns. If the established digital players, such as Google/Alphabet, are at the forefront, regulators and consumers would, rightly, have concerns.

Imagine the second machine age going beyond the humdrum chores of driving cars, slicing noodles or delivering packages or satisfying inter-galactic fantasies of the technology-obsessed. Imagine, instead, bots much closer — inside of us, clearing clogged arteries and, someday, curing cancer. I know, it seems like a lot to swallow, but it is a genuine opportunity for innovation to do good by keeping us well. That would improve the human condition in a most visceral way.

Bhaskar Chakravorti is the Senior Associate Dean of International Business & Finance at The Fletcher School at Tufts University. He is also the founding Executive Director of Fletcher’s Institute for Business in the Global Context and author of the book, “The Slow Pace of Fast Change.”

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

HP has expanded its Omen gaming line with the announcement of a new Omen desktop and Omen display as well as the unveiling of two new Omen laptops. The laptops include a 15.6-inch unit and a 17.3-inch laptop. The smaller of the duo has full HD resolution and the larger has 4K IPS tech for enhanced visuals. Both models feature … Continue reading

Our obsession with deep frying everything edible is getting a bit out of hand. Sure, we get it, you might want to deep fry meat and vegetables, but when we start deep frying things like watermelon, ice cream, and chocolate bars (those deep fried mars bars are so heavenly!), maybe that’s when we know we’ve gone too far, or have we?

Turns out maybe not because during the Stupid Shit No One Needs and Terrible Ideas hackathon in San Francisco, a man by the name of Jonathan Marcus managed to successfully deep fry water. Wait, how does that work? Basically he used calcium alginate which basically gave the water a shape and a container to hold itself in.

He then rolled it in flour, dipped it in an egg mixture, and then breaded it before dropping it into a deep fryer. It was successful as what emerged was a perfectly round ball of breaded, deep fried water. When it was cut into, the water just spilled out and according to Marcus, it tastes just like water, while the breading was admittedly bland.

Now you should definitely not try this at home because if you’ve ever cooked before, you know that even a few drops of water in hot oil will send it spluttering everywhere, but hey, at least know that if you ever wanted deep fried water, it is possible to get some.

Apparently Deep Frying Water Is Now Possible , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.