Have you ever caught yourself lying awake at night thinking, “What if I get dementia and don’t even recognize my own children?”   Or maybe you’ve had a health scare and found your mind immediately leaping forward — “This is just the beginning. It’s all downhill from here.” Perhaps you’ve felt that persistent, low-grade dread […]

Recently, a 73-year-old journalist reached out with a question I hear often in my work as a geropsychologist, but rarely see reflected in our culture: what do we do with the grief that comes with aging? She told me she’s known grief in the ways we’re used to naming—losing a sister in young adulthood, an […]

Living alone is a choice many of us treasure—the independence, the comfort of familiar surroundings, the dignity of managing our own daily rhythms. But what happens when dementia enters this picture?    As a geropsychologist who has worked with thousands of older adults navigating cognitive changes, I’ve witnessed both the profound challenges and the remarkable […]

Social Withdrawal or Healthy Social Selectivity? Your 83-year-old client’s daughter calls you concerned that her mother just quit her book club after three years and is concerned that her mom will now be isolated and lonely, what’s your first clinical hypothesis? Social withdrawal? Depression? Cognitive decline? Before you take the daughter’s concern at face value, […]

If you work with older adults, you’ve probably heard this question more times than you can count: “What can I do to keep my brain healthy?” The Global Council on Brain Health (GCBH) offers some of the most trustworthy, plain-English answers. Convened by AARP (with partners like Age UK), the GCBH brings together international experts […]

What happens to a person’s sense of self when memory begins to fray? I often describe dementia as a fragmentation of self. And yet, even within that fragmentation, traces of identity persist- it is our job to look for the pieces and honor the person. For William Utermohlen, famous artist, his symptoms began with difficulty […]

  Suicide Risk Spikes After a Dementia Diagnosis: Here’s Why Receiving a dementia diagnosis changes everything. For many people, it brings relief—finally, there’s an explanation for the confusion, memory lapses, or personality changes that have been happening. But for others, especially in the first months after hearing the words “you have dementia”, it can trigger […]

  When we think about trauma, we often imagine its effects on younger people—children, teens, or adults in midlife. But what about people 65 and older? The truth is trauma does not simply vanish with time. In fact, trauma among older adults is often undetected, untreated, and misunderstood. As a clinical geropsychologist, I’ve worked with […]

When an older loved one completes alcohol detox and enters a medical rehab program, families often feel a swirl of emotions: relief, hope, fear, and sometimes overwhelm. You may find yourself asking: How do we best support them right now? What’s really causing their symptoms—withdrawal, depression, or dementia? How do we help them return to […]

What does it really take to build a national movement for mental health and aging? If you’ve ever had a big dream or felt a deep calling to change the world—especially for older adults—you know that the path to change is rarely straight, easy, or predictable. In this post, I’m inviting you behind the scenes […]

Up to 1 in 5 older adults lives with a mental health condition like depression, anxiety, or substance use disorder. And yet—most go undiagnosed and untreated. Why? Because too often we only focus on the body and neglect the mind and soul. The truth is: mental health concerns are just as treatable in later life […]

Loneliness and social isolation can be as damaging to our health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. While it may surprise some, research shows that older adults have lower rates of loneliness than younger people, but the impact on their well-being is far more profound​. Loneliness—a subjective feeling of being alone—and isolation—the objective lack of […]