Last Updated on March 2, 2026 by Sarah Wilson Vietri sul Mare is often treated as the start of the Amalfi Coast rather than a destination in its own right. In summer it can feel busy and rushed, but in winter it slows down. I visited in January, did the town in the morning and […]
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For decades, cigarettes were as common in uniform as a canteen and a helmet liner.
In World War II, tobacco was not treated as a vice; it was a comfort item. Cigarettes were packed into rations as morale boosters, something that could steady nerves between missions, the Imperial War Museums note. The image of a soldier lighting up in a muddy trench or on the deck of a ship became inseparable from the mythology of the American warfighter. The phrase “smoke ‘em if you got ‘em” became a broader cultural idiom, according to the Army Historical Foundation.
That normalization lasted for generations. Smoking was woven into daily military life. A cigarette break punctuated patrols and long nights on guard duty. The smoke pit became a place where rank blurred slightly, and information flowed freely. For young troops far from home, nicotine offered routine in environments defined by uncertainty.
But the same institution that once distributed cigarettes eventually had to reckon with the consequences.
As medical research sharpened the link between tobacco use and long-term health problems, the Department of Defense shifted its posture. Smoking inside military facilities was banned in 1994, and recruits arriving at basic training found tighter restrictions around tobacco use than their predecessors.
In 2016, the Pentagon moved to eliminate discounted tobacco sales in on-base exchanges, raising prices to match civilian markets in an effort to remove financial incentives.
Despite that shift, nicotine use has not disappeared; it has adapted. A recent report found that soldiers are significantly more likely to use modern nicotine pouches than civilians, underscoring how quickly habits evolve inside the ranks.
Today’s service members are less likely to be seen with a cigarette and more likely to carry a vape or a can of tobacco-free nicotine pouches, which have been linked to oral and dental health issues and cardiovascular disease risk. Marketed as cleaner, smokeless and discreet, these products fit easily into field environments and office settings alike. They also sidestep some of the social stigma attached to traditional smoking.
The military has responded by expanding resources for quitting tobacco. Tricare covers tobacco cessation counseling and prescription medications, while military treatment facilities offer nicotine replacement therapy such as patches and gum. The Defense Department also promotes health coaching programs as part of its broader force health protection strategy.
Still, anyone who has served knows the smoke pit has not vanished. It remains a gathering place, a bond that only those who don the uniform can truly understand. It is where junior enlisted troops vent about leadership, where NCOs gauge morale and where small frustrations surface before they grow larger. In many units, stepping outside for a smoke remains one of the few unofficial breaks in a tightly structured day.
That cultural role complicates enforcement. Leaders must balance individual autonomy with readiness standards. Smoking and nicotine use are tied to higher injury rates, slower recovery times and long-term healthcare costs, all of which affect deployability. At the same time, troops operate under sustained stress, long hours and frequent moves. For some, nicotine functions as a coping mechanism that is accessible and socially reinforced.
The military’s relationship with tobacco reflects a broader evolution. What began as a morale staple, packed alongside rations, has become a regulated health concern measured against mission impact. The products may look different in 2026 than they did in 1945, but the underlying tension remains.
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LOS ANGELES — Robert Duvall, the Oscar-winning actor of matchless versatility and dedication whose classic roles included the intrepid consigliere of the first two “Godfather” movies and the over-the-hill country music singer in “Tender Mercies,” has died at age 95.
Duvall died “peacefully” at his home Sunday in Middleburg, Virginia, according to an announcement from his publicist and from a statement posted on his Facebook page by his wife, Luciana Duvall.
“To the world, he was an Academy Award-winning actor, a director, a storyteller. To me, he was simply everything,” Luciana Duvall wrote. “His passion for his craft was matched only by his deep love for characters, a great meal, and holding court. For each of his many roles, Bob gave everything to his characters and to the truth of the human spirit they represented.”
The bald, wiry Duvall didn’t have leading man looks, but few “character actors” enjoyed such a long, rewarding and unpredictable career, in leading and supporting roles, from an itinerant preacher to Josef Stalin. Beginning with his 1962 film debut as Boo Radley, the reclusive neighbor in “To Kill a Mockingbird,” Duvall created a gallery of unforgettable portrayals. They earned him seven Academy Award nominations and the best actor prize for “Tender Mercies,” which came out in 1983. He also won four Golden Globes, including one for playing the philosophical cattle-drive boss in the 1989 miniseries “Lonesome Dove,” a role he often cited as his favorite.
In 2005, Duvall was awarded a National Medal of Arts.
He had been acting for some 20 years when “The Godfather,” released in 1972, established him as one of the most in-demand performers of Hollywood. He had made a previous film, “The Rain People,” with Francis Coppola, and the director chose him to play Tom Hagen in the mafia epic that featured Al Pacino and Marlon Brando among others. Duvall was a master of subtlety as an Irishman among Italians, rarely at the center of a scene, but often listening and advising in the background, an irreplaceable thread through the saga of the Corleone crime family.
“Stars and Italians alike depend on his efficiency, his tidying up around their grand gestures, his being the perfect shortstop on a team of personality sluggers,” wrote the critic David Thomson. “Was there ever a role better designed for its actor than that of Tom Hagen in both parts of ‘The Godfather?’”
In another Coppola film, “Apocalypse Now,” Duvall was wildly out front, the embodiment of deranged masculinity as Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore, who with equal vigor enjoyed surfing and bombing raids on the Viet Cong. Duvall required few takes for one of the most famous passages in movie history, barked out on the battlefield by a bare-chested, cavalry-hatted Kilgore: “I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn’t find one of ‘em, not one stinkin’ dink body.
“The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like — victory.”
Coppola once commented about Duvall: “Actors click into character at different times — the first week, third week. Bobby’s hot after one or two takes.”
He was Oscar-nominated as supporting actor for “The Godfather” and “Apocalypse Now,” but a dispute over money led him to turn down the third Godfather epic, a loss deeply felt by critics, fans and “Godfather” colleagues. Duvall would complain publicly about being offered less than his co-stars.
Fellow actors marveled at Duvall’s studious research and planning, and his coiled energy. Michael Caine, who co-starred with him in the 2003 “Secondhand Lions,” once told The Associated Press: “Before a big scene, Bobby just sits there, absolutely quiet; you know when not to talk to him.” Anyone who disturbed him would suffer the well-known Duvall temper, famously on display during the filming of the John Wayne Western “True Grit,” when Duvall seethed at director Henry Hathaway’s advice to “tense up” before a scene.
Duvall was awarded an Oscar in 1984 for his leading role as the troubled singer and songwriter Mac Sledge in “Tender Mercies,” a prize he accepted while clad in a cowboy tuxedo with Western tie. In 1998, he was nominated for best actor in “The Apostle,” a drama about a wayward Southern evangelist which he wrote, directed, starred in, produced and largely financed. With customary thoroughness, he visited dozens of country churches and spent 12 years writing the script and trying to get it made.
Among other notable roles: the outlaw gang leader who gets ambushed by John Wayne in “True Grit”; Jesse James in “The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid”; the pious and beleaguered Frank Burns in “M-A-S-H”; the TV hatchet man in “Network”; Dr. Watson in “The Seven-Per-Cent Solution”; and the sadistic father in “The Great Santini.”
“When I was doing ‘Colors’ in 1988 with Sean Penn, someone asked me how I do it all these years, keep it fresh. Well, if you don’t overwork, have some hobbies, you can do it and stay hungry even if you’re not really hungry,” Duvall told The Associated Press in 1990.
In his mid-80s, he received a supporting Oscar nomination as the title character of the 2014 release “The Judge,” in which he is accused of causing a death in a hit-and-run accident. More recent films included “Widows” and “12 Mighty Orphans.”
Robert Selden Duvall grew up in the Navy towns of Annapolis and the San Diego area, where he was born in 1931. He spent time in other cities as his father, who rose to be an admiral, was assigned to various duties.
The boy’s experience helped in his adult profession as he learned the nuances of regional speech and observed the psyche of military men, which he would portray in several films.
Duvall reportedly used his Navy officer father as the basis for his portrayal of the explosive militarist in “The Great Santini,” based on the Pat Conroy novel. He commented in 2003: “My dad was a gentleman but a seether, a stern, blustery guy, and away a lot of the time.” Bobby took after his mother, an amateur actress, in playing a guitar and performing. He was a wrestler like his father and enjoyed besting kids older than himself.
He lacked the concentration for schoolwork and nearly flunked out of Principia College in Elsah, Illinois. His despairing parents decided he needed something to keep him in college so he wouldn’t be drafted for the Korean War. “They recommended acting as an expedient thing to get through,” he recalled. “I’m glad they did.” He flourished in drama classes.
“Way back when I was in college,” Duvall told the AP in 1990, “there was a wonderful man named Frank Parker, who had been a dancer in World War I. We did a full-length mime play and I played a Harlequin clown. I really liked that.
“Then, I played an older guy in ‘All My Sons,’ and at one point I had this emotional moment, where this emotion was pouring out. Parker said at that moment he didn’t think acting can be carried any further than that. And this guy was a very critical guy. So I thought, at that moment at least, this is what I wanted to do.”
After two years in the Army, he used the G.I. Bill to finance his studies at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York, hanging out with such other young hopefuls as Robert Morse, Gene Hackman and Dustin Hoffman. After a one-night performance in “A View From the Bridge,” Duvall began getting offers for work in TV series, among them “The Naked City” and “The Defenders.”
Between his high-paying jobs in major productions, Duvall devoted himself to directing personal projects: a documentary about a prairie family, “We’re Not the Jet Set”; a film about gypsies, “Angelo, My Love”; and “Assassination Tango,” in which he also starred.
Duvall had been a tango dancer since seeing the musical “Tango Argentina” in the 1980s and visited in Argentina dozens of times to study the dance and the culture. The result was the 2003 release about a hit man with a passion for tango.
His co-star was Luciana Pedraza, 42 years his junior, whom he married in 2005. Duvall’s three previous marriages — to Barbara Benjamin, Gail Youngs and Sharon Brophy — ended in divorce.
Former Associated Press Hollywood correspondent Bob Thomas, who died in 2014, was the primary writer of this obituary
This post was originally published on this site.
In the early American military, specifically the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, food, logistics, medicine and morale were inseparable. Chocolate and cocoa fit that world neatly. They were calorie-dense, easy to transport and more shelf-stable than most comforts soldiers could count on.
By the middle years of the Revolutionary War, chocolate was part of the ecosystem of soldiering, consumed as a hot beverage and valued for energy when supply lines snapped, or pay fell behind. The Smithsonian Institution notes that Americans have been consuming chocolate since colonial times and points to the Continental Army’s use of it during the Revolution, as detailed in its examination of chocolate as a fighting food.
Even then, chocolate’s value was not only nutritional. It was psychological, a reminder that life extended beyond cold marches and unappetizing food.
That psychological dimension became unavoidable once the U.S. military entered World War II and attempted to feed a global force at industrial scale. The Army Quartermaster Corps needed food that could survive every environment, fit inside a pocket and perform predictably under stress, priorities documented by the Smithsonian’s research on wartime ration development. Chocolate was an obvious candidate, but the version soldiers wanted and the version logisticians needed were not the same thing.
In 1937, the Army approached the Hershey Company with a blunt request: Create a bar that was high in calories, compact, heat resistant and intentionally unpleasant. The goal was to ensure troops did not eat an emergency ration out of boredom. The result was Field Ration D, which the Hershey Community Archives describes as a purpose-built survival food, rather than a morale item.
The bar’s reputation was earned. It was dense, bitter and designed to be eaten slowly, delivering roughly 600 calories per serving. Army specifications required that it taste only “a little better than a boiled potato.” Soldiers did not need to enjoy it. They needed it to exist when everything else failed.
Then the Pacific happened.
Heat and humidity erased margins for error. Even though rations became liabilities, the Army’s needs shifted from merely heat resistant to reliably heat proof. In 1943, Hershey developed the Tropical Chocolate Bar, designed to withstand extreme temperatures while improving flavor to be more palatable.
World War II forced planners to acknowledge a simple truth: a soldier’s willingness to eat matters. While emergency rations like the D ration were intentionally unpleasant to ensure they were saved for survival, chocolate in other forms served a different role, offering quick energy and a brief sense of normalcy alongside rations designed strictly for endurance.
The same tension continues to shape modern ration design, driven by weight limits, packaging constraints and feedback from service members.
Chocolate’s rise from colonial drink to engineered survival ration mirrors the evolution of the U.S. military itself. Early America used it because it was available and useful, while World War II transformed it into a system defined by specifications, testing and mass production. Across centuries and conflicts, the lesson remained consistent: calories keep you moving, and morale helps you keep going.
Most seniors want to stay in their own homes when and if they need care. In response to this desire and the generally lower cost of home health and assisted living services compared to nursing home care, Medicaid has expanded its coverage of home-and-community-based services (HCBS) over time.
According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, in 2023, 8.4 million Medicaid beneficiaries received assistance paying for care at home or in assisted living facilities – a substantial increase of 8 percent from 7.8 million in 2022. In comparison, 1.5 million beneficiaries received institutional care – mostly in nursing homes – a more modest 3-percent increase over 2022. However, the overall costs for institutional services grew by 17 percent compared to 13 percent for HCBS.
Growing HCBS Coverage
HCBS accounted for almost two-thirds of all spending on long-term services and supports (LTSS). For historical perspective, in 1981 only one dollar out of a hundred spent by Medicaid for LTSS went to HCBS, rising to half of LTSS spending by 2013 and continuing to grow thereafter (see Figure 1).
State Variation
Large variations exist in Medicaid coverage of HCBS by state in large part because such coverage is discretionary, in contrast to nursing home coverage, which is mandatory. Ninety-nine percent of Medicaid beneficiaries in Oregon and Wisconsin receiving LTSS were doing so at home or in assisted living facilities, in contrast with just 56 percent in Kentucky and 61 percent in Mississippi.
In terms of spending, Medicaid costs for HCBS constituted 95 percent of LTSS costs in Wisconsin as compared to just 36 percent in Arkansas. In other words, only 5 percent of Wisconsin’s expenditures on LTSS are going to nursing homes in contrast with 64 percent of Arkansas’ spending.
The Future?
Many people who work on long-term care policy are concerned that the $900 billion in Medicaid cuts in the “One Big Beautiful Bill” will reverse the trend towards more coverage of HCBS. While a lot of the bill’s cuts are aimed at younger beneficiaries, in large part by instituting work requirements, others, such as limitations on so-called provider taxes, are not. States will have to find ways to make up the shortfall in revenue or reduce services. One way may be to cut home health and assisted living coverage, since they are optional under the federal Medicaid rules.
For more from Harry Margolis, check out his Risking Old Age in America blog and podcast. He also answers consumer estate planning questions at AskHarry.info. To stay current on the Squared Away blog, join our free email list.
February is American Heart Month, and those of us who care for seniors use it as an opportunity to raise awareness about one of the leading ailments in the elderly: cardiovascular disease.
Heart health for seniors takes on increasing importance as the cardiovascular system ages. Older people deal with more arrhythmia (irregular heartbeat), blood clots, thickening walls of the heart and blood vessels, and less efficient blood flow through the body. These problems often start quietly in middle age and accelerate as we get into our 60s, 70s, and 80s.
While aging is itself a risk factor for heart disease, some risk factors are within our control. The following covers essential information to discuss with your elderly loved one and their healthcare providers.
The term “cardiovascular” reminds us that we are talking about ailments of both the heart and all the vessels that work with it—arteries, veins, and capillaries. While individuals of any age can suffer from cardiovascular disease, it becomes more common as we get older. Common heart problems in elderly patients include, but are not limited to:
High blood pressure: Also known as hypertension, this very common condition increases the risk of many other cardiovascular problems, including stroke and heart attack. What’s difficult about hypertension is that, day to day, it’s not that noticeable. This can lead to ignoring its very real risks. Contributing factors to high blood pressure are diets high in saturated fat and sodium, chronic stress, obesity, lack of exercise, poor sleep (including with apnea), using tobacco or alcohol, and certain health conditions like kidney disease.
Coronary artery disease (CAD): When there is damage to the arteries from high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, and other conditions, plaque can build up in the arteries, blocking normal blood flow. This plaque buildup is also called atherosclerosis and is made up of cholesterol, other fats, and calcium. CAD is the leading cause of angina (chest pain) as well as heart attacks.
Arrhythmia: This is experienced as an irregular heartbeat and is caused by damage to the heart’s electrical system. Contributing factors are age itself (due to tissue damage and deterioration), hypertension, diabetes, thyroid disease, and sleep apnea. Arrhythmia can also result from dehydration or electrolyte imbalance (from missing nutrients like potassium), and it can be a side effect of some medications. Arrhythmia increases the risk of stroke and heart failure.
Myocardial degeneration: This is when heart tissue thickens and weakens, leading to reduced blood flow throughout the body. In an individual, this can look like shortness of breath—even when sitting down—fatigue, and edema (swelling in parts of the body, often legs or feet, because of pooling blood and other fluids). Causes include certain infections, nutritional deficiency, drinking alcohol, stress, and sometimes genetics.
Arteriosclerosis: This is similar to myocardial degeneration, but for the blood vessels instead of the heart.
Congestive heart failure: This is a chronic condition that happens when a damaged heart cannot pump adequate blood through the body. Fluid builds up in the lungs and/or legs and arms. Heart failure is often the result of chronic cardiovascular disease/damage, or it can begin after a heart attack. It is more common in those over 75 years of age.
Aneurysm: Aneurysms happen suddenly and are frequently fatal. They occur when part of a weakened artery widens abnormally and then bursts. Prevention of an aneurysm is focused on general blood vessel health, as well as medical screening.
Heart attack: Medically known as a myocardial infarction, a heart attack happens when a blockage (usually a blood clot triggered by plaque buildup) stops blood from flowing normally to the heart. When this happens, heart tissue quickly begins to die. Signs of a heart attack include shortness of breath, nausea or vomiting, extreme fatigue, dizziness, a cold sweat, and intense chest pain. Different symptoms are more common in women vs. men.
Stroke: This is similar to a heart attack, but affecting the brain instead. In addition to a clot, it can be caused by brain bleeding (hemorrhage). Signs of a stroke include severe headache, vision problems, confusion, difficulty speaking, and sudden numbness. It is common to lose control over one half of the body.
Other common conditions include varicose veins, deep vein thrombosis, and aortic stenosis.
Much of senior heart disease prevention is focused on keeping the heart and blood vessels strong and clear. This means preventing the strain caused by hypertension, safely exercising the cardiovascular system, and making lifestyle choices that promote healthy arteries.
First, be sure your loved one visits their doctor regularly. Blood tests can assess cholesterol levels and catch problems early, including high blood sugar or other diseases that impact cardiovascular health. Their medical office will take their blood pressure, but this is something you can also do at home. You can also monitor pulse; a normal heart rate for an elderly individual is 60-100 beats per minute when they are at rest, with an average in the 70s. If resting heart rate falls outside this window, bring it up with their doctor.
If your loved one is prescribed medications to manage cholesterol or hypertension, make a plan to ensure they take it exactly as prescribed. Encourage them to speak up about side effects or changes they notice, and don’t be shy about bringing issues promptly to their doctor.
The most important lifestyle change your loved one can make for their cardiovascular health is to quit smoking, since it severely damages bodily tissue. Beyond this, avoiding alcohol and adopting a heart healthy diet are effective ways to preserve the health of their heart and blood vessels. Speak to a doctor or registered dietician about foods to emphasize and foods to avoid. Also find out the healthy target weight range for your loved one and get assistance with diet planning to help them stay within it.
Stress is hard on the whole body, so managing it becomes crucial. Help your loved one find enjoyable activities for relieving stress, whether that is chair yoga or playing a musical instrument. Facilitate their social life; this may mean helping them with rides or with technology to stay in touch with friends and family. If their stress is intense and possibly diagnosable as a mental health disorder, help them find resources such as a counselor or support group.
Exercise is important at every age, but seniors may not be able to safely do all the activities they once did. Talk to their doctor or an occupational therapist about simple, appropriate exercises to maintain flexibility and balance, increase blood flow, and strengthen muscles. This is important for cardiovascular health, but has the side benefit of helping to prevent falls.
Check in with your senior loved one about any cardiovascular symptoms they may be experiencing—shortness of breath, easy tiredness, chest pain, pain in arms or legs, dizziness, or trouble sleeping. Encourage them to see their doctor regularly and to make lifestyle choices that help prevent heart disease in old age.
If you need support in caring for your elderly loved one, our VetAssist mission is to make home care easily and quickly accessible for those who qualify through the VA Pension with Aid and Attendance benefit. Veterans Home Care can help you determine whether you or your loved one will be eligible to receive the benefit, which can cover some or all of the cost of home care, and we make it easy to apply. Chat with us via our website, or call us at (888) 314-6075.
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Last Updated on May 8, 2026 by Sarah Wilson If you’re drawn to the Amalfi Coast but want something more authentic, affordable, and less crowded, Salerno is an excellent alternative. Located at the eastern edge, it offers history, sea views, and everyday Italian life, without the inflated prices or crowds of places like Positano or […]
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Part of the recently passed tax bill includes what the administration is calling “No Tax on Social Security.” The bill does not directly remove taxes on Social Security payments, but it does provide an additional deduction for seniors under certain income limits. This provision may effectively reduce – or, in some cases, even eliminate – federal taxes paid by people ages 65+.
First of all, it should be noted that this tax break worsens the tenuous fiscal condition of Social Security. Social Security actuaries estimate that the new tax provisions will move up the trust fund depletion date by roughly six months – from the 3rd quarter to the 1st quarter of 2034.
Nevertheless, current beneficiaries will see the benefits of lower taxes. This blog post looks at how the new deduction works and how it may impact your federal income taxes.
How Deductions Work
To understand the mechanics of this new tax break, it helps to know how deductions work. The following is a simplified explanation of the standard deduction (this is not tax advice).
You start with gross income, which is the total of all sources of taxable income. This amount typically includes work income, most pensions, taxable investment income, and up to 85 percent of your Social Security income. The taxable share of your Social Security is based on what is called “combined income,” which equals half of your Social Security benefit, plus nontaxable interest, plus all other taxable income. Once combined income is greater than $44,000 for married couples filing jointly or greater than $34,000 for single filers, 85 percent of Social Security benefits are taxable. (At lower thresholds, people are taxed on up to 50 percent of their benefit income; below these thresholds, benefits are not taxed at all.)
After totaling your gross income, including taxable Social Security, you subtract deductions. You have the option of tallying up individual items and itemizing deductions, but most people do better by taking the standard deduction. People ages 65+ also receive an extra standard deduction. The new tax bill adds to this already increased standard deduction, bringing the total to $23,750 for singles and up to $46,700 for married couples filing jointly (see Table). It is worth noting that this new deduction is temporary – it is available from 2025 through 2028. This potentially whopping standard deduction is then subtracted from gross income to arrive at taxable income.
Impact of the New Provision
The new provision doesn’t explicitly remove federal taxes on Social Security, but it does have the same effect for many people, reducing taxable income by $6,000 per person for those ages 65+. For lower-income retirees who are reliant on Social Security, this might be enough to all but eliminate their entire federal income tax liability. Note, though, that lower-income households below certain thresholds were already untaxed on Social Security. For these households, the additional deduction will reduce other taxable income.
Let’s look at how this might impact income taxes. Take a single woman over age 65. Say she receives a taxable pension of $30,000, investment income of $10,000, and Social Security benefits of $24,000 (85 percent of which is taxable). That puts her in the 12-percent federal tax bracket. Incorporating the new $6,000 tax provision will effectively reduce her federal tax bill by $720.
Pay Attention to Income
An important caveat to this new provision is that it is phased out for single taxpayers with incomes over $75,000 and married filers with incomes over $150,000. The phaseout is $60 for each $1,000 over the threshold. It is fully phased out at $175,000 for single filers and $250,000 for joint filers.
Bigger Refunds in 2026
Although the new tax provision does not explicitly eliminate taxes on Social Security, it will reduce taxes for many filers age 65+. If you’ve paid estimated taxes throughout the year or had taxes withheld on your income, you may end up getting a bigger refund (or owe less) in 2026.
Luke Delorme, CFP® is Director of Financial Planning at Tableaux Wealth in Great Barrington, MA (www.tableauxwealth.com), reachable at luke@tableauxwealth.com. To stay current on the Squared Away blog, join our free email list.
This blog post is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered financial advice. Consult a qualified professional for advice specific to your situation.
Supporting an aging loved one’s health means learning a level of medical advocacy most of us were not trained for. Many individuals find that attending doctor appointments with their elderly parent brings unforeseen needs. The following is our guide for better preparation, advocacy, and making the most of your loved one’s doctor visit.
To prepare for the appointment, focus on gathering information.
Lastly, but very importantly, have a conversation with your loved one regarding speaking up for them during their appointment. Are they alright with you chiming in when needed? Do they prefer you take the lead? Let them know you want to help, but be aware it can be embarrassing for some elderly parents to be contradicted or talked over in front of the doctor. Talking about boundaries ahead of time is effective caregiver communication; emphasize your intent to help to your fullest capability, and empower them to take the lead if they can.
During a senior medical visit, remain alert to your loved one’s emotional state, energy level, and attention. Long wait times and shuttling between rooms can cause fatigue, which in turn can discourage your loved one from speaking up and asking their questions. Do what you can to ensure you both dress warmly and comfortably, eat beforehand, and set yourself up to stay resilient.
If your loved one asks you to leave the room, do so. Try not to talk over them or make them feel invisible, even if you’re trying to help. Listen attentively, take notes, and ask the medical staff for any literature or resources related to your loved one’s health conditions.
After the appointment, write up any instructions from the doctor in an easy-to-read format, and place it in a highly visible place like the kitchen counter. Give your loved one your notes from the appointment. Follow up on further appointments to be scheduled, prescriptions to be picked up, or tests to be completed. If your loved one is comfortable with it, you may want to get the login for their patient portal to see test results or notes from their clinic. You can usually also send messages to their doctor through the portal (though you should never impersonate your parent/loved one).
Certain healthcare and social services professionals are highly trained in coordinating senior care. These include geriatricians, who specialize in patients over 65 years of age, and geriatric care managers, who are an excellent resource for elderly patients with complex care needs. Social workers are also available at most hospitals to provide medical advocacy for seniors and education to their families.
If your parent speaks a different language than their doctor, an interpreter may be available to help with communication. This can bridge the gap without putting too much emphasis on the adult child to do all of the communication.
For some families, agreement on a care plan or its details may be hard to come by. Caregivers with siblings might need to find ways to make joint decisions peacefully, or else get their siblings’ blessing to act more unilaterally (though this comes with the tradeoff of taking on the bulk of caregiving duties).
If at some point, your elderly loved one needs more assistance than a family caregiver can provide—especially for routine, everyday activities—you may want to review your home care options. Our VetAssist mission is to make home care easily and quickly accessible for those who qualify through the VA Pension with Aid and Attendance benefit. Veterans Home Care can help you determine whether you or your loved one will be eligible to receive the benefit, which can cover some or all of the cost of home care, and we make it easy to apply. Chat with us via our website, or call us at (888) 314-6075.
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Last Updated on February 25, 2026 by Sarah Wilson Málaga was the final stop on our six-day Andalusian road trip, which took us through Ronda, Cádiz, and Jerez before looping us back to the Mediterranean coast. I’ve always thought of Malaga as the “airport city,” but spending a day here changed my view completely. You […]
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