07/07/09 Finally, a study older folks can be happy about

• Good news, folks! Some things actually get better with age, and I’m happy to say that emotional stability is one of them. It says so right in the authoritative Journal of Neuroscience. Ever since Freud, psychologists have focused almost exclusively on misery –- our fears, our depressions, sadness, anger, hostility, aggression, you name it. Now, thank goodness, the young discipline of “positive psychology” is gaining ground as psychologists and neuroscientists try to figure out what makes people happy.

08/14/01 - The Lesson Of Old Geniuses

• Grandma Moses first picked up a paintbrush at 78, reportedly after arthritis forced her to give up the embroidery for which she was already well-known. She went on to paint for more than 20 years, finishing her last big canvas at 101.

07/03/01 - Men Have A Biological Clock, Too

• For years, many prospective parents – and doctors, as well – have blithely assumed that if birth defects occur when an older couple has a baby, it’s most likely because of the woman’s advancing age, but men have a biological clock too.

04/24/01 - A `Cure' For Osteoporosis May Be Near

• Scientists normally shy away from words like “cure” or “breakthrough,” but those superlatives – and others ­– are bursting these days from the lips of researchers who say they are on the verge of what could be a revolution in the treatment of osteoporosis.

02/27/01 - A New Weapon Against Memory Loss?

• After creeping corpulence, perhaps the most common complaint of aging is what the experts politely call “benign” memory loss and the rest of us, less politely, sometimes call CRS, for Can’t Remember You-Know-What. 

02/13/01 - Americans Strive To Live With Chronic Illnesses

• At 68, Helen Freeman, all by herself, has more chronic diseases than many of us will face in a lifetime. First, she has great trouble breathing, then there’s the diabetes, for which she needs daily medication. Glaucoma also is no picnic. Also, she's had melanoma and breast cancer.

10/14/96 - Getting your shots is not kid stuff

• ``Here's what got me thinking,'' says Anne White of Lexington, who is 63. ``I've reached the age where I turn to the obits first. And I keep seeing articles about people who die unexpectedly in the hospital.'' Often, she finds, it's pneumonia that delivers the coup de grace, ``and you don't even have to be old to pick it up.''

10/07/96 - Caregiving from afar is not easy

• For the last five years, Joyce Antler, a Brandeis University historian in her early 50s, has been living what she calls ``a terrible nightmare.''  Antler lives in Brookline and is trying to manage the care of her increasingly demented, 84-year-old mother -- long distance.

08/19/96 - Sometimes they need help, often they just need to talk

• Suddenly, it seemed as if that old ``I've fallen and I can't get up'' TV ad had sprung to life. Louise Macnair, a widow who is now 93, crashed to the floor in the living room of her Cambridge home and thought, ``This is the occasion. I've got to push that button.''

07/22/96 - A common sense heat-survival guide

• Last summer, a record-setting, five-day heat wave scorched Chicago, making headlines nationwide not just because of the sizzling temperatures -- as high as 106 degrees Fahrenheit -- but because older people died by the hundreds.

03/25/96 - All vision problems are not equal

• After 33 years in the rough and tumble of Cambridge politics, including several stints as mayor, Walter Sullivan, 73, has developed a new -- albeit unwanted -- preoccupation during retirement: eye troubles. In fact, there are four major vision problems that often plague older people -- cataracts, glaucoma, macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy -- and Sullivan has them all.

01/29/96 - The agony of the feet

• Catherine Wright, 61, a retired telephone operator from Quincy who cheerfully admits she wore "fancy high heels" for years, sat propped up, admiring her podiatrist's handiwork. On her right foot, where a mish-mash of hammertoes and a nasty bunion had been, Wright had a long incision and a string of neat, black stitches from her big toe halfway along the top of her foot. Her other newly-straightened toes sported smaller incisions -- and steel pins to keep them aligned as they healed.