Boomers

The California Department of Public Health on Friday issued its strongest citation and imposed a $100,000 fine against a Lincoln nursing home after an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the 2011 death of an 82-year-old stroke patient who had been in the facility's care.

Agencies that serve seniors in the Sacramento County region are bracing for the hit: Federally funded programs for older adults - including the popular senior nutrition program - face automatic, across-the-board budget cuts as a result of the sequester.

The shadow of Alzheimer's hangs over the Sturmer sisters. Their father died of the disease, and their grandmother before him. Both paternal uncles – their father's twin and an older sibling – have struggled against its relentless progression.

Across the country, according to U.S. Census figures, 20 percent of adults below age 65 have developmental or physical disabilities – and almost 70 percent of the families of special-needs adults in a recent MetLife survey said they worried about their offspring's future.

Long-term care doesn't come cheap – up to $72,000 a year in California nursing homes, a steep price tag that will provide sticker shock for the more than 70 percent of people age 65 and older who will require care at some point as they grow older.

Despite a generational stereotype portraying them as free spirits who reject tradition, boomers in the prime of their working years have enthusiastically embraced the work ethic, often defining themselves by their careers.

Young graduates are in debt, out of work and on their parents' couches. People in their 30s and 40s can't afford to buy homes or have children. Retirees are earning near-zero interest on their savings.

Even when she walked into her first meeting, Debra Johnson wasn't convinced that a support group could help her family.

For many older adults, the holidays represent an unofficial turning point in the way they live. The impetus for downsizing out of longtime homes and into seniors communities often comes after family visits at Thanksgiving and Christmas, when worried relatives start to notice a decline.

A decade after California launched its Amber Alert program, which enlists citizen help in searching for missing children, the state will add a similar program for another of society's at-risk groups: its elderly.

At 61, Les Finke has recently returned to work as executive director of Sacramento's Albert Einstein Center senior residence community after open heart surgery and a six-way bypass early in October.

Nothing seems to overwhelm families of the elderly more than figuring out the issue of senior care: Who needs intervention? What kind? How much? How little? What's available? When is it time to step in to help?

The former head nurse at a Placerville nursing home will stand trial for felony elder abuse in connection with the 2008 death of a 77-year-old Cameron Park woman, an El Dorado County judge ruled Tuesday.

Josa Cottle and Maxine Collins are dear friends, the generational divide between them smoothed out by the fact that both now are considered members of the senior age group. But they are only recently reunited.

Seniors can get free help Sunday picking their 2013 Medicare prescription drug plan, as well as a review of their personal medications.

Beginning Nov. 19, the Sacramento-area Social Security offices will reduce their public window hours by 30 minutes each weekday, the Social Security Administration announced.

Karen Spencer was single until she was 48. Like more than 20 percent of baby boom generation women – twice the number as in previous generations – she never had children.

The first of a new series of free workshops designed to prevent falls by the elderly begins Wednesday, sponsored by the UC Davis Health System's trauma prevention program.

Displacing thousands, Hurricane Sandy left a trail of destruction and death in its wake in New Jersey, New York and other Eastern states, which are beginning the long, slow recovery process.

Gene Yee, 84, leads the group with rhythmic sets of 24 exercises, each with a name such as White Crane Spreads Wings, or Grasp Bird's Tail.

The recession has led more people to take responsibility for elderly relatives, and they're often unaware of the difficulties involved, according to a report released Tuesday.

Free advice on Medicare Part D – the prescription coverage portion of Medicare – is part of a community health fair scheduled Saturday at California Northstate University College of Pharmacy in Rancho Cordova.

Author Len Kovar is set to speak this week about his experience as a prisoner of war during World War II.

Jean Phillips remembered the smell of the water, the feel of the spray on her skin, the coolness and vastness of Yosemite.

For the nation's 45 million elderly Social Security recipients, the bad news tempered the good: They learned this week that a 2013 cost-of-living increase will raise their monthly Social Security income – but by only a fraction.

Even before a new senior housing community in Elk Grove was complete, Eric and Avilla Hayman had signed up to live there.

Looking back, Jennifer Harrington can see how the stigma surrounding Alzheimer's disease made her mother's last decade of life harder than it had to be.

A $3 million federal grant has allowed UC Davis to establish a research center to study aging Latinos.

UC Davis Eye Center surgeons on Tuesday unveiled a new, bionic tool for treating macular degeneration: a miniature telescope, smaller than a pea, that is implanted directly into the eye.

When they came home from serving their country, huge numbers of the 16 million Americans who served in World War II joined veterans organizations: the American Legion or Veterans of Foreign Wars, maybe, or various groups dedicated to keeping members of a particular service branch or division in touch with one another.

Hepatitis C has already surpassed the AIDS virus in the number of resulting annual U.S. deaths, and most of those are in middle-aged people not diagnosed until it's too late for treatment.

Back when they were young, the members of the Parish Hall Blues Quintet played before huge Northern California crowds as the opening act for the Yardbirds, the Grateful Dead, the Doors and other top bands.

Beyond making a humorous investment in a few cans of alphabet soup, Sacramento resident Chris Wagner claims she hasn't trained for the 17th annual AARP National Spelling Bee – but maybe she should have.

In a crisis, the highway seems to stretch out forever. Robyn Miller's loved ones live in Pinole, almost 70 miles southwest of Sacramento, an 80-minute drive on a good day. Her grandmother, Catherine Volzke, is 90 and holds the aging household together.

She wore a brown floral dress for the ceremony. He wore his U.S. Army uniform, and after all this time, he still worries that it looked too rumpled to pass muster.

When he was 20, Otis Dorsey served a year installing communications lines in Vietnam, a world away from the tiny Alabama town where he was raised. After completing his stint in the Army, he came home unhurt, or so he thought for the next few decades.

After five years, a development battle raging in Carmichael may be ending. A proposed three-story senior living complex in a neighborhood largely comprising single family homes will be up for a vote by the Sacramento County Planning Commission in September.

Most older adults say that they don't want to be a burden to their kids, or that they don't want to impose. But statistics show a plainer truth. Seniors relish their freedom, and they want to live on their own as long as they can.

Because of painful spinal deterioration, 88-year-old Lois Clark can't stand up long enough to cook dinner for herself. Five mornings a week, volunteers from Meals on Wheels by ACC deliver her main meal of the day, which Clark refrigerates until later, then zaps in a microwave to reheat.

For this weekend's 50th reunion of the Sacramento High School Class of 1962, organizer Tricia Brown has big plans: cocktail hour followed by a buffet in a Woodlake Hotel Sacramento ballroom decorated in purple and white, the school colors. It will be, she hopes, a glittery and festive occasion.

Happy Father's Day to the men who became dads past age 50: fathers who are grandfatherly but would prefer not to dwell on that, even if it's true.

The California Highway Patrol's Valley Division office is looking for senior volunteers to assist officers and staff with a range of duties in the office and in the field.

Of the 2,500 precinct clerks and polling inspectors who will staff the June primary at Sacramento County's 467 polling places, Virginia Nielsen is the oldest: a veteran of more presidential and gubernatorial primaries and elections than she can remember.

In huge numbers, the nation's 70 million baby boomers find themselves coping with a numbing range of expected and unexpected midlife changes, including divorce, the death of parents, the diminishment of health and youth, and these days the loss of jobs and homes as well.

In an effort to educate older adults and their families on aging issues, the SCAN Foundation has released a new online tool to help people map out their old-age needs.

Keith Ochwat admits that he and his Documentary Foundation partner, Christopher Rufo, both 27-year-old Sacramento natives, learned a lot in the making of "Age of Champions," their new film about Senior Olympics athletes.

Roses fill the front garden. In the back, there are sweetly scented citrus trees and chickens pecking on the deck. And inside the Citrus Heights home are piles of clutter in every room: art magazines from the early 1990s, old newspapers, greeting cards and hand-scrawled notes, empty bottles, completed art projects and art supplies that Lois Gaddis might use, if she ever got around to it.

The Slatter twins turned 90 earlier this month. Both widowed, they're independent and sharp, the pride of their extended family, which is happy with the occasional celebrity of their twindom.

When she filled out her advance health care directive form the other day and had it notarized, Patti Pinkerton had no trouble defining her end-of-life wishes.