Answers to Questions about Health and Aging

For some basic, unbiased information on health issues facing us as we grow older, here's a good place to start. The National Institute on Aging (part of the federal government's National Institutes of Health) has a special website devoted exclusively to age-related health topics. The newest section is on depression, a problem that plagues millions of older individuals and often goes untreated.
The site has several user-friendly features, including adjustable text size, a sound option and your choice of dark or light background. They also have links to information on the Medicare prescription drug plan, but don't go so far as to claim to be able to make sense of it. Clearly, that's an impossible dream. Just in case you missed the story a few months ago, Mike Leavitt, the director of Health and Human Services, the agency that is in large part responsible for the plan, discovered that he'd signed his parents up for the wrong program. So if you're feeling bewildered by the Medicare Prescription Drug offerings, you have plenty of company!