Traditionally elder care has been the responsibility of family members and was provided within the extended family home.

Increasingly in modern societies, elder care is now being provided by state or charitable institutions. The reasons for this change include decreasing family size, the greater life expectancy of elderly people, the geographical dispersion of families, and the tendency for women to be educated and work outside the home. Although these changes have affected European and North American countries first, it is now increasingly affecting Asian countries also.

That is sad to hear. I am always citing Asian and Eastern cultures in general as role models of how we ought to treat our elderly. it is sad to think that the general 'don't care' disease is spreading to those cultures how historically have been the ones which venerated and revered their elderly for their wisdom or simply just because they were their mothers and fathers. I have elderly folks and they drive me mad sometimes. I wonder, though if some of my annoyance is my own inability to cope with the fact that the people I have looked up to all my life are now failing and will soon be gone. Maybe it is nature's way of cutting the strings and making it bearable when our parents pass on. I don't know, all I now is no matter what it takes I am going to make sure my parents have the best I can offer them in their twilight years.

Good for you, that is the way it should be. I also have parents who are getting on and I am desperate to make sure that they get the best that they can get and I will do all in my power to help them. My mother made me laugh this week when she came to lunch and told me that she had boasted to her friend that she had been for Sunday lunch with her son for the last 3 weeks. Her friend was not very impressed and said "and how many lunches did you cook for him when he was growing up?" Point well made, I think!

Hi,
Nice post.... Keep it up....

During the very cold spell we have had in the UK it has been important to keep an eye on the elderly to make sure that they re warm enough and getting enough to eat. There is one old lady who is very dear to me as she looks after our dog when we go on holiday and he loves her.

At 87 she is still very captive and even still works doing the ironing for someone once a week! With the slippery conditions in her village she could not get out in the bad weather so I ordered a newspaper to be delivered to her every day, which relieved her cabin fever - a bit!