Health & Wellbeing

Stress – or the body’s response to any demand – may not be all that bad in small doses. It can help us get through a short-term crisis, such as the first few days of a pandemic. But chronic stress -- the ongoing kind, such as weeks’-long interruptions to our normal rhythms due to the coronavirus outbreak -- is the stuff that can be a mental killer.

Texas lawmakers today finalized a measure that gives important new rights to millions of unpaid family caregivers. A priority for AARP, House Bill 2425 (companion to Senate Bill 1417) would help Texans when their loved ones go into the hospital and as they transition home. The legislation goes next to the governor’s desk.

AARP Texas Director Bob Jackson today praised the Legislature’s final passage of House Bill 3276. Filed by Rep. Tom Oliverson, R-Cypress, HB 3276 would help protect consumers from surprise medical bills at freestanding emergency rooms. Earlier today, the Texas Senate approved the measure, sending it to the governor’s desk. Jackson said:

In Texas alone, there are more than 3.4 million unpaid family caregivers, many of whom provide complex medical and nursing tasks for their loved ones, and sometimes without adequate explanation or training. It’s not unusual for their tasks to include managing multiple medications, providing wound care, overseeing special diets, and operating high-tech medical equipment and monitors.

With the scheduled end of the 2017 Texas legislative session approaching, AARP continues to fight for passage of several bills that aim to improve nursing home quality, ease the stress of family caregivers, protect older Texans from financial exploitation, and help consumers avoid and respond to surprise medical charges.

The Texas House of Representatives has taken a major step to address the skyrocketing cost of prescription drug prices that are making it harder for Texans to afford the medicines they need.

Alicia Buescher, 64, of Fort Worth has been a nurse practitioner for over 30 years. She’s had a passion for nursing since the age of 16 when she volunteered at a local children’s hospital. “Not everybody knows what they want to do, but I did,” she said.

Just northeast of downtown Fort Worth, in a neighborhood of artists, professionals and working class residents, a cadre of AARP volunteers are collaborating with community leaders and residents to transform Six Points Urban Village in the Riverside District into a vibrant, walkable place.

Roughly two months after the first case of the coronavirus was reported in the United States, many older residents in Central Texas are finding their access to food limited and their social isolation worsened.

The Texas Senate took a pivotal step toward improving the quality of care in Texas nursing facilities on Wednesday by unanimously approving Senate Bill 932, which seeks to hold nursing home operators accountable for harming residents.