This question has been floating in my head for a while. What happens to transpeople when they get too old to take care of themselves? Many of us that don't have significant others face a potential future with no kids/partners to help take care of us and potentially no family to take us in. What happens if we get Alzheimer's at like 60 or we have to be in a nursing home or something? Are there any studies on this? I saw a post about getting older and it just got me to thinking again about this.

Like, in a nursing home with Alzheimer's, what happens to us? How exactly does that work? Do we revert back to like childhood or younger years like teenage? How do we get treated? What the heck?

If you do have a partner imagine if you outlive them. If you do have kids, imagine if they won't take care of you. I guess it's a two-part question. What happens to you, like where do you stay and how is your treatment and then what happens to transpeople with Alzheimer's?

That's something that's been on my mind for quite a while. I really don't know. It scares me. Just try to gather as many caring people around you as you can and locate yourself as close as possible to the family you have.

I was thinking about that too.  I came to the conclusion that I can really only " prevent"  for that today by keeping good care of my body and mind.  Is it hereditary?   What could we really do to prevent dementia, Alzheimer's .? People in those situations are usually I hope,  taken care of no matter what.  Would it really matter at that point?  Why do we really need to live that long to get to that point? Where would the quality be? Good question.  Makes me think. lol  Use it now I guess.  I really do not want to live that old/feeble to be unable to take care of my own basic needs. 

It's probably prudent to setup a living will that covers any palliative care situation, powers of attorney and so on.  If possible financial backing for any care requirements.  This to me is probably a good idea even if family and friends are close by.  Although this is just the logistics of it.

In the meantime, healthy living?

I know.. the first ever TLGB home. and then a chain. Just cut me in 10% finders fee.

This is a problem that has faced the aging Baby Boomer GLBT community.  There is no nursing home for us.  We have to enter a "regular" home and then suffer from abuse at the hands of the Phobic nursing staff.

As my neighbor said, when she gets to the age she has to go in one, she is taking her own life.  Death with Dignity.

I'm sure I have read an article about this issue, and one particular elderly trangendered woman, in the mainstream press.
Hmmmm.

Quote from: Janet Lynn on January 23, 2011, 12:52:54 PM
As my neighbor said, when she gets to the age she has to go in one, she is taking her own life.  Death with Dignity.

My dad died of Alzheimers.  It's an easy choice for me not to, having seen him suffer when it was out of his hands.

These are concerns that non-trans people have too. Even if someone does have family and/or kids it doesn't guarantee he/she wouldn't end up in a nursing home anyway. Many people have to work and can't afford to stay home with a chronically sick person.

As for Alzheimer's my grandmother is in the beginning stages of it. Right now she gets forgetful, remembers things incorrectly and can believe really odd, far out things.

The whole subject of getting old scares me. I do think that it's unfair to assume that all nurses and care workers are going to be 'phobic' though.

Maybe I'm an optimist but I imagine myself pottering around a little old lady flat until a ripe old age (at least 55 )

      This is a rather concerning question, for thoughts among us who have planned for their futures...aside from suicide what have you looked into doing?  I think I may call a few "homes" tomorrow and simply ask "how do you handle your TG population, or how would you handle a TG individual?

Quote from: purple sky on January 23, 2011, 11:14:21 AM
I was thinking about that too.  I came to the conclusion that I can really only " prevent"  for that today by keeping good care of my body and mind.  Is it hereditary?   What could we really do to prevent dementia, Alzheimer's .? People in those situations are usually I hope,  taken care of no matter what.  Would it really matter at that point?  Why do we really need to live that long to get to that point? Where would the quality be? Good question.  Makes me think. lol  Use it now I guess.  I really do not want to live that old/feeble to be unable to take care of my own basic needs.

Yes it is hereditary somewhat. I have an interest as it runs in my family, Alzheimers works on the same way as many neurodegenerative illnesses, They belong to a unique group of diseases that are caused by Thermodynamic Entropy. Prion diseases CJD BSE Scrapie and such work in a similar way. I saw a series of seminars about them and current research on them.

Basically normal human proteins are folded in a particular way then are broken down by the body and returned to amino acids, They start at high entropy loose some entropy then regain it as energy is returned.
with these diseases however the protein becomes prone to misfolding due to both age, or genetic mutation. Once this misfolding event occurs the protein looses much more entropy than it normally would preventing it from begin broken down by the body or any physical process Then it homogenizes with other identical proteins and denatures them too. and then they begin fusing into a massive abnormal chain. Either the small fusion or the massive chain either of them kills the cell which is usually a nerve cell. The misfolded proteins then spread and infect other cells too eventually killing the afflicted person.

The disease is different depending on the protein but technically any protein could become a disease vector in practice tho only a few are. Alzheimer's is a misfolding of the Amyloid Beta gene.

Current research is slow in this topic while some diseases are showing promise in stopping the enormous protein chain from forming when in Alzheimer's we stopped the large protein chains forming it made the disease x10 worse because as it turns out it's the small initial misfolded fusion proteins that are so deadly. and by blocking the large x1000+ fusions we increased the number of small fragments thus making the disease worse.

The problem is we've never seen those small misfolded fusion proteins they only exist for a couple of seconds and are nigh on impossible to isolate experimentally :/

I plan to never get old.

Start our own alternative living arrangement place stocked with medical personnel we know are sympathetic to our needs.

Yeah right.

There are gay/lesbian retirement, and care facilities.  But all that stuff costs pretty big money.

Quote from: MillieB on January 23, 2011, 03:27:40 PM
The whole subject of getting old scares me. I do think that it's unfair to assume that all nurses and care workers are going to be 'phobic' though.

Maybe I'm an optimist but I imagine myself pottering around a little old lady flat until a ripe old age (at least 55 )

Well, inasmuch as I am said ripe old age (I turned 55 in October 2010), I'm doing fine ... for now.  However, getting old and facing this exact issue keeps me up at night and I'm a whole heck of a lot closer to facing it than you are, Millie, and the other younger ones on here.  It's a bummer, because I know I'll have nobody.  Just tonight, I started a new bottle of spironolactone.  There are 120 tablets in there.  I stared at the opened bottle and truly contemplated taking the whole thing.  Not a single, solitary soul on God's green Earth would miss me, and I know well know it.  Kind of puts this issue in perspective, wouldn't you say?

   Lacey

[sarcasm] I am currently searching for the Fountain of Youth.[/sarcasm]

I'm hoping I go out before alzheimer's settles in and it is something I don't want to experience nor be put in a nursing home for. I've recently heard stories from someone that experienced someone that went through transient global amnesia( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transient_global_amnesia ) and if alzheimer's is as bad as this for forgetting your way back from the bathroom to the bed in a hospital. Let me know so i can start clogging my arties with food that taste good.

This is something that scares the pants off me, not for myself but for Alison, who has had some issues in her family, not alzheimer's but as a result of strokes and the like. The trouble is neither of us has been old before so it is difficult to know what represents normal aging and what could be the first signs of something more worrying.

The result is that, as the younger partner by well over a decade, I end up in a state of semi paranoia, which is made worse by the fact that although Alison is hugely fit and active she does have high blood pressure, which is often a risk factor for strokes.

Recently we found out that Alison, who used to be able to solve the Rubik's cube in under a minute seems no longer able to do it, and worryingly her ability to do mental arithmetic, which used to be astounding, also seems mildly impaired. However as her memory is as sharp as ever and she shows no sign of confusion or loss of day to day ability other than with numbers and pure logic it is difficult to know how seriously one should take this, and she has never actually shown any other symptoms of a stroke as such (unless you count a couple of minor falls).

With alzheimer's, of course, where there is progressive memory loss, the worry would be whether someone would regress to the point where they forget that they have had SRS. I can not imagine anything worse than to end ones days mentally right back where one started.

With strokes however the fear is that it can come on very suddenly and be completely devastating in its effect.

Neither is something to look forward to, and I am simply not cut out to be a long term carer. I don't have the patience, but neither do I have the financial resources to buy in care. So I would be stuck, and my nightmare would be if she did become seriously impaired, losing my composure and possibly injuring her. Something which I would of course never normally do. I pray every day that I will be spared this, and that she will never actually have any of these issues.

The fear is made worse because in the UK we hardly have the resources to deal with people who have these problems without adding in the complication of LGBT issues too.

It is all very worrying.

Quote from: Lacey Lynne on January 24, 2011, 12:52:32 AM
Well, inasmuch as I am said ripe old age (I turned 55 in October 2010), I'm doing fine ... for now.  However, getting old and facing this exact issue keeps me up at night and I'm a whole heck of a lot closer to facing it than you are, Millie, and the other younger ones on here.  It's a bummer, because I know I'll have nobody.  Just tonight, I started a new bottle of spironolactone.  There are 120 tablets in there.  I stared at the opened bottle and truly contemplated taking the whole thing.  Not a single, solitary soul on God's green Earth would miss me, and I know well know it.  Kind of puts this issue in perspective, wouldn't you say?

   Lacey

Sorry if my comments seemed insensitive Lacey, they were not intended to be. It was just a reference to the fact that I had never really given getting older a massive amount of thought. I had an awful lot of self destructive tendancies when I was younger and was assured by my Doctor that I would be dead by 35 whilst I myself even now can't see myself as an older person even though it is a lot more likely to happen due to me now being such a little goody goody (well comparatively! )

Please don't do anything rash, I think that a lot of trans people have looked at the pill bottle in low moments but it really isn't an answer and you might just miss out on something wonderful just around the corner

Take care Millie xx

I had opened up two trans homes with the last of my savings but the one owner recently died while scuba diving and the other turned into some wild religion house of gallae and are fighting the local town to not pay taxes..

yes we need something somewhere. I do happen to have a small farm now in central pa and would love to help the elderly here but that will only happen if i had help.