One evening as I was using my key to let myself into my mother’s apartment for a visit, I glanced toward the kitchen table where she usually sat reading the newspaper and saw her rolling walker standing alone. Surprised, I said loudly: “Where are you, Mom?”

“Here,” I heard her respond from her bedroom down the hall. “I’m fine.”

On the floor next to her bed, I found her splayed out on her back. “Did you fall? Are you hurt?” I asked with rising panic.

“I’m fine,” she repeated. “It’s comfortable here,” she said, running her hand lightly over the cut-pile carpet.

My thoughts went in several directions. As a clinical psychologist specializing in working with older adults and their family caregivers for two decades, I’d heard many stories of seniors lying where they’d fallen for hours or even days before being found. Why hadn’t she used her walker to prevent her fall? She hated it, I knew, because it made her feel old, but a botched knee replacement surgery and bad arthritis had made her gait unsteady. Had she forgotten it in her kitchen because her thinking skills were declining, or decided to not use it when no one – ie, me – was watching?

“How long have you been here?” I asked as I lifted her gently and guided her to a chair.

“A little while,” she answered. I didn’t believe her.

“Why didn’t you use the medical alert?” I asked, pointing to the button she had on a necklace around her neck which, when pushed, would connect her to an emergency service.

She fingered the necklace but said nothing. Had she forgotten about it, too, I wondered, or had she decided not to use it out of embarrassment?

Such concerns about an older adult are increasingly common in our ageing America. According to the 2025 Caregiving in the US report, published in July by AARP and the National Alliance for Caregiving, nearly half of this country’s 63 million family caregivers are caring for their ageing or disabled parents. Many of these adult children, the report makes clear, are overwhelmed by the number and nature of........

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