Erica Curless

Water polo club offers an active, physical game for players of all ages.

The benefits of animal companionship have been obvious to animal lovers for thousands of years – in fact an elderly human from 10,000 BC was found buried in northern Israel cuddling a puppy, the first find suggesting a close relationship between humans and dogs.

Alan Roecks is anything but shy. Even when it comes to talking about bladders, urine and ostomies – the surgical opening in the body for discharging solid and liquid waste into a pouch – he is upfront and open.

Two Spokane couples team up to run Sativa Sisters, and find many customers are boomers, too.

REPUBLIC, Wash. _ Bob Faller died after a day of fighting and struggling. Naked and fierce, gripped by death’s delirium, he rolled on the floor tearing paper into tiny shreds. He tried to flush his pants down the toilet. Jane, his wife of 58 years, was alone in their rural Republic house, terrified. Helpless.

Linda Petrie, who helped craft the region’s first long-term care ombudsman program in 1990, has retired.

Volunteer group makes sure area seniors find cheer under their Christmas trees.

Pilot project lets Lincoln County patients with chronic illness track their health at home.

Katherine Merck, a Spokane native and Gonzaga Law School student, is the new 2016 Miss Rodeo America.

Last month, the Spokane Regional Health District honored Brenda Jurich with the Mary Ann Wilson Lifetime Achievement Award for dedicating her life’s work to healthy aging, fall prevention and innovative ideas.

Spokane County has a higher death rate from fall-related injuries than the rest of the state.

Parents of adult children with disabilities are haunted by questions of who’ll care for their children when they’re gone.

Merry Glen, a nonprofit family cooperative, is a unique option in long-term care for people with disabilities.

A handful of residents are working to create an emergency readiness plan using the step-by-step guide program known as Map Your Neighborhood.

Palliative care expert Dr. Ira Byock is calling for a revolution, where health consumers – especially patients and their families – demand a better death on their terms.

iPads help restore memories for elderly, caretakers.

Miss Rodeo Washington, who took time off from her law studies at Gonzaga, hope to win the national rodeo queen title in Las Vegas in December.

Volunteers − both medical and nonmedical − needed for local Medical Reserve Corps

An accident takes Jane Faller away from her rural Ferry County home as cancer continues to wear down her husband Bob. This is part of a series on aging in rural Washington. Read the rest of the series

Aging gracefully is a choice that takes courage and the ability to embrace change, advises award-winning actress Linda Evans who is known for playing Krystle Carrington in the 1980s drama “Dynasty.” Evans, who has lived in Rainier, near Olympia, for 30 years, is keynote speaker for the annual two-day Boomers and Beyond: Aging Successfully Conference on Friday and Saturday at the Spokane Convention Center. The conference, which includes presentations and resources for the elderly and their families, is a fundraiser for the Senior Assistance Fund of Eastern Washington that awards grants to nonprofits that provide services to low income seniors.

Fostering relationships between youth and elders is an important mission for the Senior Assistance Fund of Eastern Washington, which has an essay writing contest each year for area students. In May, 60 students wrote about their grandparents or a special older person in their life. The winners were chosen this summer. GaoShoua Moua, who wrote the essay as a sixth-grader at Arlington Elementary last spring and now attends Garry Middle School, won for her tribute to her grandmother, Thia Thao, a Hmong refugee who lives with her family.

You’re never too old for back-to-school, at least that’s the mantra of Hayden’s Brona Trutton, 74, who puts her oxygen in her backpack with her books and takes the elevator to her math class at North Idaho College. Two courses at a time, Trutton is working toward her bachelor’s degree – a goal that has eluded her since she was 19.

REPUBLIC, Wash. – The cancer has returned with a vengeance, the headaches are constant, debilitating. Bob Faller is dying, soon. Doctors deem him lucky if he celebrates New Year’s.

DANVILLE, Wash. – The burned carcasses blend into the scorched landscape, just more black and ash among the haunting outline of trees.    “There she is,” rancher Doug Grumbach says, pointing up the steep slope near his ranch. “It looks like she was trying to run and froze in that mode.” The cow is now obvious: A perfectly shaped head, a body covered in skin that’s become cured leather – taut and solid like a drumhead. She’s upright, wedged between two burned trees, ribs exposed, a flurry of maggots working furiously. Her calf lies in a heap nearby.