It's a sunny weekday morning and the lounge of Maygrove Village in Orewa is sparsely populated.

"I'm not looking forward to July 28 this year," I gloomily announced, "on that date, I'll be especially reminded that I'm getting old."

This ageing process is such a bitch, writes Robyn Yousef. In your mind you're still a rampant teenager, but your flesh expands, then folds and drops, pieces dry out and random people start addressing you as "dear".

The country's major rest home chains are facing a legal battle over pay as the unions representing aged care workers bring proceedings under the Equal Pay Act.

About 280,000 New Zealanders are waiting for elective surgery, and more than half are not on waiting lists, new research shows.

A caregiver says elderly residents at a rest home in the Wellington area were dressed again in dirty continence pads to save money on new pads.

A two-month Herald investigation of rest homes has found some major failings - including a confused married woman "mauled" by a resident and a 9-month scabies outbreak.

Full rest home and private hospital audit reports will be published online from tomorrow in a six-month trial to see whether people read them.

Most people will welcome Grey Power's call for an Aged Care Commissioner to tackle the rising incidence of financial abuse of vulnerable older Kiwis, writes Sue Kedgley.

Think a typical Kiwi entrepreneur is young and tech-savvy? Think again.

The Government has been urged to create a new aged care watchdog with legal power to tackle the rising incidence of financial abuse of vulnerable elderly people.

A New Zealand-controlled retirement village business is expanding its British investments, building a new 115 million London project.

Prime Minister John Key has his head in the sand with his block on raising the retirement age and is more interested in clinging to power.

Auckland neuro-scientists have made important discoveries in how Alzheimer's and Parkinson's may affect the brain.

One in five pensioners is still in paid employment - a figure fuelled by finance company collapses, divorce and the cost of living, experts say.

Frank Glavish last year became the oldest person to give evidence in a district court when he stood in the dock and faced a woman who had ripped him off after posing as a long-lost relative.

Each has his own answer to longevity, but it's likely the Mossman triplets have all reached 90 because they're so competitive none wants to be the first to die.

New Zealand seems to think dental care is one of those things that is "nice to have".

Remarkably, two in five girls born today will live for a century, and boys are close behind. But is longevity all it’s cracked up to be?

Naming clothes is one of the many new things you learn about when you first put your parent in an old folks' home, writes Deborah Hill Cone.