Hell No, We Won’t Go!!

Leave a reply

Is assisted living, or its even less appealing twin, housing for the elderly once known as the nursing home, in your future?  I am amazed at how many people, even those who seem to be doing everything to stay healthy and engaged in life, see this as inevitable.  It is as if they have absorbed the rhetoric of the long-term care industry, so the only question is whether they can afford the premiums now to safeguard their future.  My question is, what kind of future are we talking about? 

My 92 year old mother has been in a nursing home (she prefers ‘hospital’) for three years.  It is in Canada and therefore the costs are affordable — about $2500/month for everything, including her complex assortment of meds.    The staff is excellent but overworked.  There are programs like painting class and baking, a hair and nail salon, various religious activities including a Catholic mass twice a month (the Zetter Center is Lutheran-affiliated), and every so often, pub night with a cash bar and entertainment.  Yet, for all that, you cannot escape the reality that it is a kind of incarceration where you don’t get to decide when to eat or bathe and dress or undress, or even when to use the toilet.  Hardly a day goes by when I  don’t wish I had the ability to care for my mother myself.  And I am in awe of those of us, who aren’t exactly spring chickens ourselves, who do just that — care for our elders in our own homes.   It’s one of those mixed blessings of longevity that we haven’t quite figured out yet.  A good subject to bring up with our own children while we can make such decisions (another topic for another post).

Visiting my mother has firmed my resolve to resist such a fate at all costs.  So I was excited to come across the story about a bunch of feisty women, Canadians, too, as it happens, who have a very different vision of how to house ourselves better as we age.  Here is a brief excerpt:

Control of Our Lives

We don’t want just to be taken care of, we want to participate.We are baby boomers who moved from watching TV shows like Father Knows Best to reading Betty Freidan and Germaine Greer. We took to heart Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying. We fought to change the society we were living in then because we believed in having more control over our own lives as women. And we’re not about to give up the control we’ve worked so hard for. We want to run the place, not have our decisions made by a board of directors made up of guys in suits.  Herizons magazine’s cover story, Raise the Roof.

More mind-openers for you:

…and the Purpose Prize Winners Are

Leave a reply
  • Judith Broder, a psychiatrist who now enlists therapists to provide free counseling to returning veterans and their families
  • Timothy Will, a former telecom executive who brings broadband – and profits – to economically distressed farm communities in Appalachia
  • Henry Lui, a professor who now turns toxic waste into safe, “green” bricks

broderHenry LiuTimothy Will

Five Purpose Prize winners have won $100,000 each. Five more won $50,000 each.  And 49 were named Purpose Prize fellows.  What distinguishes the Purpose Prize from others is that it not only honors past achievements, but it provides the funds and recognition for winners and fellows to continue their groundbreaking work.

Retirement?  Not for these folks.  They are just getting started on Encore Careers that will make the world a better place.  Read about their big ideas.

Get Back!

Leave a reply

350-chart_0Get back, get back, get back to where you once belonged, sang The Beatles.  Fast forward a few decades and an entirely different world, Get Back could be the mantra for the 350.org, a group of environmental activists including author Bill McGibbon, Van Jones, founder of Green for All and most recently, Obama’s point man on the environment, and Dr. James Hansen (the NASA scientist whose testimony before Congress in the 1980s helped bring the issue of global warming to the foreground.)

350 is the number that leading scientists say is the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide—measured in “Parts Per Million” in our atmosphere. 350 PPM—it’s the number humanity needs to get back to as soon as possible to avoid runaway climate change.  Click to understand 350 better.

October 24 is the International Day of Climate Action.  This is 4,000 events in 170 countries, the biggest movement on the planet.  We will head down to Delray Beach to join others in Palm Beach Country in the Climate Change Wall of Hope and Shame.   After hearing from members of the Palm Beach County Environmental Coalition; representatives from the Reef Rescue Team; members of the Whitecloud Turtle Rescue Team; and Greenpeace, we will all stand shoulder to shoulder at 3:50pm for 350 seconds.   Will you stand with us?  Click here to find local events.

See what other older adults are doing:

Gray is Green

Green Seniors

National Senior Conservation Corps

Go Online, Get Happy and Healthy!

Leave a reply

A report just released by the PHOENIX CENTER POLICY PAPER SERIES indicates that Internet usage can significantly reduce depression among older adults.  Of course, since I’m writing this and you’re reading it, we are in the minority of older adults who are already online (42% of people over 65).  Chances are you, like me, regularly use the Internet to manage your money and health, keep up with the news, shop and share stuff.   You may also have joined one of the many social networks and now have a host of online friends.  You stay in touch with distant family and friends, sending photos and your favorite You Tube videos.  For me, all of this now seems as natural as breathing and I have to remind myself how relatively new the marvelous Internet is.  But I didn’t know that I was also keeping myself — and the economy — healthy by doing all these things until I came across this report.

Here are some interesting facts about depression and the older population:

  • latelife depression affects about six million Americans age 65 and older
  • depression is estimated to cost the United States about $100 billion
  • included in this figure is direct medical cost (31%) and latelife suicide (7%)

Here’s an excerpt of the the abstract:

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 directs over $7 billion to expand broadband Internet availability and adoption in the United States. One target of such funding is the elderly population, a group of Americans for which broadband adoption is relatively low. An interesting question is what benefits do such efforts
afford? We employ a dataset of over 7,000 elderly retired persons to evaluate the role of Internet use on mental well-being…using the eight-point depression scale developed by the Center for Epidemiologic Studies (CES-D)…All procedures indicate a positive contribution of Internet use to mental well-being of elderly Americans, and estimates indicate that Internet use leads to about a 20% reduction in depression classification.

On the chance that Pseudo-R2 Analysis of Matching Algorithms are your thing, the full report is available in a pdf file,  see link in opening line.

In the meantime, do your patriotic duty.  Surf on!  And invite the Internet holdouts among your buddies to jump in.  The water’s fine.

No One Will Hire Me …

Leave a reply

(…I’m too old.)  Of all the self-defeating statements we hear from people 60 and older who are in need of a job, this has to be the most common and saddest.  No doubt, this belief is based on personal experience with ageism, losing out to a younger competitor, for example.  Or simply finding that the strategies that worked before — a dynamite resume, power networking  — aren’t producing the desired result, especially in the current economic climate.   Ageism isn’t going to disappear, and we might do well to take the advice of employment counselors, weary of the complaint: “Get over it!”

Here, according to a new study from MetLife Mature Market Institute are seven common mistakes older job seekers must correct if they are to be successful in finding work.

• “I’ll just do what I was doing before.”
• “My experience speaks for itself.”
• “I don’t have time for this touchy-feely stuff about what work means to me.”
• “I know! I’ll become a consultant!”
• “Of course I’m good with computers.”
• “I’ll just use a recruiter for some career coaching.”
• “I’ve always been successful, so why should things be different now?”

If you are looking for work and any of these misconceptions ring a bell with you, take the time to download and read Buddy, Can You Spare a Job?  The MetLife Study of the New Realities of the Job Market for Aging Baby Boomers (October ’09).  It just might turn your head around.  As the study says, “Wishful thinking is not a job search method.”  Resilience, a willingness to relocate, and the motivation to learn new skills are absolute musts if you are seeking a job at 60 or older.  Or at any age, for that matter.

Medicare: Good Enough

Leave a reply

I wouldn’t want to be Senator Bill Nelson of Florida these days, or one of those nice young aides who answer his phones. After Humana frightened its Medicare Advantage partners with a letter suggesting their benefits would be threatened by Medicare reforms, Senator Nelson’s office was flooded with anxious calls.  You can tell when an issue really hits home in America.  We buzz with every kind of information and misinformation.  It’s the democratic process and I wouldn’t have it any other way.  But it hasn’t been easy to find well-reasoned, non-partisan arguments on the volatile subject of health care reform, and what often filters down into lay language can be truly scary.  Take a sampling from the postings on your own Facebook page.  You may be shocked at the misinformed, if not completely irrational, positions taken by people from whom you might expect better.

We’ve been to Senator Nelson’s office in West Palm Beach to express support for single payer (the option advocated by Physicians for a National Health Program) and we’ve stood on the sidewalk holding a sign and waving to passing cars.  As Medicare recipients with an AARP  Medigap policy, we already enjoy benefits most Americans envy.  Our kids and younger friends would love to have what we have, and we think they should.  With Medicare, we get health care that is as good as it gets south of the Canadian border.   It’s good enough, and so are the health care systems in Canada, the UK and any number of other countries where health care is considered a basic right.  Good enough, not perfect.

I’m no expert on health care reform, but I know enough to recognize politically-motivated malarkey when I see it.  And I know a sound argument when I encounter one:  Here are two articles well worth your time and attention:

Atul Gawande’s The Cost Conundrum, The New Yorker, June 1, 2009, offers a model system in a Texas town.  Dr. Gawande’s book Better is also excellent.

Theodore Roszak, Medicare for All, Los Angeles Times, September 21, 2009 makes a compelling argument based on his own recent experiences with Medicare.  The Making of an Elder Culture is Theodore Roszak’s latest book.

Sometimes All It Takes is a Handshake …

Leave a reply

…to show appreciation and common humanity.  That is the core message of this heartfelt and often heart-wrenching  documentary, The Way We Get By, about the Maine Troop Greeters, a group of elderly residents of Bangor, Maine, who meet troops on their return from active duty in Iraq, offering smiles, handshakes and a cellphone to make free calls to family, or send them off with encouragement and pride.

When Joan, Bill and Jerry aren’t volunteering their services at the Bangor International Airport in all weather and at all hours, they have plenty of health and other issues on their respective plates.  Joan Gaudet, 75, mother of the film’s director and a grandmother of eight, takes 13 medications a day and worries about daughter Amy’s assignment to Iraq as a Blackhawk helicopter pilot.  She wonders aloud how Americans would feel about outsiders coming here and telling us how to live.  World War II Veteran Bill Knight, the eldest at 87, has seen his life after the death of his wife become overwhelmed by debt, a battle with cancer, and a house full of garbage, clutter and cats.  Yet he faces his own demise with equanimity and his speech is often sprinkled with bon mot: “Leave a car outside and it’ll rust out faster than you can wear it out…just like people.”  Meanwhile 74-year-old Jerry Mundy, wrestles with the death of his son and heart disease, while missing no opportunity to “put a smile on each soldier’s face.”

While The Way We Get By is never overtly critical of American policy, it never finches from the reality of extreme sacrifice as when new arrivals scan a wall for names and photos of their fallen comrades.

The lives of Joan, Bill and Jerry and their passion for this work at ages when many of their peers have decided to sit out the rest of their days, is deeply moving.  Now in wide circulation, this powerful film about the healing power of human connection and how to live each day as if it could be your last, is a must.  Carry a packet of tissues.

50+? The Peace Corps Wants You

Leave a reply

“Do people tell you you`re over the hill? … What if you were?  Over the hill, over a stream and over an ocean.  To another continent.  Thousands of miles from your own. Where elders are looked to as leaders …”

If you’re over 50 and have ever been attracted to becoming a Peace Corps volunteer, this advertising message should alert you to the fact that the Peace Corps is recruiting older adults, for their maturity, life and business experience, and transferable skills.  Of the approximately 7,800 volunteers around the world, people 50 and older make up 5%, or fewer than 400.  Host nations are asking for volunteers who can offer real-world experience in technical fields, business development, agribusiness or teaching, rather than young adults right out of college, says Rosie Mauk, the Peace Corps’ associate director of volunteer recruitment and selection.  Applications among older Americans, many of whom have lost jobs in last year’s economic downturn, are on the rise.

2young2retire facilitator and Peace Corps volunteer, Patrice Koerper, who recently returned from an assignment in Macedonia, describes it as the “most amazing, rewarding adventure of my life,”  and the Peace Corps itself as the best organization she has ever been associated with.  A seasoned public relations professional with a “great job,” Patrice was looking for a change of direction.  She had three personal goals for her next endeavor:  first, she wanted “to see the faces of the people I was helping”; second, she wanted to get to know more people; and third, she wanted to live in Eastern Europe from where her family immigrated generations ago.  Service with the Peace Corps in Macedonia met all three.

In 2006, while exploring new possibilities for work and life, she took the training to become a certified 2young2retire facilitator.  She also found herself drawn to the Peace Corps and decided to apply.  After a six-month application process which she found both “laborious and scary,” she felt the Peace Corps knew more about her than anyone.  If you’re an older volunteer, you should expect that because there is so much more to know.

Based on an assessment of your skills and experience, the Peace Corps decides what kind of work you will take on.   Once you have accepted an assignment – you are offered up to three locations – you receive language and other training to prepare you for life in your host country.  The mission of the Peace Corps is captured in these three goals:

  1. Helping the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women.
  2. Helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.
  3. Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.

The Three Goals, plus the commitment to a 27-month duration of service, tend to screen out all but the most serious applicants.  Peace Corps volunteer are supplied with a round trip ticket, housing allowance and a stipend to cover food, transportation and incidentals.  For Patrice this came to $220 a month, or roughly equivalent to 250 Euros, an average salary in Macedonia.  The point is, volunteers must live like the locals.  She received full medical coverage during her service and affordable health insurance for up to 18 months following service.   Older volunteers who draw Social Security and/or other pension benefits, may accumulate significant savings while they are away from home.  All returning Peace Corps volunteers are awarded just over $6,000 toward a smooth transition to life back home, and Patrice notes, they are eligible for Response Corps, short-term, high-impact assignments that typically range from three months to a year, at the request of a country.

Eager to begin her new assignment, Patrice arrived in Macedonia and spent the first six months “doing nothing.  Patience is the Number One way to survive,” she notes.  Macedonia, which became independent from Yugoslavia in 1991, is in the process of reinventing itself and its economy.  She was assigned to work with a government agency and eventually found herself doing workshops on change.  At first, people tended to view volunteers with suspicion, perhaps because there has been no formal tradition of volunteering.  She grew comfortable with the experience of “living minute to minute.” The last seven months of her service in Macedonia proved to be the most fruitful and rewarding.   “I realized I was in the business of building hope and trust,” Patrice says.  She kept the motto of Macedonian native, Mother Theresa, in mind: “Do small things with great love.”

Here are links about the Peace Corps, including recent budgetary debate and how to go about applying:

Recruiting the 50+
Budget Debates, Future Prospects
From Job Loss to Peace Corps
About Peace Corps
Forum for Volunteers
How to Apply


Aging-Friendly Cities

Leave a reply

There have been reports that the migration of older adults to Florida has slowed, in fact, it may be starting to reverse itself.  As an older adult resident of the state since 2003, I have an idea why this could be happening: we have to drive a car just about everywhere.  For most families, two cars are an absolute necessity.  Even many couples of a certain age whose full time working days are behind them, feel they must have two cars.   So when driving becomes difficult, or one decides for any number of reasons to quit driving, you become dependent on limited bus service or the kindness of friends to get around.  Of course, if you are fit and live within a mile or so of basics like grocery, bank, drug store, community pool, friends, you can walk.  And if you can and do, you will actually improve your level of fitness as well as maintain your social and community connections.  But the truth is, with few exceptions — Del Ray Beach and Lake Worth come to mind — your place of residence will be far from downtown or anything resembling one.

Living here makes me nostalgic for New York City and Hoboken, NJ,  two urban areas we’ve lived in where owning a car was not only unnecessary, but given the difficulty of finding parking and the high cost of it, could be viewed as a  liability.  Although people complain about it, for my money New York has one of the best public transportation systems in the world, both above and below ground.  Hoboken is a mile square, so nothing is very far away.   A walk to corner to get the newspaper or a quart of milk often meant you’d run into a friend or neighbor and have a chat.  You might wind up having coffee together, or getting invited to something interesting.  You had to work at being isolated.

It comes as no surprise that visionary city planning with an eye on the aging population focuses on redesigning areas that address what older adults want most: staying put, maintaining independence and walking communities.  Read this great article by Glenn Ruffenach in the Wall Street Journal for some of the newest ideas on this important development, and where the new aging friendly communities are.  If you don’t wish to move, perhaps you can explore the possibility of making changes to your own.

Forestalling Frailty

Leave a reply

A friend has been spending many hours at assisted living and nursing facilities lately, looking for the right fit for an elder in his family who can no longer do for herself.  I preceded him in this difficult and often heart-breaking task a few years ago, so I completely agree with his observation about residents of these specialized forms of housing for older adults: nearly everyone is there not because they are ill but because they are frail.

The medical term, frailty syndrome is “a condition, seen particularly in older patients, characterized by low functional reserve, easy tiring, decrease of libido, mood disturbance, accelerated osteoporosis, decreased muscle strength, and high susceptibility to disease.”  Note that, absent heart disease or cancer, these are symptoms rather than disease itself, and every one of them is preventable and possibly even reversible by a regimen of physical exercise, social engagement and mental stimulation.  It is shocking that, in a culture that loves self-improvement, we grow more neglectful of these basics of good health as we age.

In his article for Aging Today, Is Our Healthcare System Ready for the Age Wave?, gerontologist and best-selling author, Ken Dychtwald, offers a four-part proposal that could, if implemented, improve lives of elder Americans and significantly reduce the unsustainable cost of caring for people who are frail rather than ill.  The item that resonates with me in particular is about lifestyle choices.  It is no secret that personal behavior can postpone many of the so-called diseases of aging indefinitely.  Self-care can and must be a priority.  We owe it to ourselves, our children and grandchildren, and to society, to keep ourselves as healthy as we can be so that longevity is a gift that keeps giving.

President’s Council on Physical Fitness

Forestalling Frailty from WebMD

Senior Olympics for 70-year-old