Changing Aging

This is a cool mission statement:

To transform a source (the knowledge, talent and skill of the region’s 50+ population) into a force for enriching our community by helping individuals find meaning and the means to contribute to the greater good.

It’s the mission of Coming of Age, a Philadephia collaboration of four partners:  Temple University’s Center for Intergenerational Learning, WHYY Wider Horizons, the United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania, and  AARP Pennsylvania. 

Coming of Age has three objectives: 

1.  Helping people age 50+ plan for the future;

2.  Promoting 50+ volunteering, learning, and community leadership;

3.  Working with nonprofits to recruit, train, and retain 50+ volunteers.  

Coming of Age is a great model for other communities who want to seize opportunities of an unprecedented age wave.  It’s fresh, invigorating, inspiring, fun . . . It’s also drawing dollars . . . Atlantic Philanthropies recently gave it $1.8 million to expand in other parts of the U.S.. . . . .

Do you know of any other communities that are doing this?

Just when you think there aren’t issues that Red and Blue America can agree on, there comes this little thing called aging that we’re all doing and want to do well. 

On Wednesday a packed auditorium at the University of Minnesota Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs participated in a discussion about financing long-term care in America. And what one saw was a great issue opportunity for Red and Blue America to forge common ground.  As several panelists, including a Republican state legislator, said: Aging isn’t a Republican or Democratic issue.

The forum was sponsored by the Minnesota Health and Housing Alliance, the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging and AARP.  Twin Cities Public Television is creating a one-hour special on it and we’ll post that when it comes out later this year. 

In upcoming posts we’ll look at finance plans introduced at the Forum, but first, following are several highlights/themes from the discussions moderated by Minnesota state commissioner of labor and industry Steve Sviggum and Larry Jacobs, director, at the University of Minnesota’s Center for the Study of Politics and Governance.  I know a number of Changing Aging readers were there, so please share what you found interesting or heard differently . . . thanks.

- Environments are Disabled:  Jan Malcolm, CEO of Courage Center, put a different paradigm on disability.  Too often people live in environments that don’t allow for people with physical challenges.  So why do we always focus on the person’s physical disability? Why aren’t we focusing on maximizing the physical environment in our communites to allow people young and old to live easily where they want to? 

- Money Has to Follow the Person:  With government reimbursement money encumbered and siloed in so many areas of health care, people are mice in a never-ending maze, captive to running to the cheese (fragmented, inflexible funding sources).  Let the money follow the person, so they can make the choices in their care and service options. 

- A Healthy Health Care System in America Must Include Aging Services:  If we’re going to truly have a well-coordinated cradle-to-grave health care system that focuses on wellness, aging services must be an essential piece of the solution wheel. We have to connect the dots.

- New Language:   What do you think of when you think of long-term care?  Many people think “nursing homes.”  Guess where people don’t want to live? Long-term care, er, aging services encompasses so much more than a nursing home, including:  assisted living, rehab services, wellness centers, transportation, home care, memory care, technology . . . .

- Home-Centered System:  Home has to be an integral part of public policy innovation.  Because that’s where people most want to be.  Nursing homes will still have an integral role, but they will look very different. 

- This is a [Fill in the Blank] Issue:  Long-term care isn’t just a long-term care issue.  It’s a health care issue, business issue, education issue, economic security issue and community development issue.  If we don’t ride the age wave, it’s going to damage other sectors of our communities.

- Marry Technology and Results:  We spend billions in America on technology in hospitals, attempting to help people live longer.  What about adding life to years?  Technology in aging services, such as sensors in people’s homes that spot small health problems before they grow into big ones, is the preventive-type of technology we should be focusing on in a results-based, wellness-focused health care system.

- Fiscal Responsiblity Doesn’t End with the Mortgage:  To save safety nets for those truly in need, more of us simply have to plan ahead and pay our way for aging services.  The alternative is not sustainable for America.

The Washington Post calls Time Goes By “the quintessential seniors’ blog,”  . . . AARP calls its author Ronni Bennett (in the cool photo montage above), “the dean of older bloggers,”  . . . And we’re fortunate to have her insights today at Ecumen’s Changing Aging blog.

For more than 25 years Ronni, who says “Age is a gift,” was a radio and television producer, working on such programs as 20/20 and the The Barbara Walters Specials on ABC and for shows on Lifetime TV, NBC, PBS and CBS.  In 1996, as the Internet was in its infancy, Ronni was named the first managing editor at cbsnews.com.  It was there that the seeds of Time Goes By began to grow.  Today she’s changing aging in America from her home in Maine where she authors her groundbreaking blog.  Thank you to Ronni for taking time with us.

Why did you start blogging?

After six or eight years of researching aging in my spare time, I had accumulated thousands of pages of notes and articles along with a small library of books on aging and wanted to organize what I’d learned. I had also been following what was, in 2003, the nascent blogging phenomenon and thought it would be a good format for writing about ‘what it’s really like to get old’ which is the subtitle of my blog.

Hardly anyone was writing online about aging back then and what existed - online and in print - was about 95 percent negative; all about decline, disease and debility. I knew getting old couldn’t possibly be as bad as that so while not being a Pollyanna about it, I wanted to explore what is good about aging.

How much time do you spend on Time Goes By?

It’s a seven-day-a-week job. I have a couple dozen Google Alerts of key words and phrases that keep me up on what’s being written about aging, aging news, research, etc. I also subscribe to email newsletters relating to geriatrics, technology, government, public policy, employment, age discrimination, caregiving, etc., so there’s a lot of reading and assimilating to do. Then the writing.

I post to Time Goes By six days a week and I also keep a secondary blog, The Elder Storytelling Place, for which I rarely write, but edit and publish stories elders submit. I put in a lot more time on these than I did on regular jobs before I retired from the workplace.

What kind of impact do you think the blogosphere is going to have on how we view aging in America?

There’s a famous New Yorker cartoon from about a dozen years ago showing two dogs sitting at a computer. One says to the other: ‘On the internet, no one knows you’re a dog.’ Well, no one knows your age either, unless you tell them, so one’s thoughts, opinions and writing can more easily be judged on their merit rather than being dismissed for being written by a 70-year-ol. Or a 20-year-old, for that matter.

However, I always give my age, when appropriate, on my blog and I urge other elders to do it too so that readers become accustomed to finding stories of interest from 60-and 70- and 80-year-olds and beyond. The United States is a profoundly ageist country in which, for years, elders have been marginalized in media, the workforce and most of the culture as though, when we get old, we forget everything we ever learned. But we still have much to contribute if people will let us, and perhaps within the blogosphere we - the young and the old - might discover what we have in common.

Does growing older fascinate you, or scare you, or something else?  Why?

For most of my life, I never thought about getting old. I think our mid-years are so busy with careers, home, child-raising that there’s little time to consider our approaching later years. In my case, I was 55 when I looked around the room where I worked at cbsnews.com for one of the writers I needed to speak with. As I gazed over the faces, I had a startling moment of recognition: I was older than every person in the room by decades, old enough in some cases to be their grandmother.

Over the next few weeks, I noticed it again and again and realized I knew nothing about what getting old is like. A cursory look at the popular press, newspapers and magazines, gave me nothing except the debility and decline I mentioned above and I thought if it was going to be THAT bad, I might as well shoot myself.

But I couldn’t make myself believe that it would necessarily be so terrible. I was smarter, sharper, better at my job than I had ever been. I was more comfortable in my own skin. I was happier with myself than when I was younger. How could being 55 and even older be the awful thing it is made out to be, I wondered, when I felt so good.

Because youth is considered the gold standard of life in the United States, getting old is a great mystery and it fascinates me. And the goal of my blog is to lift the veil on that mystery and find out what it’s really like.

How do you see the age wave - the unprecedented number of older people - changing how we view aging in America?

Well, I haven’t made up my mind about that. On the one hand, with more elders around, everyone else has to become more familiar with us and see the trade-offs that are made. I can’t run as fast or jump as high as I once could, but I’m smarter, more experienced and have a lot better judgment than when I was young.

On the other hand, I worry that there will be a generational conflict. There is no denying that as old people become a larger percentage of the population, some people will see the need to care for those who need it as a drain on resources.

Nevertheless, things will need to change. With fewer people in the generations coming up behind the baby boomers, finally corporate America will NEED to employ old people longer just to get the work of the country done. Life expectancy increased by 30 years during the 20th century and we are much healthier than our parents’ and grandparents’ generations.  So there is no reason old people should be shoved out of the workplace at 60 or 65 as they are now, and there are signs that corporate America is beginning to recognize this.

The generations need one another and I hope that will help change the ageist atmosphere we live in now.

Do you see the media changing how it views and depicts aging?

A little, but not much yet. This is so because most of the media is run by young people and they don’t understand old people. Our interests and concerns change as we get older, but the media treats us mostly as slightly dotty, none too bright and the youth and beauty police keep insisting that we do everything possible to pretend to be younger than we are. The ad agencies and TV and movie producers need to employ some 60- and 70-year-olds to get it right.

There are a few more magazines, such as More and ELDR aimed at older people, and that’s good except that they may be becoming kind of a ghetto of old people media. And Oprah Winfrey, who has millions of fans and is considered the queen of daytime television, spends a great amount of time on her show pursuing the pretense of youth. Oprah is 54 years old. She should be wise enough by now to use her media power to help people accept aging as a normal stage of life, promote its dignity, recognize the value of elders and help integrate them into the mainstream.

Which are you enjoying more - your career in your 30s or your work today?

I had a wonderful career in television. I traveled the world on someone else’s dime, worked with kings and queens and movie stars and heads of state, and learned a lot of things I would never have otherwise known. And then, after a couple of decades, I was given the opportunity to work in a burgeoning new medium, the internet, when it was brand new.

During all those years, I never thought much about what I’d do when I wasn’t employed in the workforce anymore. I suppose I expected to do that until I die, but a bit of age discrimination in the workplace got in the way. I hadn’t intended, when I started Time Goes By, to make it a late-life career, but it morphed into that. It’s allowed me to meet people from all over the world, get to the know the tech community and participate in the blogging world beyond turning out a blog post each day, attending and speaking at conferences and, perhaps, making some small difference in how elders are perceived and treated.

So I can’t say I enjoy one more than the other, but how lucky for me that the internet and blogging came along just when I needed it.

It’s unreal how so many companies are scared of people - even their own people.  Yet people are their business.  Starbucks sees the power of people with their new consumer “idea generator” website.   I don’t like coffee, but I like what they’re doing.

At Ecumen, we also find that the best ideas come from people who know us best - Ecumen customers and Ecumen employees.  The power of people is the genesis behind Ecumen’s Innovation Station.  (note: this is a PDF link)

Housed on our intranet, it’s where teams of people shape new ways of doing things.  Last week was our annual celebration recognizing innovators, who have done a variety of things to improve the customer experience, including:

- Specialized behavioral Alzheimer’s training
- A new memory care community for people dealing with the most serious behavioral issues caused by Alzheimer’s, there are only 2 in Minnesota and a handful nationally
- New congregational senior housing.
- Expanding outside bricks and mortar to provide seamless care in a person’s home
- Expansion of technology such as wireless record keeping of care (no more paper) and
- Universal marketing, when a person walks into an assisted living community, everyone is empowered and trained to serve that person and provide a tour
- Making it possible for nursing home residents to eat when they want to eat, what they want to eat (No institutional 7 a.m. wake up call and everyone going to the dining line at once . . . yuck)
- Concierge service so that our customers have point of contact when they seek a service
- Going green . . .the only paper products that Country Neighbors of New Richland, Minnesota, uses are recycled paper towels
- “Guest” apartments so that potential customers can “test-drive” our communities
- Retrofitted dining trays for a person’s walker to enhance independence and allow a person to fully participate in buffet-style dining
- End of life care that underscores aging is all about living even at the very end of life.

THE POWER OF PEOPLE - WHAT POSSIBILITIES

“After going from crisis to crisis, Joan is finally in a place where they have the time and training to really help,” said her husband, Terry, 76, a retired math teacher and businessman from Shoreview.  “How many places can you get kicked out of?  Let’s see, for us it was four in one year.” . . . .

Today the Minneapolis Star Tribune told a wonderful story of Ecumen’s Summit House at Prairie Lodge, a new option in Brooklyn Center, Minn., for people and families dealing with the extreme behaviors that at times accompany Alzheimer’s.   Thank you to the Wagener family for choosing Ecumen’s new housing option and being so candid about telling this powerful story.  We salute you!

“Drugs may be a good answer, but it should never be the first answer,” said Janelle Meyers, Ecumen’s director of Prairie Lodge.  “A resident isn’t trying to be nasty or disruptive.  It’s the disease talking.  If someone is screaming, they’re trying to communicate something.  We need to figure out what that is.”

Above are just a few of the innovators (several of whom are pictured at last week’s Ecumen Leadership Conference) who sought a new way to help people and family members dealing with the most extreme behaviors of Alzheimer’s.  They are part of an incredible team of people throughout this organization who are delivering a beautiful vision for “Changing Aging”:

We envision a world in which aging is viewed and understood in
radically different ways.

The SmartSilvers Alliance is an thought-provoking Silicon Valley group that sees technology as key to active, successful aging.  They’ve compiled a 10 Things to Know About The Silvers Market llist below.   While many Baby Boomers aren’t representative of these stats, these are interesting figures around the large wave of Americans who have seniority next.  To read more about technology in aging services, we invite you to visit our whitepaper library.

1. An American turns 50 every 8 seconds — that’s over 10,000 people every day (AARP).  That makes it the fastest growing population segment.  
2. 78 million Americans who were 50 or older as of 2001 controlled 67% of the country’s wealth, or $28 trillion (U.S. Census and Federal Reserve). Adults 50+ account for an estimated $2 trillion in total expenditures for 2005.
3. The 50+ have $2.4 trillion in annual income, which accounts for 42% of all after-tax income (U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey)
4. One-third of the 195.3 million Internet users in the U.S., 50+ silvers represent the Web’s largest constituency  (Jupiter Research) — that means  2/3 of Americans age 50-64 use the Internet (SeniorNet).
5. Email is the most popular online activity among 50+ users, followed by web browsing, research, and shopping  (ThirdAge and JWT Boom).
6. 72 percent of baby boomers have broadband Internet in their homes (ThirdAge and JWT Boom); they watch more TV than any other group.
7. Adults 50+ spend an average of $7 billion online annually (SeniorNet). Silvers Account for 40% of total consumer demand
8. The Internet is the most important source of information for baby boomers when they make a major marketing purchase, such as automobiles or appliances (Zoomerang).
9. 82 percent of adults aged 50+ who use the Internet research health and wellness information online (Pew Internet and American Life Project).
10. Contrary to popular belief – Silvers are not fanatically loyal to brands in fact 96 percent of baby boomers participate in word-of-mouth or viral marketing by passing a product or service information on to friends (ThirdAge and JWT Boom).

The Silvers  purchase:  41 percent of all new cars,  buy 25 percent of all toys (spend over $29 Billion annually on gifts for grandchildren),  go on 80 percent of all luxury travel trips , buy 60 percent of all healthcare products,  74 percent of all prescription drugs, and 51 percent of all over-the-counter drugs.  Plus they visit malls more often than any other age group and dine out 4-5 times per week.   (various sources)

Innovator Sean Kershaw, who leads the Citizens League, one of the country’s top non-partisan civic engagement organizations, calls for a new civic and intergenerational approach to aging.  He writes in his most recent “Viewpoint” article . . .

The term “long-term care” is revealing.  Long-term care is usually about long-term loss: the loss of authority, money, health, and connections to family and community.  Our system is based on an expert and medical model of passive consumption and limited choices.  And because none of us really want this, we avoid talking about it or planning for it . . .

We need to begin an intergenerational discussion to redefine the issue in radically new - civic - terms . . .

We should talk about how we all age, not just about “the elderly”; about harnessing wisdom and building individual capacity, not just providing more/better services and care.  We should talk about health and wellness, not just chronic illness; about taking personal responsibility for our retirement and for the economic health of future generations, not just how we pay the bills for the current troubled system . . .

You can read Sean’s full Viewpoint article here.

78 million people are on the verge of becoming seniors in the U.S. . . . . .Which definition should define aging services?

NORMAL:  1. of or conforming to the accepted model, pattern or standard  2. not abnormal

ORIGINAL: 1. having to do with an origin, source or beginning. 2. never having existed before.  3.   created or invented independent of already existing ideas or works.

While there are many more than 12 people who are “Changing Aging” across the United States,  here are 12 that Kelly Greene of the Wall Street Journal focused upon on Friday. 

At Ecumen, we’ve had the pleasure to work with two of them: Eric Dishman, who heads up innovation in Intel Corporation’s Digital Health Group, and Dr. William Thomas, the Dr. Spock of Aging and who also authors a “Changing Aging” blog. 

When you look at the areas they identify, you see key areas for innovation and “Changing Aging” in America:

- Technology

- Housing

- Financial Planning

- Work

- Volunteerism

- Transportation

- Community Planning and Design

- Wellness and Health Care

- Lifelong Education

- Public Policy

Technology is going to play an increasing role in aging and the transformation of America for the Age Wave.

Christine Capecchi, a reporter with MinnPost.com, spent time with Honor Hacker, an Ecumen customer, yesterday (at left) at the Ecumen community of Lakeview Commons.  Here is Christina’s interesting story.

Honor and Kathy Bakkenist, Ecumen’s COO and senior vice president of strategy and operations, will be testifying tomorrow before members and staff of the Senate Special Committee on Aging on the subject of aging and technology.