What do you see Changing in an Aging America? Add your thoughts and ideas to Kathryn Robert’s blog post:

Amidst today’s horrible economic news is a growing, bright light called aging. It is a driving, transformational force in America that isn’t business as usual.People over 50 represent 43% of all U.S. households. By 2020 the senior population will number 115 million. I and many others won’t stand for being warehoused, not having products that fit our desires and needs, or being depicted in a negative light, which media and Hollywood have so often done.At Ecumen, we envision a world in which aging is viewed and understood in radically different ways. Following are 10 of the many things we see changing in an aging America – in fact, some already are:1. Portable Personal Empowerment Technology: ‘Portable Personal Empowerment Technology’ will become a major marketplace driven by America’s seniors who desire to be connected, empowered, and living as independently and fully no matter their life stage. It will create new opportunities for senior service providers to combine high-tech and high-touch and serve people with challenges, such as Alzheimer’s disease.2. Neighborhood Villages: More multi-generational neighborhood-based ‘villages,’ such as Mill City Commons in Minneapolis and Beacon Hill Village in Boston will rise as people desire to live fully at every age in their own homes and communities.3. Empowerment Ventures: The most successful senior services companies will be deliverers of empowerment solutions. And the very best will be one-stop sources for wellness and empowered growth to the end of a person’s life. Service cycles for many customers will extend for more than 50 years as people seek us out earlier in life for everything from personal empowerment technology to retrofitting people’s homes.4. Collaborative Housing: America will see more ‘collaborative’ senior housing. For example, more churches, colleges and YMCAs will build senior housing communities to foster intergenerational connections, keep wisdom working, build new revenue streams and, most importantly, build ‘community.’ Single-family homes will increasingly be built with universal design to make them homes for a lifetime.5. Long-Term Care Financing: The financing of long-term care will significantly change with more people paying a larger portion of their services. Government can’t afford to be the largest payer for such services. It already underpays what the real cost of the services are and is draining state budgets. Look for the 1960s Great Society to get an extreme makeover in the most positive sense.6. Integrated Health Care System: Say good-bye to episodic, disjointed care in America and hello to well-coordinated, integrated care, which ensures a person gets the right services in the right place at the right time. Long-term care financing innovation and portable empowerment technology will combine to help make this a reality.7. Short-Term Healing Centers: Specialized, spa-like short-term rehabilitation or ‘healing centers’ will increase for people who need to rehabilitate after hip-replacement surgery or other rehab and don’t want to go to a traditional nursing home or do major rehabilitation at home. This will be increasingly important for people who don’t have relatives nearby.8. Wisdom Corps: States will set up ‘wisdom corps’ to help older workers retrain for new careers, such as teachers and senior services professionals, and maximize sharing of the experience, wisdom and talent that expanded longevity keeps here longer.9. Stopping Brain Drain: Companies will provide more flexible work schedules and benefit packages to prevent ‘brain drain’ and keep highly skilled employees and expertise in the workplace.10. Adios Ageism: Advertisers, television producers and movie makers will finally ‘get it’ and feature older people in prominent roles, rather than relying on outdated stereotypes. They will emphasize reality: aging is all about living – even at the very end of life.