It Starts Here « ChangingAging.org

by Dr. Bill Thomas

Lately I’ve been writing about the impending collision between the Post War generation (often referred to as the “Boomers”) and the Iron Law of Aging.

Let’s review that Iron Law…

Every day we all wake up one day older.
The problem is that the generation that lionized youth, the generation that once pledged to “never trust anyone over thirty” is now caught in the jaws of a cultural vice they helped construct.

This will create a challenge of massive and sustained cultural challenge— how do we dismantle the mythology that our youth obsessed culture has constructed around normal aging? How can we re-establish the virtues currently hidden within aging?

Under normal circumstances we might turn to the mass media and ask them to help us tell our story. These outlets (print, broadcast and electronic) reach hundreds of millions people everyday.

We are saved!

Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Except we’re not.

The mass media is the most ageist element of our society. These outlets would rather suffer anaphylactic shock than commit time, resources and energy telling a pro-aging story. Regular readers who have been following Kavan’s news digest posts know exactly what I am talking about.

Well– we could cry the pro-aging message from the rooftops.

Except- it’s cold and windy up there and nobody will hear us. Rooftops!

There is one more option… It’s BIG. It’s powerful. It’s under our control. The answer is…
Social Media.

Social Media is the catchall name for things like Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube– you know, the most popular parts of the internet.

One little problem. Although Social Media provides us the tools it does not tell our story.

We have to tell the story.

Three things makes this hard to do.
1) What are all these blinky things, buttons, widgets and toggles? How do they work? Who has the time to figure all this stuff out? Uggh.

2) “Sure,” you say, “I’ve got things to say but dang how do you come up with new and interesting things everyday?” Building an audience– like the one here at Changing Aging requires a fresh, regular supply of new content. Hmmmm.

3) People ask, “If I put my stuff out there, how do I can I get people to read it/watch it/use it?”

The answer to each of these problems is embodied in a new approach that Kavan and I have been working hard to develop.

The answer is…
The Changing Aging Blogstream

The blogstream is a cooperative effort by people with a pro-aging vision that facilitates the creation, sharing and distribution of pro-aging content within the social media universe.

Working together magnifies our voices and maximizes our influence.

We will all create interesting social media content and then share that content with each other.

As a result, your blog will have access to the ideas and creations of the best and coolest pro-aging thinkers and your insights and ideas will also wind up on their blogs as well.

The blogstream will also include regular web-based instruction in how to use social media tools.

We will have instruction that will help elders and the people who love them use social media tools to tell THEIR stories.

We will have beginning, intermediate and black belt social media courses that will help the people who learn these skills become masters of social media.

There is more….

Right now I want folks to think about the power and wisdom of cooperation, sharing and learning.

Our cause is just,
the time is right,
now we must take hold of the tools that will help us
change the world.
Get a sneak preview here.

It Starts Here « ChangingAging.org

Older Men Gain Re-Employment, But at a Lower Wage

"Median hourly wages for reemployed men, age 50 to 61, are 20.1% lower on the new job than the old job and 35.6% lower on the new job for men age 62 or older," according to a 2011 analysis of SIPP data by the Urban Institute.

Urban Institute Report

Many Boomers Report No Savings; Debt, Retirement Challenges - AARP Bulletin

by: Carole Fleck from: AARP Bulletin

The generation that gave rise to Hula-Hoops, Woodstock and Jimi Hendrix is reaching America's traditional retirement age this year woefully unprepared. As the oldest of the boomers turn 65, they face a retirement that is unlikely to go as smoothly as their parents' did.

The lingering pain from the most severe recession since World War II is partly to blame. Many boomers are on the verge of ending their work lives without fully recovering fortunes lost in the housing and stock markets.
That translates to less money to fund their retirement years, which could stretch for three decades given that boomers can expect to live into their 90s.

A poll released Wednesday found that a whopping 25 percent of people ages 46 to 64 say they have no retirement savings — and 26 percent have no personal savings.

The situation is almost as grim for adults 65 and older: 22 percent have no retirement savings and 14 percent have no personal savings, according to the poll of 2,151 adults conducted in November by Harris Interactive.

Full Article

Social Media and the Online Lives of Baby Boomers: A Conversation with Jeff Taylor, Eons.com

Much to the dismay of their children, baby boomers are online and doing more than checking out pictures of family members and exchanging recipes. Boomers are moving to online communities to help them with the daily ‘jobs’ of midlife and older age. Certainly these online jobs include the common activities of shopping and email. However, an increasing number of midlife-plus users are using social media as an important platform to research, choose, validate and adopt products and services. Living online for older users (in sharp contrast to most younger digerati) includes using the web and making new ‘friends’ to help with critical choices and behaviors that support health, caregiving, financial services, retirement planning, employment hunting and networking and yes, even fun and leisure.

New German Robot Designed to Help Caregivers

A new robot being developed in Germany is expected to be on the market within the next few years. Researchers hope that the machine, called Casero, will hopefully be able to accommodate some of the growing need for health products and services by aging baby boomers and seniors, according to TMCNet.com.

Unlike other electronic caretakers under development, Casero is strictly designed as a service vehicle for senior living homes and can carry up to 100 kilograms.
Full Article

Dr. Bill Thomas on The First Crucible

The Crucible « ChangingAging.org

by Dr Bill Thomas

This is the second in a series of posts on some new ideas I am working on.

The paragraphs below begin to introduce the concept of the crucible as an instrument of social change.

For most people most of the time, private problems issues remain private and public issues remain public. Sometimes, however, a society encounters the problem of a huge number of people (members of a single generation) moving from one life stage to to the next within a condensed period of time. When this happens, difficulties surrounding growth and change cease to be solely private matters and erupt forcefully into public life. Public issues cease to become impersonal and distant and intrude forcefully into individuals’ private lives. I use the word “crucible” accurately describes the intense conflict and uncertainty that accompany these historical passages.

Because of its size, and position in the unfolding of world history, the Post War generation was endowed with an unprecedented capacity for creating“crucible” experiences. When one adolescent becomes angry with her parents she might slam the door to her room. When millions of adolescents “question authority,” thousands of them are apt to band together and attempt to levitate the Pentagon. One teenager might sneak a cigarette behind the barn. A massive generation of young people can create an entire counter culture laced with sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll. The Post War generation’s size and influence made its fitful transition from childhood to adulthood a matter of urgent concern for the nation as a whole. This First Crucible nearly set American society on fire.

The Post War Generation’s Second Crucible is destined to become even more consequential than its first. Even as they edge into late adulthood, members of the Post War generation continue to idealize youth, vigor and productiveness. Meanwhile, the clock continues to tick. The Second Crucible will erupt as the Post War generation crashes into the end of adulthood and begins to grapple with aging and elderhood. The scale of this collision, the speed at which it will unfold and the decisions it will force on young and old alike. In the private sphere, individuals will feel alienated from their own changing minds and bodies in ways they have not experienced since puberty. In the public realm, we are already beginning to see the outlines of an intergenerational conflict that pits the young against a massive generation of people who continue (against all evidence) to believe that they are still stardust.

Posted By Dr. Bill Thomas on January 6th, 2011 | Category: Aging, Cult of Adulthood, Longevity

The Crucible « ChangingAging.org

Bankruptcies Up for Older Adults, People, Americans, Seniors - AARP Bulletin

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Filers cite lost jobs, credit card debt and empty retirement accounts

by: Bob Calandra | from: AARP Bulletin


The 55-to-64 age group made up 17 percent of filers in 2009, up from 14 percent in 2006. The 65-and-up group, meanwhile, made up 8.3 percent of all filers in 2009, a rise from 7.8 percent in 2006.

Leslie Linfield, executive director of the IFL, is concerned by numbers like these.

"A young person has the ability to rebuild themselves financially," Linfield says. "Are seniors afforded that same opportunity by virtue of their age? Are we as a society taking care of our seniors when so many have to seek bankruptcy protection to begin with?"

'It's all hole-plugging'

Older adults who lived through the Great Depression and generally shunned credit card use have begun in recent years to embrace it, perhaps out of necessity. And some are drowning in debt as a result.

According to a University of Michigan study, 67 percent of people age 65 and older who filed for bankruptcy in 2007 cited credit card interest and fees as a culprit, compared with 53 percent of those under 65.

"There's been a cultural shift in the attitude of older borrowers," says University of Michigan Law School professor John Pottow, an author of the study. "But what's equally possible is that they're just squeezed more financially. People are living longer and paying more for health care and carrying mortgages into their senior years. They're refinancing to pay off debt. It's all hole-plugging.

"We have a structural problem for older people — it's an income and expense disparity, and it's just going to get worse as people continue to live longer. We are not addressing this" as a nation, he adds.

Living on credit cards

Older adults who live on fixed incomes may have turned to their credit cards to pay for increasingly expensive medical treatment, gas, food and other necessities.

But Neil Ellington, executive vice president of CESI Debt Solutions in Raleigh, N.C., says it's often a different story for filers who are boomers. He believes that many of their bankruptcies result in large part from using debt to live beyond their means.

-Full Article

Message from Assistant Secretary Greenlee on World AIDS Day, December 1

Image via Wikipediaby Assistant Secretary Greenlee

Since 1988, World AIDS Day has been celebrated on December 1 around the world.  Over the years, it has become one of the most recognized international health days and a key opportunity to raise awareness and bring attention to prevention and treatment services.  Twenty-four percent of people living with HIV nationwide are over the age of 50 and research indicates that by 2015 half of the people living with HIV in the U.S. will be over age 50.  On top of that, we now know that fifteen percent of new cases occur among people aged 50 and older.

For these reasons, it is critical that the Aging Services Network participate in activities, including World AIDS Day, to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS among older adults and their caregivers.  Aging services providers and HIV care providers must work together to educate older Americans about the prevention of HIV as well as to ensure that the special needs of the older men and women living with HIV can be effectively addressed in an integrated and collaborative fashion. 

Please join the Administration on Aging on December 1st in recognizing World AIDS Day. 

RLTV - TV for Boomers and Older Individuals

Image via Wikipediaby Lowell Dempsey

There has been plenty of coverage lately on the importance of the youth vote on Election Day. It's as though politicians think older voters - one in three Americans - can be taken for granted.

The readers of Aging And Disability In America probably don't know John Erickson, but they should. John is the Chairman of RLTV and founder of Erickson Retirement Communities, and is leading the way in making sure that the voices of Americans 55 and older are heard.  People 55+ - and that includes John himself - make up one-third of America and care deeply about not only issues that affect them personally, but also how today's decisions will affect the future for their children and grandchildren.

John's rallying call to this powerful group of 70 million Americans can be found here:

http://johnerickson.tv

He's also led the way on RLTV with Prime Votes, an initiative to help inform boomers and seniors about the important issues in the mid-term elections.  Prime Votes features nightly updates with Sam Donaldson and John Palmer as well as two national forums hosted by Cokie Roberts to air this week on RLTV and C-SPAN.

More about Prime Votes, as well as John's discussion of many important national issues, can be found at the johnerickson.tv site. 

Retirement age strikes hit France again | BreakingNews.ie

Image by BWJones via FlickrFrench commuters squeezed on to limited public transport and fought for rare parking spots today as a second round of strikes against President Nicolas Sarkozy's plan to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62 hobbled trains, planes and schools across France.

Union leaders are hoping for a massive show of popular discontent at the 232 demonstrations planned throughout the country, and are aiming to top the turnout of September 7, when at least 1.1 million people took to the streets to protest against the planned overhaul of the deficit-burdened pension system.

As baby boomers reach retirement age and life expectancy increases, the government insists it is necessary to raise the retirement age so the pension system can break even by 2018.
Full Article

Info Long-Term Care: New Realities of an Older America

From the Stanford Center on Longevity, this report examines the major changes, challenges and decisions faced with baby boomers reaching old age and the diversity of the aging population for families, workplaces, and communities.

The implications concern young and old alike. Although many of these changes have been anticipated, the United States has relied on social and economic policies and practices designed for a more youthful population.
Full Report (PDF)

Young people create services for boomers and seniors

A growing trend appears to be younger people thinking of products and services to help boomers as they age, according to AgeInPlaceTech.com. Most of these services are web-based, but others focus on more practical aspects of senior living.
Continue Reading

The New Landscape - Preparing to Care for an Aging Population - NYTimes.com

by Milt Freudenheim

With a nudge from the new health care law and pressure from Medicare, hospitals, doctors and nurses are struggling to prepare for explosive growth in the numbers of high-risk elderly patients.

More than 40 percent of adult patients in acute care hospital beds are 65 or older. Seventy million Americans will have turned 65 by 2030. They include the 85-and-older cohort, the nation’s fastest-growing age group.
Elderly people often have multiple chronic illnesses, expensive to treat, and they are apt to require costly hospital readmissions, sometimes as often as 10 times in a single year.
The Obama administration is spending $500 million from last year’s stimulus package to support the training of doctors and nurses and other health care providers at all levels, “from college teachers through work force professionals on the front lines of patient care,” said Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services.
But the administration and Congress seem to be paying less attention to geriatric health issues. For example, only 11 percent of research funding at the National Institutes of Health went to aging research last year.
“In every area of aging — education, clinical care, research — people just don’t realize how dire the situation is,” said Dr. David B. Reuben, chief of the geriatrics division of the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Dr. Judith Salerno, a geriatrician who is executive officer of the Institute of Medicine in Washington, agreed. “All the most common causes of death and illness and functional impairment in the general population are diseases of aging,” she said.

Continue Reading

Despite Aging Baby Boomers, N.I.H. Devotes Only 11 Percent to Elderly Studies - NYTimes.com

Image via Wikipedia

by Milt Freudenheim

The health needs of tens of millions of aging baby boomers threaten to overwhelm the nation’s hospitals and caregivers within a decade or two, but the geriatric tidal wave does not appear to have been fully recognized at the National Institutes of Health.

The N.I.H., the nation’s main medical research center, is devoting only about 11 percent of its $31 billion budget to studies directly involving health concerns of the elderly. Less than one-third of the $3.46 billion in aging research reported this fiscal year is channeled through the National Institute on Aging, nominally the main center for geriatric research.

Most of the funds, including some involving Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s and osteoporosis, came through other N.I.H. institutes.

Aging is just one of a half dozen “compelling” opportunities for important scientific advances, said Dr. Francis S. Collins, director of the national institutes. “Aging is very much on our radar screen.” he said. “So, of course, is diabetes, so is cancer, so is mental illness, so is research on children, autism.”

Continue Reading

The Medicare Counselor

The Medicare Counselor is a free publication of the Medicare Rights Center. Each issue will address timely topics that will help you—social workers, health care providers and other professionals—keep up-to-date on important Medicare issues that affect the well-being of your clients.

In this issue:

Hot Topics from the Hotline. My Medigap (Plan E) will no longer be sold after June 1, 2010. Is my coverage going to change? Read the full article.

Closing the Doughnut Hole: Step 1. The Affordable Care Act passed by Congress and signed by President Obama contains a great deal of information, some of which may seem confusing. Read the full article.

Fast Facts: Baby Boomers. 79 million baby boomers will be aging into Medicare starting in 2011. Here are some facts about the population that is changing the face of retirement. Read the full article.

Dear Hannah. My understanding is that Medicare limits ambulance coverage based on the cost of transporting a patient to the closest facility. Is this correct? Read the full article.

Featured Resources 

The current issue of The Medicare Counselor can always be found online at www.medicarerights.org/thecounselor.pdf.

If you have questions about your Medicare benefits or rights, please call the Medicare Rights Center's national hotline at 800-333-4114. The hotline is open Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Eastern Time.

The Medicare Counselor is in presented to you in PDF format. To view it, you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader or another program that reads PDF files. If you do not already have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer, you can download it.

Thank you for your continued support.
Sincerely,

The Medicare Counselor

Search Amazon.com for Medicare

Retirements by baby-boomer doctors, nurses could strain overhaul

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

By Darryl Fears Monday, Washington Post Staff Writer

Since the passage of the health-care law in March, much has been said about the coming swarm of millions of retiring baby boomers and the strain they will put on the nation's health-care system.

That's only half the problem. Overlooked in the conversation is a particular group of boomers: doctors and nurses who are itching to call it quits. Health-care economists and other experts say retirements in that group over the next 10 to 15 years will greatly weaken the health-care workforce and leave many Americans who are newly insured under the new legislation without much hope of finding a doctor or nurse.

Nearly 40 percent of doctors are 55 or older, according to the Center for Workforce Studies of the Association of American Medical Colleges. Included in that group are doctors whose specialties will be the pillars of providing care in 2014, when the overhaul kicks in; family medicine and general practitioners (37 percent); general surgeons (42 percent); pediatrics (33 percent), and internal medicine and pediatrics (35 percent).

About a third of the much larger nursing workforce is 50 or older, and about 55 percent expressed an intention to retire in the next 10 years, according to a Nursing Management Aging Workforce Survey by the Bernard Hodes Group. New registered nurses are flowing from colleges, but not enough to replace the number planning to leave the profession.

Continue Reading

‘Sunset Daze’ Gives Older Folks Their Reality Show - NYTimes.com

Image by cactusdude666 via Flickr

By BROOKS BARNES

“Pedal to the metal, baby!” shouted Joanne Hauncher, 63, as she swerved wildly through traffic on a busy street in this Phoenix suburb. A truck driver slammed on his brakes and stared — she was driving a golf cart, after all — as Ms. Hauncher completed an illegal U-turn.

“Rules are made to be broken,” she muttered, arching a painted-on eyebrow. “I’m too old to be spanked. Wait. Scratch that!”

Ms. Hauncher, along with eight other retirees who live here, star in a new reality show on the WE tv network called “Sunset Daze.” How did the producers find her? “I was out with the Ho’s” — her term for her female posse — “and I guess we looked like fun,” she said. Her only stipulation for signing on? “I didn’t want to come off as a lunatic senior.”

Too late. “Sunset Daze,” which makes its debut on Wednesday night, pushes just that button as it tries to hold its own in the boozy, oversexed reality TV genre. The first episode has commentary on vibrators and going “commando,” slang for not wearing underpants. WE positions the series as “The Golden Girls” meets “Jersey Shore,” the ribald MTV series that spawned Snooki.

The media business often overlooks the importance of older folks — here including the first of the baby boomers — with all of the talk about attracting young viewers and racking up huge ratings in the 18-34 demographic. Yes, “Gossip Girl” is fine. But in some ways, “Golden Girls” is even better. And the country seems to be in the midst of a senior revival, with Betty White riding a wave of Internet lobbying to become guest host on “Saturday Night Live,” Cloris Leachman becoming a “Dancing With the Stars” darling at 82, and the late Bea Arthur showing up in advertisements for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
Continue Reading

Related articles by Zemanta

• 'Sunset Daze' Preview: 'We're Retired, Not Dead' (tvsquad.com)

Poll: Most Californians Unprepared for Costs of Long-Term Care

Image via Wikipedia

California voters, regardless of their political party affiliation or income level, are worried about and feel unprepared for the costs of long-term care, according to a new poll from The SCAN Foundation and the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research.

Fifty-eight percent of registered California voters age 40 and older say they feel unprepared to pay for services if they could no longer care for themselves independently and needed long-term care.

Two-thirds — including majorities across political parties — say they are worried about long-term care costs, as are 75 percent of those who are currently providing help to family or friends and 74 percent those who anticipate providing help in the near future. Concern also spans all income levels, including 63 percent of those reporting annual incomes of $75,000 and above.

The poll, conducted by Lake Research Partners and American Viewpoint, surveyed more than 1,200 registered California voters age 40 and older in English and Spanish about long-term care issues.

The poll sought to better understand long-term care issues facing mid-age and older voters, given that the number of older Californians is projected to nearly double to 8 million in the next 25 years.
Continue Reading

Baby Boomers Don't Use Preventive Services - MedPage Today

By Kristina Fiore, Staff Writer, MedPage Today

Only a quarter of baby boomers take advantage of preventive services such as flu vaccines and cancer screenings, a new report from the government and two powerful interest groups says.

At the same time, states are falling behind goals to increase certain screenings and reduce unhealthy behaviors, according to the report by the CDC, the American Medical Association (AMA), and the American Association for Retired Persons (AARP).

Researchers say the findings highlight a need for improved preventive services efforts.
Continue Reading