Meet America’s Oldest Man - Living Fully at 112
Welcome to the new normal … There are over 80,000 centenarians in the U.S. today; we’re anticipated to have 1 million by 2050. In 1960, we only had about 3,500.
Here’s video of Steve Hartman of CBS interviewing Walter Bruening of Great Falls, Montana, who is America’s oldest man and a person living fully at 112.
Minnesota Senior Services Rally, April 28th: Come Join Us!
Fill The Rotunda
Join Ecumen and many others at next Tuesday’s (April 28) Senior Services Rally at the Minnesota State Capitol at 1:30 p.m. The rally’s call to Governor Pawlenty and state legislators is "Prioritize Senior Services." The rally is sponsored by Aging Services of Minnesota, Care Providers of Minnesota, AARP and the Senior Federation.
To RSVP, please email Jen McNertney of Aging Services of Minnesota at: jmcnertney@agingservicesmn.org
If You Were Developing Senior Housing, What Would You Do?
Construction of Ecumen's Lakeshore Community Duluth
Would love your insights … If you were going to develop senior housing tomorrow, what would you want to be part of it? What would make you want to live there? Does it have technology? Is it on a college campus? Is your senior housing your own home? Is it intergenerational? Does it provide health care on site?
Throw everything and anything against the wall!
Aging in Place Technology Watch: Bookmark It
This morning I had the opportunity to meet with 50 seniors to discuss "changing in aging." I asked how many people had cell phones - every hand went up. I asked how many people had home computers - again, hands up everywhere … No surprise.
Technology is changing the future of aging. But it’s also changing aging right now. And if you care about it, you need to bookmark in your favorites: Aging in Place Technology by Laurie Orlov.
About Laurie:
Laurie Orlov
Before starting this blog and her consulting practice, Laurie spent more than 30 years in the technology industry, including 24 years in IT and 9 years as a leading industry analyst at Forrester Research. While there, she was often the first in the industry to identify technology trends and management strategies which have survived the test of time. In 1996, Laurie was named to McGraw-Hill/Open Computing’s list of the top 100 women in computing. She’s also an author and nursing home ombudsman in Florida. Laurie eats, drinks and breathes this stuff, and she’s generously sharing it.
What You’ll Find At Aging in Place Technology Watch:
- Download her 2009 Technology Overview, which includes an inventory of technologies available now for aging in place, including prices:
Other recent posts include:
- 10 Perfect Storm Drivers of Market Opportunity for Aging in Place
- More ideas for the next iterations of senior villages.
- Philips "An Uptake an World Aging Will Drive our Business"
- Can baby boomers afford to pay for parents' aging in place technology?
Golf as Alzheimer’s Therapy - When Memories Slip, Golf Sticks
So important to memory care is digging deep, learning about people as individuals, their routines, interests, passions, finding connections and sparking and empowering them. There’s still a lot of living to do when you have Alzheimer’s.
You have to check out this article Ecumen colleague Scott Allan just shared from the Wall Street Journal. Our colleagues at Silverado Senior Living in California are using golf as an Alzheimer’s therapy tool.
John Daly (not the pro golfer, but director of the University of California at San Diego’s geriatric fellowship program) says skills like swinging a golf club or playing a musical instrument are often some of the last memories people with Alzheimer’s lose.
What a great new innovation using one of the world’s oldest games.
Dancing With Ginger Rogers by Jim Klobuchar
A great new post by Ecumen guest blogger Jim Klobuchar. You can read about Jim here and his other Changing Aging posts here.
On the vintage movie channel the other day, a woman I met more than 30 years ago swept across the screen in an out of the arms of Fred Astaire.
You could not have mistaken Ginger Rogers, the actress and dancer. I last saw her on spring day in downtown Minnepolis after she held my arm mischievously on her way to an elevator in the old Sheraton Ritz Hotel. A telephone call interrupted my undivided vigil inn front of the television set, and I had to leave it to talk in another room. When I returned Ginger Rogers had danced out of the kitchen, and the film was over.
My disappointment was real, but it invited a few moments of remembrance. People who have spent a lifetime in daily journalism, as I did, frequently are asked about the most memorable celebrity in their experience. If you’d spent 45 years in it, the range could be broad-kings, presidents, generals, quarterbacks and more. I invariably answer the question with "Ginger Rogers," and a story.
She was the visiting guest at a downtown Minneapolis style show in which I was the co-host. We did an interview on stage and she made one or two cameo appearances later, but we had time to chat backstage. She was a delight, animated and curious. She was staying for another two days to promote a fashion line and asked if I knew of a jogging route downtown where she could run safely. Did I know of someone who would like to be her jogging partner. I said I thought she’d never ask.
I showed up in the hotel lobby the next morning in my burgundy jogging trunks and t-shirt. She flowed out of the elevator looking gorgeous in her running suit, and men in the lobby melted. I gave her my arm en route to the exit. Scores of eyes peered at the scene in the lobby in astonishment. We jogged up the Nicollet Mall, around tiny Loring Lake and returned down the Mall, where she stopped to admire a storefront. The day was warm and glorious. People began gathering. Impulsively she asked if I’d like to do a few steps. Naturally, I was horrified. "Ginger Rogers, I dance like a sleepwalking rhino." She scoffed, so we danced. The crowd applauded. She beamed and cuffed me on the cheek.
At our breakfast snack at the hotel she was a marvelous companion. Near the end I said, "the movie of yours that I..." She laughed and interrupted. "You liked 'I’ll Be Seeing You.' How did she know? "Fellows your age," she said, "always ask about that movie," It was a love story with Joseph Cotton, which I saw as a 16-year-old and was inflamed by the possibilities of romantic love. "I’ll bet you remember some of the lyrics," she teased. I nodded. She cued me and I talked it through: "I’ll be seeing you, in all the old familiar places, that this heart of mine embraces" I paused. She finished "In that small café, the park across the way...the childeren’s carousel...the chestnut tree, the wishing well." The entire dining room, eavesdropping, lit with applause. When she died 20 years later, I wrote, remembering how she left the table. She tweaked my arm and said "I’ll be seeing you." And so she might.
10 Tips on Developing Senior Housing for Behavioral Alzheimer’s
Developing Senior Housing for Behavioral Alzheimer’s
Approximately 5.2 million people in the United States live with Alzheimer’s, and 10 million baby boomers are anticipated to develop Alzheimer’s in their lifetime. But there’s more that today’s health care, senior housing professionals and communities need to plan for …
|
Janelle Meyers |
<!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]-->
|
Debbie Manthey |
<!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]-->Increasingly, senior housing professionals are seeing a subset of Alzheimer’s: when the affected person develops substantial and challenging behaviors, including screaming, biting, throwing things, or exhibiting aggressive sexual behavior.
Though they occur in a relatively small percentage of people, these behaviors can be devastating to their families, hurtful to those around them, and frustrating to senior housing professionals who care for them.
Many senior housing providers are forced to keep these residents heavily medicated or discharge them to a mental health hospital unit. There’s a better way.
Download in our Successful Aging Library Debbie Manthey’s and Janelle Meyer’s 10 insights on developing senior housing for behavioral Alzheimer’s and dementia. These Ecumen leaders share their tips from the work they did in developing Ecumen’s Summit House in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota to serve people living with the extreme challenges of behavioral Alzheimer’s and dementia.
This is a must-read for health care and senior services organizations seeking to serve people with behavioral Alzheimer’s. This is not easy work, but Debbie and Janelle share how incredibly rewarding it is to find a better way.
Ageless Mentoring: Errie Ball, Bobby Jones and The Masters
Seventy-two men played in the first Masters Golf Tournament in Augusta, Georgia, in 1934 and only one is left -- 98-year-old Errie Ball, an instructor at Willoughby Golf Club in Stuart, Fla.
What keeps excellence growing? Someone willing to share and someone willing to learn. Even the mentors have mentors.
Errie’s first-person insights on that first Masters and his mentor Bobby Jones in an article he penned last week for Golf.com feel as good as a straight drive down the middle.
How to Put Your Passion Into Action: Volunteering Outside the Box
For our Twin Cities readers:
The Vital Aging Network is holding a forum entitled "Putting Your Passion into Action:" Volunteering Outside the Box. It will be Tuesday, April 14 from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Rosepoint, 255 Hamline Ave. North, Roseville, Minn., 55113. More details here.
Steve Cannon: The Old Wrangler and a Gem of a Man
Steve Cannon Photo: Pavek Museum of Broadcasting (Visit for audio clips of Steve Cannon’s legendary work)
A couple of weeks ago, I walked into my house after work and the answering machine was blinking.
Here was the baritone message from Steve Cannon:
"Hey, Eric, wow you have a fast talker there (my wife, who recorded our household greeting, is known for her sprinter-like messages). Hey, it’s the Old Wrangler here, give me a call my boy."
Hearing that booming message you’d think Steve Cannon’s voice would never die.
Several years ago, I first contacted Steve, the legendary WCCO-AM drive time talent and former Cowboy Wrangler Steve on Twin Cities TV in the 1950s, about some possible voiceover work. He invited me to lunch at Perkins.
We never did the voiceover work, but it started a series of long get togethers. I’d throw out a subject, and he’d run with it, seamlessly moving from story to story. That must have been what it was like passing to Michael Jordan. I just threw it out and he’d score again and again.
For a time I lost touch with Steve (you know, life). One January day my colleague Steve Ordahl and I were talking and he mentioned how much he enjoyed listening to Steve Cannon. I walked back to my office, found Cannon’s number and called him. We picked up right where we left off and got together for lunch.
But this time Steve had a story I didn’t want to hear: inoperable stomach cancer. But, you almost didn’t take it seriously, because even though he was dealing with pain and death staring him down, Steve’s voice, passion, spirit and stories kept coming as they always had.
I told him I’d be back. "You better hurry up, time is ticking," he said with a matter of fact smile. We were to get together for St. Patrick’s Day. I was going to bring the burritos and he’d provide the chicken noodle soup. I called and he apologized. He said he wasn’t feeling well. We needed to reschedule. I called last week to check in. His wife said he wasn’t able to talk. I knew. Steve died last night at his home with his family around him.
Steve, a son of the Iron Range, told me once about how his Mom aged well, always having vibrant people around her and staying engaged in life. Steve did the same. In his early 80s, he was the DUDE. This year he was broadcasting on WCCO on Saturday mornings. He loved sports and a friend drove Steve to see the new Twins and Gophers stadiums rising. He was so excited about all the changes happening in this world and wanted to see how things turned out. He met his wife when they were both students at the U, and he’d tell you she just keeps getting more beautiful every day. He enjoyed watching "The Office" and "Mad Men." And he devoured news and shared his wry commentary on it with his friends. Steve lived fully as he died.
Thanks for everything, Old Wrangler. Look forward to catching up down the road. No doubt you’ll have some great new stories to tell.