Why it Pays to Have an Expert Build Senior Housing
Our housing development team posted on their blog an unfortunate story from KSTP-TV about a Minnesota State Government nursing home that has sat empty for a year because of apparent shoddy construction. Not exactly the best use of taxpayer resources.
The Raw Economics of the Nursing Home
Here's another example of why we need a long-term care financing system in America. Charles Schrader wrote a really thoughtful first-person article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune about his experience and the closure of Ashton, Care Center in Pipestone, Minnesota:
Whoever said that "life's what happens while you're making other plans" got it right.
We briefly put our evening on hold to give ourselves time to "check our e-mail." My wife's was a real date-killer. Judy carefully handed me our laptop. "Here," she said, "What do you make of this?"
A cryptic but carefully crafted e-mail from the management of Ashton Care Center, Pipestone, Minn., where my 98-year-old mother-in-law had been living the past two years, invited -- no, urged -- our attendance the following Monday evening at a family/ community meeting to discuss the "financial challenges" facing Ashton.
Our calm gave way to angst. What could this mean? Increased fees? Reduced services? Then it hit me: "The place is closing," I suggested.
Last Friday night my wife and I had other plans. A pleasant supper out on the deck, followed by reading in the den, then a movie . . . Read Charle's full article here.
LeadingAge - Dig the New Name for AAHSA
A tale of two names . . . LeadingAge vs. American Homes and Services for the Aging
LeadingAge is confident, bold, energetic. The other name: well, it's pretty tame, pretty safe, and pretty boring. Changing aging in America means stepping up and stepping out.
Congratulations to the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging, which is putting a new name before its membership to much better reflect who the organization is on the Inside with a new name on the Outside . . . LeadingAge.
Stories in Living from the Obituary Page - Rev. Andrew Rogness
Stories of living and inspiration abound on the obituary page. Here's one today from John Brewer, a writer at the Saint Paul Pioneer Press, about Rev. Andrew Rogness, 62, a Lutheran pastor in Roseville, Minn., who clearly made "home" for people by welcoming them. Blogging on the Prince of Peace Church web site, he wrote in one of his entries in February during his Stage 4 cancer about mortality:
. . . ."There are the usual 'bucket list' things to live for, like watching the Winter Olympics and college basketball's March Madness. But 'the most compelling reasons to fight for life, I'm discovering, are of a different kind," he wrote.
"I want to be here this coming July for my son's wedding - not so much for my sake as for his and his bride's sake. I want to be here in July for our 40th wedding anniversary, not just for my sake, but for my wife's," he wrot
"In short I believe the most compelling reason to live, no matter what each person faces in life, is to embrace the notion that we live for the sake of others. The Bible is filled with this notion of being stewards. Embracing this reason for life becomes more compelling when faced with the predicament of our own mortality."
When it was clear that Pastor Rogness wouldn't make it to his son's wedding, his son and fiancee got their marriage license and gathered their families in Rogness' hospital room. They read their vows, the homily he wrote, and he blessed their wedding. He died two hours later with his family singing hymns that he and his brothers Bishop Peter Rogness, head of the Saint Paul Area Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America; Stephen and the Rev. Michael Rogness sang as children.
Bishop Rogness told Brewer, "It was the most marvelous interweaving of life's joy and sadness, of ending and beginnings."
I'm New at Being Old by Lucy Rose Fischer
So many new ideas, careers and adventures are being launched through aging. When Lucy Rose Fischer was nearing 60, she became an artist after nearly 25 years as a researcher and author in the field of aging. Her new book, "I'm New at Getting Old" (Temuna Press) is getting rave reviews:
Here's Twin Cities book reviewer Mary Ann Grossman of the Saint Paul Pioneer Press on Fischer's work:
"I'm New at Being Old" is one of the prettiest, liveliest picture books of the season. Fischer expects it to resonate with the 40 million women, age 55 and older, " who look in the mirror and wonder: "Is that really me?"
Illustrated by Fischer's lively and colorful drawings, her text reads like poetry, with the narrator worrying about "losing my mind" because names slip from her brain. She writes of accepting her wrinkles and wondering where the time has gone. When she visits her elderly mother-in-law at a senior community, someone asks to her horror, if she's a new resident. But her tone is optimistic: "I'm in transition -- new at being old. Gingerly, I join the World of Older Women."
Writers Go After IMDb to Get Ages Removed - Get Hip to the Age Wave Hollywood
The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) is a great information source on movies. Apparently too much information is being shared in some film industry members' eyes. Fearing backlash from ageism in Hollywood, the Writers Guild of America is seeking removal of birthdates from the site.
In a country where people have much to contribute for much longer than ever before, we're competitively shooting ourselves in the foot with an ageist society.
LinkedIn for Senior Services and Aging
It would be beneficial for LinkedIn to add senior services and aging to its profession field. Thousands of people work in the U.S. senior services profession or the field of aging, but there's no category for it on LinkedIn. Find the age wave, LinkedIn. Please add senior services and aging as a "profession" category.
Try the Living to 100 Life Expectancy Calculator
This calculator doesn't take too long (5 to 10 minutes) and is kind of fun. It asks you 40 health history type questions and then gives you a calculation about the age destination you're currently on . . . Curious if you think it's any good.
Where is the Good Looking Commode and Other Durable Medical Equipment?
Why is so much medical equipment that more and more consumers are purchasing for their homes - not for an institution - look so cold and blah? Check out McKesson's web site for example. YUCK. . . . couldn't they dress up their shower chairs and commodes a bit (like the one above)? Maybe some color . . . .tell me why this is the best commode . . . Could we have a little bit of creativity folks . . . just a little.
Famed designer Michael Graves, who also is paralyzed, said this in an interview at Caring.com in response to why this is such a neglected area of design:
. . . . there hasn't been any competition. The makers just want to get it out on the market, even if it's only half right. But you can't act that way. I remember one of the design magazines had a competition for product of the year, and the only one in this area was a wheelchair. They gave it first place because there was nothing else. And it was just awful. The judges didn't know and the designer didn't know.
Someone is going to get this design stuff right, and people are going to buy their products. Note to McKesson and other durable medical product provides . . . you're creating a consumer product . . . more people want to live at home . . . Give us some new options.
New Study Says People Get Happier With Age
A happy customer at an Ecumen senior housing community
A new study says that people get happier with age. I totally believe that most people do. If you want a drug-free upper, visit a senior housing community. In the best communities you'll find people laughing, taking time to take time, and enjoying the moment. It's a stimulant.
More on the new study from the Scientific American blog:
General well-being (characterized by how people currently felt about their life) fell sharply through the age of 25 and tapered more gradually overall until the ages of 50 to 53. And by the early 70s, that wellbeing was back up to late-teen levels.
"As people age, they are less troubled by stress and anger," the researchers noted in their study, which was led by Arthur Stone, of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science at Stony Brook University, and published online May 17 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "And although worry persists, without increasing, until middle age, " they continued, "it too fades after the age of 50."
The data come from a 2008 phone survey performed by the Gallup Organization of 340,847 randomly selected adults aged 18 to 85. The respondents represented a fairly average slice of the U.S. population, with about 29 percent holding a college degree and a median monthly average household income between $3,000 and $3,999. During the call, participants were asked to rate how they currently felt their life stood on a scale of 0 ("the worst possible life for you") to 10 ("the best possible life for you"). They were then asked if they had felt different affective states (happiness, enjoyment, stress, sadness, anger and worry) "a lot of the day yesterday." Keeping questions to relatively current periods in time by asking about yesterday as opposed to the previous week, month or year helped the researchers avoid some of the retrospective bias that might have played a role in similar past studies.