Our Blog

Take Our Poll: Have People Always Wanted to Live As Independently As Possible in Old Age?

When we surveyed baby boomers a couple of years ago, they told us overwhelmingly that they want to live as independently for as long as possible. Many other studies echo that.But is that desire unique to the boomers? I don’t think so.Haven’t people always wanted to live as independently as possible for as long as they can? It seems now, however, we are starting to listen.What do you think? Take our poll:[poll id='9']

by origineight

Editorial: Long-Term Care Financing Shows Need For Change

The Minneapolis Star Tribune yesterday had a good editorial on the need for long-term care financing change. An excerpt is below. Long-term care financing is only elevating as an issue, and although our country’s and state’s financial crisis is horrible, it also is opening eyes that things need to change in this arena:

This year could be the worst yet for long-term care at the Capitol. The state’s looming $5 billion-plus biennial budget shortfall makes the nursing-home industry’s request for an additional $87 million over the next two years seem almost hopelessly unattainable, no matter how justified it is.This is a pattern that badly needs to change. If it doesn’t, many more nursing homes will close, and the quality of care in those that remain will unacceptably erode.Fortunately, the nursing-home industry, advocates for seniors and key legislators of both parties all acknowledge the need for change. While they come at the problem in different ways, they share the view that state government is carrying too much of Minnesota’s long-term care burden, and the state relies too much on costly institutional care.A number of intriguing ideas have been floated that would change this picture over time. The state could create a tax-advantaged savings program to encourage more personal saving for long-term care needs. It could establish a low-cost social insurance system, modeled after Social Security, to cover a portion of the long-term care expenses of enrollees. The state fund that supports MinnesotaCare insurance could be tapped to jump-start such a program.Funding long-term care through community-based consortiums, something already being tried, could be expanded, with an eye toward intensifying efforts to delay or prevent nursing-home stays.Read the full editorial here.

by origineight

Ecumen Leader Kathryn Roberts Selected As University of Minnesota Regent Finalist

Congratulations to Ecumen CEO and President Kathryn Roberts, who was selected today as a finalist for the Board of Regents at the University of Minnesota. You can read more here. The Board of Regents is the governing body of the University of Minnesota.Kathryn earned her B.A. in Psychology from the University of Minnesota and her Ph.D. in Educational Administration from the University of Minnesota. The University’s College of Education named Kathryn one of its “100 Distinguished Alumni” for the College’s first 100 years. She also was named in 2008 as one of Minneapolis/St. Paul’s 'Best Brains' by Minneapolis/St. Paul Magazine.

by origineight

The Consumer Electronics Show and Aging Services

Technology is only going to increase in our profession. According to Forrestor Research, U.S. adults 64 and older who bought technology in a recent three-month period spent an average of $365 on consumer electronic products and $429 on computer hardware and peripherals. And Forrestor points out that Americans 55 to 64 are more active in online finance, shopping and entertainment than those under 65.On Saturday, the Consumer Electronics Show hosts the first Silvers Summit, a showcase for products and services dedicated to keeping we aging people engaged, entertained and healthy. Ecumen will be represented at CES by Kathy Bakkenist, who leads our technology initiatives and policy initiatives for the Center for Aging Services Technologies.Among technologies that will be showcased are:The SeniorPC: A collaboration of HP and Microsoft, these are standard HP laptops, desktops or touch-controlled computers with some notable extras: software that adds a shell on top of Windows with simple icons for browsing the Web, listening to music and sending email. Microsoft also is building in a screen magnifier.ClarityLife C900: It’s a new type of cell phone with a large, easy-to-read display and large buttons to simplify dialing. The sound is amplified, and it has a one-touch emergency response button. When pushed it cycles through 5 contacts until someone is reached.Ingestible Microchip: Proetus Biomedical can add an ingestible microchip to a capsule, without altering the medicine. When swallowed, the chip can send a signal through your body that looks like an EKG. According to Edward Baig at USA Today, it can be detected by a special small bandage that can detect data to a cellphone. Qualcomm is helping connect the special bandage to 3G phone networks, so caregivers or relatives will know when what pills patients have taken or if the pills weren’t taken. Proteus sees this coming to market by 2011 or 2012.What a time to be aging …

by origineight

Ecumen Poll: Do You Think the Age Wave Could Be an Age of Peace?

Dear Changing Aging readers, we have a quick poll for you. Before you answer, below is information that provides more context:[poll id=8']Sex Day in UlyanovskIn 2007, Sergei Morozov, the governor of the Ulyanovsk region of Central Russia offered prizes to couples who agreed to take advantage of a 'family contact day' and wound up producing babies nine months later, on June 12, Russia’s national day. It was the third year running that Ulyanovsk had declared a 'sex day' and offered prizes for babies born. The grand prize was a sports utility vehicle … The world is growing old …Mark Haas, a political scientist at Duquesne University, writes in his article Pax Americana Geriatrica that global aging will lead to a more peaceful world and a continuation of American dominance. He says that aging populations are likely to result in the slowdown of states' economic growth at the same time that governments face pressures to pay for massive new expenditures for senior care. This double economic dilemma will create such an austere fiscal environment that the other great powers of the world will lack the resources necessary to overtake the United States' huge power lead.Haas opines that America also seems likely to face fewer threats from terrorism based in Islamic countries. If current demographic trends continue, many Islamic states - now in the throes of 'youth bulges' - will be aging as societies in coming decades. As active and disaffected young people have aged in other parts of the world, they have become a source of political stability and economic development. Haas says there is reason to believe this pattern will hold in Iraq, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and other Muslim states as their youth slip into middle age. Read the full Pax Americana Geriatrica article here.

by origineight

Jim Klobuchar: Suddenly, A World With a Pulse

Happy New Year from Changing Aging!!!Would like to start off this year with a post about rejuvenation from our guest blogger Jim Klobuchar, adventure traveler and legendary newspaper columnist.

Suddenly, A World with a Pulse

My friend emerged from the self-inflicted doldrums of retirement a few days ago to announce that he had been rescued, and he is now aflame with the gifts of a restored passion.He identified his rescuer as the late Ludwig von Beethoven. After I read the account of my friend’s deliverance, I added an asterisk to include a departed little lady as one of his anonymous angels.My friend taught economics for years at a prominent eastern university. Since his retirement he and his wife have traveled often and experienced scenes and sensations that were rewarding. By his own confession, though, he has lived a life-both on campus and in later-- with head 'buried in texts, ordered by logic and hard evidence, with few opportunities to develop an openness to the higher ranges of emotions...'This is a serious admission, friends. But the condition didn’t vanish when he retired, and it didn’t seem particularly reversible.Yet how much do we really know about the odd linkages in our lives that can suddenly unleash a core identity in us, a thrill we never expected no matter our age or our resistance to something suspiciously new.I have to introduce my mother here. Convinced that I was going to be the next Rachmaninoff of the keyboard, she insisted that I should take piano lessons despite the evidence coming out of our old upright when I played Mozart. After four years she ended the unequal battle and I went back to football. But the seed she planted was stubborn and in later years I came to love serious music and to play it. A few months ago my friend and his wife visited and I invited them into my music room to hear and see a DVD of Beethoven’s Third Symphony, conducted by Claudio Abbado. With today’s technology one can create a whole library of the masters, and now on a spread screen you can immerse yourself, almost physically, in glorious music here and now, at hand.My friend wrote a few days ago. They have retooled their TV and expanded the sound. They have fled their formal dining room and become unapologetic snackers, taking their meals surrounded by Beethoven, Schubert, Shostakovich and Puccini. I’d told them that the adagio movement of Brahms 2^nd Piano Concerto was so serene and wistful and so touched with longing it would bring them to tears.'It’s an absolute joy,' he wrote. 'experiencing pure beauty so close, with such intimacy.'I thought, 'This one is for you, mom. But don’t remind me of Beethoven’s 'Fuer Elise. Too many notes!' I still can’t play in right.

You can read last month’s post from Jim here.

by origineight

Cookbook Medicine Doesn’t Work for the Elderly

If you’ve ever had the opportunity to bring a 80+ year-old person with chronic illness into a primary care physician, you may have had an experience where you wonder if the doctor sees a a living, breathing human being there. What we’ve seen happen a number of times in our family with my wife’s 87-year-old mom, who has several chronic illnesses, is a very narrow questioning by the physician that doesn’t really take quality of life into concern at all. This is by no means an isolated incident. But after one of these incidents, you can see how physicians and senior services professionals could work so much closer together in managing chronic care and improving quality of life to the end of life. For a look at this emerging future, check out Jane Brody’s articles today in the N.Y. Times on the new Martha Stewart Center for Living (we need this in Minnesota).

by origineight

Twin Cities Aging Policy Summit: Vision for the Future

For our Twin Cities-area readers, you’re invited to register for the Aging Policy Summit: Vision for the Future:When: Tuesday, January 13, 2009 from 8 a.m. to noon.Where: Wilder Center Auditorium, 451 Lexington Parkway, Saint Paul, MN 55104What: A look beyond the financial challenges of the 2009 legislative session. Exploring how Minnesota can affirmatively respond to the coming demographic age wave of seniors as the Baby Boomers retire. Audience participation sought to help shape legislative proposals for the 2009 session. Speakers will include national AARP board member Skip Humphrey; Jean Wood, exec. dir., Minnesota Board on Aging and Paul Anton, chief economist at Wilder Research, as well as a legislative panel.Fee: General Audience: $20; Age 60+: no fee, donation requested to Vital Aging Network.To Register: Go to www.mnlcoa.org or www.vital-aging-network.orgThe program is also co-sponsored by the Minnesota Board on Aging.

by origineight