Our Aging Population: Unused Economic Powerhouse?

Serialized, in three parts, from Fast Company By 2050, the number of people over 65 will more than double. Cities, communities, companies–and our entire culture–have some adjusting to do. If we can, the benefits will be enormous. BY EILLIE ANZILOTTI Patrick O’Halloran is 82 years old, “but I’m still a work in progress,” he says. After a …

A Father’s Death

He Lived Cautiously, and Then Died Suddenly From the Los Angeles Times, May 15, 2015 by Jeffrey Wasserman (A father's unexpected death leads one man to reassess his instinct to always play it safe in life.) My father did everything “right,” yet there he was in intensive care, on life support. When my teenage daughter Alice …

Family caregiver balancing act.

In a survey conducted by Home Instead, Inc., franchisor of the Home Instead Senior Care® network, 26 percent of North American family caregivers of older adults report that they felt a "workplace stigma" associated with elder caregiving. These 10 ways to feel more empowered at work could help give family caregivers hope for better balance and health: 1. …

Do you want to know how long you’ll live?

"If you're coming down with a bad case of Age Anxiety, here's some good news. Seventy-five percent of human aging can be self-regulated. But what exactly does one regulate? Granted, heredity plays a key role. But at least six lifestyle factors also regulate aging." 

The Good News About Getting Older

Nine Keys to Aging Well Please forward this to those with doubts about the benefits of aging. Psychologist and storyteller Jonathan Young served as the founding curator of the Joseph Campbell Archives. Information on Dr. Young's books and seminars is available at folkstory.com along with articles and interviews. The Good News About Getting Older summarizes the …

Better to forget?

I spoke with Blake Richards, one of the co-authors of the paper, who applies artificial intelligence theories to his study of how the brain learns. He says that in the AI world, there's something called over-fitting — a phenomenon in which a machine stores too much information, hindering its ability to behave intelligently. He hopes …

“Foreign Policy” magazine predicts boomers’ decline

 The Boom Was a Blip - Getting Used to Slow Growth By Ruchir Sharma  The global recovery from the Great Recession of 2009 has just entered its eighth year and shows few signs of fading. That should be cause for celebration. But this recovery has been an underwhelming one. Throughout this period, the global economy …

Additional Aging Resources: Aging in the Media

A Boomer's Life After 50 Lindsey McDivitt's Blog Mid-Century Modern Magazine   Mid-Life Boulevard National Public Radio's "Next Avenue" As Time Goes By   Related articles The Trump Budget Cuts Disability Benefits. That Will Hurt Trump Counties Dream Analyst, David Rivinus, Will Be Interviewed by National Public Radio’s Stu Taylor

“We’re about to see a big upsurge in hoarding”, says Washington Post

"We’re about to see a big upsurge in hoarding", says Washington Post

Idiot’s Guide to Mental Health

Defining Sedentary Behavior; An Emerging Global Public Health Priority

A worldwide network of scientists examining the links between sedentary lifestyles and health problems such as obesity and cardiovascular disease today announced a new dictionary of terms to support research into sedentary behaviour. The results of the 'terminology consensus project' led by the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute's (CHEO RI) Sedentary Behaviour Research …

Elder Abuse Day 6/24/17, says UN Report

the taboo topic of elder abuse has started to gain visibility across the world, it remains one of the least investigated types of violence in national surveys, and one of the least addressed in national action plans.

Your Pets Are Living Longer Too. But Geriatric Cats?

We don’t really have much of an idea what healthy aging looks like in a cat. Which, in turn, means we don’t really know the best way to care for our feline pals late in life.

Aging Sex Offenders: To Care; and How?

“The problem is that you’re talking about a project that’s uniquely difficult when it comes to structural needs and safety,” says Amy McCoy, a public-information officer with the Iowa Department of Human Services.

Housing Options for Aging Populations

New advancements in aging-in-place strategies provide a positive outlook for the long term.

Don’t Dare to Call Me Old!!

Sarah Harper, a gerontologist who is director of the Oxford Institute of Ageing, proposed a different approach to the language we use about ageing, suggesting that people in their 60s and possibly 70s and 80s should still be considered active adults. She said there was a danger of neglecting what true old age should be: a time of withdrawal and peace and reflection. It can be a difficult time but “it is a time we need to claim as a special time because we are finite beings … we will die”.

Older; With Bipolar

Young’s longstanding research interest is in optimizing the use of medicine for treatment of older people with severe mood disorders. While less is known about milder forms, severe bipolar disorder in elder adults seems to fall into three categories. He defines below.

Retirement Security: It’s Not Just About the Money

Retired or not, a person's sense of worthiness requires some sort of 'purpose'; a sense of accomplishment from whatever activities are available in his or her environment.  According to Abraham Maslow, the most basic needs are the physiological, food, air, sleep the the like.  The needs that take the most effort, the most conscious effort, …

What Are The 7 Dimensions of Wellness?

Wellness is much more than merely physical health, exercise or nutrition. It is the full integration of states of physical, mental, and spiritual well-being: social, emotional, spiritual, environmental, occupational, intellectual and physical wellness.

Advocacy Services for The Elderly – 1

 The ABA Commission on Law and Aging is a collaborative and interdisciplinary leader of the Association’s work to strengthen and secure the legal rights, dignity, autonomy, quality of life, and quality of care of aging persons. The Commission accomplishes its work through research, policy development, advocacy, education, training, and through assistance to lawyers, bar associations, …

Supportive Kids Help Lower Seniors’ Dementia Risk

The quality of your relationships with your adult children and spouse might influence your chances of developing dementia, new research suggests. While having supportive adult children appeared to be protective, having unsupportive relatives of all ilk seemed to have an opposite -- and more dramatic -- effect, the British scientists reported.

Getting Lost May Indicate Alzheimer’s

Losing your navigational skills or getting lost even though you are in a familiar setting may provide some of the first indications that Alzheimer’s disease could affect you in later life. This is a preliminary discovery of a remarkable long-term study being carried out by scientists who are searching to uncover how dementia first affects the brain. The Prevent project – based at Edinburgh University, though it involves several other UK research centres – is intended to detect signs of Alzheimer’s in people while they are still relatively young. Usually, the disease does not show its symptoms until individuals are in their 60s, by which time it has already done profound damage to the brain.

Brain Awareness Week

Every March, BAW unites the efforts of partner organizations worldwide in a celebration of the brain for people of all ages. Activities are limited only by the organizers’ imaginations and include open days at neuroscience labs; exhibitions about the brain; lectures on brain-related topics; social media campaigns; displays at libraries and community centers; classroom workshops; …

Growing Old, Serious Business

By Pam Hayle, Chair, Vital Aging Network May is Older Americans Month---a month set aside to celebrate the contributions of older adults to our society. When President Kennedy first celebrated older Americans by designating May 1963 as Senior Citizens Month, Kennedy encouraged all Americans to pay tribute to older people across the country. In 1980, …

Video – Successful Aging and Your Brain

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCTDlg9bIL8 Successful aging acknowledges the fact that there is a growing number of older adults functioning at a high level and contributing to the society. Scientists working in this area seek to define what differentiates successful from usual aging in order to design effective strategies and medical interventions to protect health and well-being from aging.[1][3][4][5][6][7] …