by CathyG | Nov 30, 2014 | pollyanna views of aging
Today’s New York Times has an article on retirees who form “virtual villages” to combat loneliness and get things done.
Frankly, I don’t get it. If you live in a city, you already have a virtual village.
Some things are free. You can get groceries delivered to your door. I don’t take any meds but I could find someone to deliver them if I needed to. Besides Fresh Direct, we have InstaCart (which will do drug store runs) and Task Rabbit.
Some things cost money. You can take classes all over town. You don’t need a “senior” approved class. I live near a world-class pottery studio and am a fast bus ride way from all kinds of art classes, comedy classes … anything a person of any age might want.
Some thing are free. Many community colleges and universities allow people over a certain age to take or audit classes for free.
I belong to a regular gym. I take classes. Sometimes I can’t do all the moves – not because I’m old, in most cases, but because I didn’t do enough gymnastics as a child. No problem. Few people of any age can do all of the moves and all the instructors will suggest modifications. I also work out on my own with weights.
My city has tons of Meetup groups. They don’t ask your age. If you don’t want to go to a movie alone, join a group based on your interest, not your age.
We also have tons of opportunities to be useful with volunteerism – everything from tour guiding to animal rescue.
If I lived in the suburbs, I’d need a car, which costs $5-10,000 a year. Most cities have amenities for people over 65. Lots of things are free or almost-free, including food delivery.
Often you can get things free, too. I sometimes volunteer to usher for plays because if I don’t like the play, I can always say, “Well, at least I didn’t pay $50 and up to be annoyed.”
Mostly what bothers me is, why are these villages for retirees? Most retirees are healthy and able-bodied. Why are they subjected to stereotypes of aging?
In fact, I’d like to ask them, “Why retire?” I’ve tried a couple of times and got totally bored. I’m too busy to socialize with my age-mates at a happy hour or a movie. I spend time with people of all ages when I have something in common with them besides our decade of birth.
Right now I’m cursing the Internet because I can’t figure out how to get a blank page with a header in one of my blogs. I’m revising my website, which means rewriting pages and struggling with the demands of a new WordPress theme. I’m making videos, which is a hassle because I live near a noisy bridge in a noisy city and have to remove the background noise.
And if I didn’t have these things going on, I wouldn’t have the pleasure of a murder mystery that is a rare treat, not something I can do each day. I might write a mystery or do more comedy… but probably not. I love my pottery class but I wouldn’t be in the studio every day. There’s something about time stolen from work, contrasting with work, that leads to real enjoyment.
by CathyG | Nov 16, 2014 | dying with dignity
It’s long overdue. We’re hearing about people who want to die on their own terms. Ezekiel Emmanuel’s article, Why I Hope To Die At 75, should be required reading for everyone.
I get totally frustrated when I read (or hear) people say, “Medically-assisted dying is selfish.” The survivors are the ones who are selfish. They’re asking their “loved one” to hang around long enough to be stuck in a nursing home, where it’s not considered abuse to tie someone to a chair in diapers in front of a television set. Even if they visit every day for an hour, which is extremely rare, they’re asking the relative to put up with 23 hours of misery so they can have a single hour, not to mention the “feel good” emotions of saying, “My mom…” or, “My dad…”
We also forget that more and more of us are single and living alone. We’re used to solitude. We’re not used to sharing. Just adding a caretaker to our lives removes all possibility of a decent quality of life.
Emmanuel’s article gets it right. The people who chug along into their 90s are outliers. Getting pneumonia is a blessing. The idea is to die before you become disabled.
Ironically, if we knew we could pull the plug anytime on demand, many of us would choose medical procedures that prolong life
by CathyG | Oct 26, 2014 | stereotypes of aging
Re article in today’s NYT: What if Age Is Nothing But A Mindset.
In the paper issue of the NYT, a teaser subhead asks,”How far can positive thinking take us?”
Misleading!
Ellen Langer’s research is not related to positive thinking or even mindset. She creates interventions (scientists refer to “manipulations,” a word with neutral or even positive connotations in social science).
Langer just compares the results of those who experienced the intervention with those who did not. The people in the study were not asked to imagine or think anything; they just experienced.
Langer’s studies consistently suggest that these interventions are successful, but it’s another step to suggest that we can create our own intervention by mental gymnastics. That’s another research agenda.
What these results DO show is that people respond to environmental cues in ways that deserve further exploration.
This finding is important because people over 60 or 65 are exposed to negative cues every single day, even if they’re healthy and fit, simply by reactions of people they deal with. Doctors and most medical professions stereotype by age: in fact, many just use the age number to make recommendations, without considering the whole person and the context. (Just google “doctors stereotype aging patients” if you don’t believe me.)
Some young women in my gym have come up to say something like, “It’s nice to see someone your age…” or even the more subtle, “Did you enjoy this class?” – a question that the 20-somethings wouldn’t be asked. Even if the questioners mean well, I’m jolted out of my zone, where I’m just another person taking class, and reminded once again that I’m supposed to be “old.”
It’s always tempting to punch those people in the nose, thus demonstrating my lack of frailty. But I prefer to shock them with recommendations like, “Just stop going to doctors and you’ll age well, too.”
by CathyG | Oct 22, 2014 | pollyanna views of aging
Life’s “Common Core:” Ten requirements for teens that won’t get them into college but will make them better people, by Kristin van Ogtrop, was first published in Time Magazine and then reprinted in several places.
The #7 item reads: “Write a heartfelt thank-you note to someone over the age of 70. Even if this person hasn’t given you a holiday or birthday present, find something to thank them for.”
Are 70-year-olds just waiting around for a thank you note from a strange teen or young adult? This idea is SO insulting.
Like many people, Kristin van Ogtrop patronizes 70-year-olds as cute little people who need help. Why thank someone for something they didn’t do?
Better have the kids return to #6 and head to their local animal shelter to offer help. Or find a neighbor of any age who needs a dogwalker.
Actually this whole article is filled with silly assumptions. The #10 suggestion suggests that if you’ll race to the top you’ll knock people out of their way. Some do, some don’t.
And while a few 70-year-olds might welcome a thank you letter (I can’t imagine what the content might look like) I bet the vast majority will want to shove that letter up someplace the sun don’t shine.
by CathyG | Oct 13, 2014 | dying with dignity
The decision to die is a matter of values, not mental illness.
When conversations get difficult, or patients don’t do as they’re told, all too often the medical doctors turn to “psych consults.” A friend who’s married to a psychiatrist told me the hospital now tells “mental health professionals” to find patients incompetent when their decisions go against the hospital’s bottom line.
Psychiatrists can assess physiological components of mental illness; psychologists and some psychiatrists can help people change their thinking and behavior to become happier and enjoy smoother lives.
But what if your only option is living in “assisted care” with minimum-wage uncaring attendants, where you can be tied to a wheel chair in diapers and placed in front of a television for hours at a time, with tasteless food and frequent needle pricks for tests that don’t affect your longevity or well-being?
That’s the common nursing home experience and it doesn’t take a psychologist to see that a wish to die is completely rational.
A professional who diagnoses depression in this circumstance should be tied to a chair in front of a television set tuned to soap operas, wearing diapers, for at least 4 hours. Don’t tell him when you’ll be back. If he complains, say patronizingly, “Oh, are we feeling upset today?” and tell him he can’t have dessert after lunch. Throw in a few needle sticks and see how he feels at the end of the day.
by CathyG | Sep 15, 2014 | single life, stereotypes of aging
In an article about seniors who show up malnourished in emergency rooms, NYT author Judith Graham suggests social isolation might be a factor.
“Who likes to eat alone?” she asks rhetorically.
More and more of us live in one-person households by choice. Some people like to eat alone and it’s time everyone realized that’s a perfectly appropriate choice to make.
If a room is filled with noisy conversation I won’t eat, period. Stress isn’t good for digestion and anyway I want to enjoy my food.
When you like living alone (and census data shows more and more of us do), you obviously like eating alone. We don’t need stigmatizing comments or rhetorical questions with an agenda.
by CathyG | Sep 14, 2014 | pollyanna views of aging
I’m SO sick of those cheery posts “What’s good about getting old.”
If it were REALLY so good, would we have to keep making the point? You don’t see anyone writing about, “It’s great to be a man,” or even, “It’s great to be a woman.” Nor does anyone write, “It’s great to be black,” or, “Why I like being gay.”
Like this one from a mom blog:
There are so many good things about getting older:
1. You stop trying to impress people
2. You see things more clearly
3. Others tolerate your idiosyncrasies
When you stop trying to impress people, you’re giving up. You’re saying you’re not going to advance socially or professionally, so why bother?
Then again, I’ve never worried too much about impressing people with my wardrobe. When I was attending an academic conference several years ago, one guy came up to me to say, “You don’t care, do you? You’re wearing shorts to the opening event!” I hadn’t thought about it, frankly.
Seeing things more clearly can be painful. I shudder when I read a news article about anything medical. It’s usually wildly inaccurate. Anyway, what’s the good of seeing clearly if you aren’t taken seriously because you’re “too old?”
Finally, the reason people “tolerate your idiosyncrasies” is that they’ve bought into the stereotypes of aging. I’ve had my idiosyncracies for a years. People just thought I was weird. In fact, I discovered that one colleague who wrote reference letters for me (reference letters remain a quaint custom in academic job hunting) began each letter with, “Cathy may be somewhat eccentric, but …”
Now when I do something out of the norm, people assume it’s due to age. Sorry, folks: I was a maverick before I knew what it meant.
They think it’s “normal” when you lose thing or bump into walls.
Anyway, everybody ages differently.
Recently a young woman came up to me in the locker room at my gym, right after zumba. She said, “You are amazing! I want to be like you when I’m your age.” Thankfully she was about 20 years off when she guessed my age.
So on the one hand, I showed off a little. I told her my secret: work out 3-4x a week religiously and stay away from doctors.
But on the other hand, there area lots of women as fit as I am or more. What about that 90-year-old who ran marathons? If I did more age-appropriate things I’d be surrounded by women who were equally fit. But I like zumba.
by CathyG | Sep 9, 2014 | medical care
“Nearly 70% of lung cancer occurs in the Medicare population.” That’s the scare statistic the authors of this article use to incite fear and indignation: “Oh no, they’re killing Granny.”
The statistic is probably accurate. But some of these people are in their 80s and 90s. Lung cancer screening makes sense, at best, till age 74. Some elderly folks have other medical conditions that would preclude treatment, regardless of screening outcomes. And when you’re in your 80s and 90s, you could be treated for lung cancer only to end up with some form of cognitive impairment and/or incarceration (I use that word advisedly) in a nursing home with a loss of dignity and independence.
The article reports, “From 2002 to 2010, the NLST evaluated the impact of low-dose computed tomography—or CT—scans in more than 53,000 individuals and demonstrated a 20% reduction in lung-cancer mortality.”
That number is meaningless. We need to know the number of survivors in the screened group vs the number in the non-screened group. If these groups are self-selected the results will be muddled even further because there are differences in people who successfully seek screening vs. those who don’t seek screening or don’t have access.
It’s hard to trust any screening recommendations from radiologists and cancer centers, who stand to profit from screening and from investigating false positive. Here are links to published research studies showing far less impressive results. If newer research is available, let’s see the links.
“Cumulative lung cancer incidence rates through 13 years of follow-up were 20.1 per 10,000 person-years in the intervention group and 19.2 per 10,000 person-years in the usual care group (rate ratio [RR] …” In other words, intervention – presumably this screening – saved less than one person-year.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22031728
“Overdiagnosis is of particular concern in lung cancer screening because newer screening modalities can identify small nodules of unknown clinical significance. Previously published analyses of data from the Mayo Lung Project, a large randomized controlled trial conducted among 9211 male cigarette smokers in the 1970s and early 1980s indicated that overdiagnosis might exist in lung cancer screening…”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16757699
Let’s forget about lung cancer screening and use the money for massage.
by CathyG | Sep 7, 2014 | pollyanna views of aging
I’m tired of hearing that 50 is the new 30 and 60 is the new 40. Here’s what’s different as you get to the 60 mark and beyond.
1 – It’s harder to predict where you’ll be 5 or 10 years from now – sometimes even one year.
When you’re 40 or 50, if you’re healthy, the odds are very high that you’ll be the same for another five to ten years. You can make plans. It makes sense to invest in long-term growth stocks and your new business.
When you’re in your sixties, with each year, you’re less sure. Sure, some 70-year-olds and 75-year-olds are running marathons and businesses. But it’t not unheard of to keel over with a completely unexpected stroke or heart attack. Often, says a cardiologist I know, the first symptom of heart disease is a fatal heart attack.
2 – You stop saying, “Never say never.” Some things just won’t happen. You don’t have enough time.
3 – You realize you won’t outlive everything you own. Why buy more clothes? The t-shirts I have now will last another 10-15 years.
4 – You become comfortable with the idea of dying. It’s gonna happen. It’s more about dying a good death than living a long time. I’m more scared of going into a nursing home than I am of dying.
5 – You realize your days are limited and you want to make each one count. So you resent sitting around in waiting rooms or wasting your time on things that don’t contribute to your welfare or anybody else’s. You don’t have time to suffer fools gladly.
And, if you’re like me, you don’t hesitate to tell them, using language as colorful as possible.
by CathyG | Sep 3, 2014 | stereotypes of aging
Cartoon circling around Facebook, suggesting that people get all saggy and baggy as they age.
First of all, a lot of the time you can prevent sags and bags with exercise, if you start early enough.
And second, there’s not much you can do about sagging and bagging, in some cases. It goes with the territory. Even if you’re totally fit your skin won’t hang the same way as you age.
We don’t make fun of disabled people. Why is this funny?
