Advertising: Do Seniors Need Media Literacy Training??
Most advertising that sells things to seniors frustrates me.
An article, from the Tucson Citizen, gives but one example of just how much target people who are older, in this case by the AARP. AARP Advertising to Seniors, posted about a year ago in October 2009 by the newspaper’s MedicareBlogger, tells the story of an 80-year-old woman who happened to purchase and pay monthly for two types of Medicare plans, both sold by one of AARP’s insurance programs. Unfortunately, only one could cover any services for her. The other plan was useless.
An Alzheimer’s Statistic I Did Not Know
Writing in the October 27, 2010 New York Times, three prestigious AIDS advocates, including retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, call for a “man-on-the-moon” effort, setting a goal to stop Alzheimer’s, by the year 2020. Justice O’Connor, writing on the op-ed page along with medicine Nobel Prize winner, Stanley Prusiner (read his Nobel Price acceptance speech), and psychologist Ken Dychtwald, point out that the country has previously organized itself in a similar ways to counter polio and AIDS. The Age of Alzheimer’s points out that an economic effect of the development of AIDS medicines is the addition of nearly 1.4 trillion dollars to the American economy.
No stranger to the ravages of Alzheimer’s, Justice O’Connor helped to care for her late husband when he developed the degenerative disease.
The Times piece gives a health funding statistic that I had not heard before: “…for each penny the National Institutes of Health (NIH) spends on Alzheimer’s research, we spend more than $3.50 on caring for people with the condition.”
This is currently one of the Times’ most e-mailed articles.
As Our Parents Age First Anniversary!
A year ago this blog, As Our Parents Age, uploaded its first posts. A few paragraphs that I wrote in a journal about caregiving and my need to know so much more, inspired me to get started. One of my first posts described how people speak in weird ways to seniors, shortly after my dad was in the hospital for a few days.
Huge thanks to many individuals who have supported As Our Parents Age during the last 12 months — readers, editors, other blogs and blog writers, caregivers, friends, family, so many loving adult children and, of course my dad and his iPad.
Here’s to a successful second year!
N.B. In case you haven’t discovered it yet, and more than a few readers have pointed this out, look at As Our Parents Age in a slightly different way and it reads A Sour Parent Sage. Perhaps in the blog’s second year this alter-ego will upload a few posts!
More Senior Emergency Departments are Opening
More emergency rooms designed expressly for seniors are opening, according to an October 25, 2010 article in the Detroit News, Hospitals Designing Senior ERs to Cater to Needs of the Elderly. The report, by Detroit News reporter Melissa Burden, describes how hospital systems in Michigan are are opening senior ERs for the good of older patients, and with a larger goal of decreasing senior hospital readmissions — a big policy issue for hospitals and Medicare.
Holy Cross Hospital Senior ER
The new facilities at St. Joseph Mercy Health System (read the press release describing the new ER for seniors) and Henry Ford Hospitals are modeled in some ways after the highly successful senior emergency facility at Holy Cross Hospital in Bethesda Maryland. Read my post from a year ago, Going to the Emergency Room, describing the Holy Cross ER for seniors.
Reason’s for the increasing numbers of these specialized senior ERs? Read more »
Seniors’ Bank Cards: Stop Switching Them!
Three times in the last 12 months my mother has received a phone call from her bank credit card company telling her she has a wonderful opportunity to receive a new card. Three times she’s been made to feel like she has to do it.
So suddenly Mom has a new card, a new number, and a huge amount of unexpected changes to make in her business files. The first time when it happened, I wasn’t that irritated. The second time I was quite irritated. Now I am livid!
Mind you, the calls are not coming from a different bank credit card company trying to make her switch companies. Instead her own credit card company is switching her to a different card, and I assume that they make better money on the new card which they are sending, though my mother always pays her full balance each month.
Health Care Law and Medicare
A Kaiser Health News (KHN) article written in collaboration with a reporter at the Washington Post analyzes some of the campaign claims about the health care bill, including Medicare changes and potential changes in our coverage. The piece identifies, with clear explanations, what assertions are true and what are false (or at least strongly exaggerated). In the October 19, 2010 report, Campaign Claims: Health Law Myths and Facts, reporters Julie Appleby (KHN) and N.C. Aizenman (Post) provide information about the claims skyrocketing premiums as well as the effects from expanding Medicaid coverage to people who currently have little access to health care.
Retiring Near a University? Sounds Divine!
When my parents retired to the Virginia Mennonite Retirement Community (VMRC) in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, they looked forward to the many resources available to residents — a wide range of activities, the wellness center, the beautiful campus, and much more. However, another advantage of retiring in the VMRC location was the university next door. In fact the retirement community abuts the university land.
My parents also enjoy all sorts of opportunities at this university. They attend concerts, listen to lectures, and use athletic facilities — especially an indoor track. Athletic teams play each season, and a group of retirees gathers at almost every event to cheer them on to victory. A personal favorite of my parents, both former college professors, is the university library, which welcomes residents of the VMRC community. And once in a while my parents even enjoy purchasing dinner tickets and visiting the university dining hall.
Can We Walk More and Help Our Aging Parents Do the Same?
Read The Pedometer Test: Americans Take Fewer Steps, an article by Tara Parker-Pope published in the October 19 , 2010 New York Times Well Blog. Parker-Pope describes a study, in which adults wore pedometers for two days as they went about their daily activities. In the study, Pedometer-Measured Physical Activity and Health Behaviors in U.S. Adults (abstract), the 1,136 adults counted their steps each day. Compared to studies in other countries that measured similar walking movements, people in the United States walked a lot less, reporting an average of 5,117 steps per day.
According to the study’s abstract, “…men and women in the United States took fewer steps per day than those living in Switzerland, Australia, and Japan. We conclude that low levels of ambulatory physical activity are contributing to the high prevalence of adult obesity in the United States.”
If adult children aim to do what it takes to remain healthy, as well as keep our aging parents healthy, increased walking seems like a no-brainer, especially given how much exercise is associated with health and disease prevention.
Becoming A Grown-up Child
One day in April 2007 my husband and I were the adult kids in our families — we are the only adult children
— and the next day we became what we laughingly call “real grown-ups,” helping first one, then two, and increasingly all three of our parents. It’s time to give back, and we do so willingly and happily. However the process is not easy, and it is not free from anxiety and tension. Check out the As Our Parents Age About page to learn more about the mission of this blog.
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Copyright and Attribution Info
As Our Parents Age by Marti Weston is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Based on work at AsOurParentsAge.wordpress.com and AsOurParentsAge.net
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available by emailing As Our Parents Age. To learn more about this blog go to the AsYourParentsAge About page.
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