The Virtual Visit May Expand Access to Doctors

"Americans could soon be able to see a doctor without getting out of bed, in a modern-day version of the house call that takes place over the Web."


More...http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/21/technology/start-ups/21doctors.html?hpw

US Census & NIA: An Aging World 2008

http://www.census.gov/prod/2009pubs/p95-09-1.pdf


Includes Global Aging quiz

Older Athletes: 2009 Masters Olympics

Dreams Don't Retire (Ameriprise Financial)

Highlight of Longevity Revolution

Erikson "My Retirement"

Transitions to Retirement

Dorothy: Turned Passion into Profit
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnrMerP40_k


Marc: Downsized to Independence
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Et76jG3F4Ws


Bill: Diligent and Debt Free
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZXKIL3Nxi0


Cindy: Enjoying Everyday
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jLn9_0X9kQ

AARP U@50: Lost Generation

Salsa dancing British granny Paddy Jones wins Spain's Got Talent

Some pensioners retire to Spain to ease their arthritis by relaxing by the pool under the Mediterranean sun. Not so Sarah “Paddy” Jones, 75, who has preferred to while away her twilight years doing something a little more athletic.


With a series of shimmies, flips and slides, Mrs Jones, originally from Stourbridge, West Midlands, won the Spanish equivalent of Britain’s Got Talent with an acrobatic salsa routine, winning her and her partner — 40 years her junior — the first prize of €10,000 (£9,100) and whatever other fortune her new-found fame can bring.


Dressed in a tight, dark-blue dress, the demure British grandmother wowed the audience on the Spanish television programme Tu Si Que Vales (You Are Worth It) and left the judges alternately open-mouthed or holding their heads in their hands as she was flipped over her partner’s head and through his legs, sliding around the dance floor like someone a third of her age. 



http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6951839.ece
Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZUyjguBvSo&feature=player_embedded

Nursing Home of the Future: Redesigning the Elder Experience

TEDxBoston - Melissa Withers - 7/28/09
Nursing Home of the Future: Redesigning the Elder Experience - Warehousing the aging Woodstock generation in todays elder care institutions simply won't do. Melissa Withers from The Elder Experience Lab reveals insights into how seniors prefer to interact with caregivers, utilize private and shared spaces, care for body and mind, and ultimately, what they think the nursing home of the future can (and should) look like. Presented at the 1st TEDxBoston on July 28, 2009 (http://tedxboston.org).


http://www.businessinnovationfactory.com/projects/exl

Women, Boomers, and Growing a Careforce Through Healthcare Reform

By Eric Dishman



I'm beginning to believe that the best way to achieve true and lasting healthcare reform is to just get out of the way and let Baby Boomer women revolutionize healthcare. Baby Boomers as a cohort have been change agents for redefining the family, education, and work life, so why not healthcare as well? Boomer aged women are already--and will increasingly be--the majority on the front lines of formal and informal care. I certainly don't mean to denigrate the role of men in healthcare or to perpetuate some kind of bio-destiny argument that women are "naturally" supposed to be the caretakers in our society. But I do think our overwhelmingly male Congress would do well to better understand the role of--and listen more to--women, who will likely be the most impacted by these health reform policies.


More... http://blogs.intel.com/healthcare/2009/10/women_boomers_and_growing_a_careforce_through_healthcare_reform.php 

What Healthcare Reform Should Learn From Long Term Care

By Eric Dishman..

And here is the rest of the healthcare continuum should be paying more attention to how long term care providers view the world:

1) Quality First: The majority of long term care providers operate from a principled and heartfelt passion of delivering quality care for the seniors they love. No one goes into this business (and most of them don't like to think of it as a business) to get rich, but because they are enriched by serving seniors. This industry has many of its roots in faith-based missions, where quality and compassion supersede ROI and the business of care. I'm not claiming some utopia wherein these providers don't struggle with hard financial and business issues every day, but they know how to strive and drive for quality because it is foundational in their orientation to care. 

2) Holistic Orientation: Long term care providers have to care for all of the life needs of their elder residents--sometimes for decades for an individual. From addressing basic needs like housing and nutrition to healthcare needs like medications and disease management and mental health to high level needs like social engagement, entertainment, education, and spirituality for their residents, long term care providers already think and act in holistic ways that the rest of the healthcare system is struggling to deal with. The current medical home movement and the push for someone to act as a primary care "champion" for patients across all the specialists they see is something that long term care providers have been doing naturally for decades. This holistic orientation is a strategic advantage for them in a post-reform world.

3) Continuum Thinking: You can see many sectors in healthcare starting to realize that they must diversify their services and revenue streams in order to survive--that they need to serve more parts of the continuum of care with their clinical and campus assets. Again, long term care is ahead of the rest of the pack--in fact, we have them to thank for the notion of a "continuum of care" as those providers came to realize that they needed to diversify their services from just nursing homes to many other "flavors" of care: assisted living, adult day and foster care, independent living, continuing care retirement centers, and more. Long term care has already diversified its knowledge and service delivery capacity, much as many other healthcare sectors will need to do in a world that pays more for quality and outcomes instead of just the number of face-to-face visits.

4) Care Coordination: One of the hottest topics in healthcare reform--and a core tenant of the Obama administration for reform--is that we have to do a better job on the coordination of care. This relates to #2 above. Long term care providers already routinely practice as coordinated care teams by virtue of the holistic care they provide. In fact, they can't operate without care coordination. Other parts of healthcare would do well to see how long term care does this so successfully--as well as learn from the mistakes that long term care has made--as they try to coordinate care across locations, departments, and needs for a resident whose needs change dramatically over the years.

5) Value over Volume: Perhaps the most radical part of the Senate and House bills in consideration is the shift of payment for healthcare from the volume of face-to-face visits to so-called "bundled payments" or "value over volume" or "quality over quantity." While these payment paradigms may be troubling and new to physician groups or nurses or hospitals, this is already "old hat" for long term care providers who are most often paid in "bundles" (small bundles, if we are honest with ourselves) and then have to figure out how to manage quality care that isn't based on # of visits but on outcomes.

6) Incorporating Family and Friends: The long term care community--again, by virtue of the kind of care it delivers--has long found ways to incorporate family members and informal caregivers into the mix of their services. They realize that it if they are to be successful in their mission of quality care, they have to "recruit" this informal care workforce into the care team. Families come into their facilities expecting to know what is going on--and, since those families are often paying out of pocket for some or all of these care services, they demand "transparency" and "quality" at every turn.

7) Home Orientation:  Lastly, and it should be no surprise to anyone who has read much of what I have posted on this blog, I want to celebrate the fact that long term care providers have a "home" orientation in their care. It is their job to create a home for their residents--whether in an independent living apartment or a skilled nursing facility. And many pioneers in long term care are already exploring how to use technologies to deliver their care services virtually and to the traditional homes of their residents. These providers "get it" that the future of healthcare in America is to move care capacity, services, and expertise into the community and into the home--not to leave all of that "locked up" in a campus that someone has to travel or move to. This is not to say that long term care facilities will or should go away--only that they will add even more nodes to the continuum of care in which they serve.

http://blogs.intel.com/healthcare/2009/10/what_healthcare_reform_should_learn_from_long_term_care.php

'Retirement': The new dirty word

Today's 50- and 60-year-olds are rebelling against their parents’ version of retirement, transforming it into new careers 
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/StockInvestingTrading/TheNewFantasyRetirement.aspx

Intel Wants You to Age Gracefully, at Home

It's testing the Intel Health Guide, a device to let doctors monitor seniors remotely. Such systems could save billions in health care.
"For three months early this year, 63-year-old Ronald Lang was one of the most plugged-in patients in America. Lang, who suffers from congestive heart failure and multiple sclerosis, was pilot-testing the Intel Health Guide, a device that let doctors monitor his health remotely. Each day after he woke up, he'd step on a scale and strap on a blood-pressure cuff that were attached to the Health Guide. The device collected his vitals and zapped them to his doctor's office. From there, nurse Marie DiCola scoured the data, and if she noticed anything amiss, she dialed up Lang and chatted with him over Health Guide's videophone...."

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/sep2009/tc20090921_041069.htm?chan=rss_topStories_ssi_5

Stroke of insight: Jill Bolte Taylor

Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened -- as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding -- she studied and remembered every moment. This is a powerful story of recovery and awareness -- of how our brains define us and connect us to the world and to one another. (Recorded February 2008 in Monterey, California. Duration: 18:44.)

http://blog.ted.com/2008/03/jill_bolte_tayl.php

Project Brotherhood

CNN July 21, 2009

On Chicago's Southside, life expectancy for Black men is 8 years less than the national average. Can barber shops help?

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/living/2009/06/12/bia2.project.brotherhood.cnn

iPod Therapy for Alzheimer's Patients

A Key for Unlocking Memories
Music Therapy Opens a Path to the Past for Alzheimer's Patients; Creating a Personal Playlist
WSJ 12/16/09

"Many hospitals and nursing homes use music as recreation, since it brings patients pleasure. But beyond the entertainment value, there's growing evidence that listening to music can also help stimulate seemingly lost memories and even help restore some cognitive function."...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704538404574540163096944766.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_lifestyle#

Decrease in smoking extends life span, but obesity may curb gains

From Health.com 12/3/09

Although fewer people are smoking -- and therefore less likely to die from cigarette-related causes -- the obesity epidemic may negate any gains in life span, according to a new study. ...

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/12/03/obesity.smoking.lifespan/index.html

NYT: Over 60, and Proud to Join the Digerati

From NYT 11/28/09

I used to be the top editor of Time, Life and People magazines (back when print was king). On my first day at FLYP, I was introduced to the staff as someone who “has forgotten more about magazines than any of us has ever known.”...

Another comment, a bit painful, too, but quite true: “We’re a small team where we can’t get hung up on who is guiding whom. New media isn’t about who has the longest résumé. It’s about who has the best ideas and who can implement them the most creatively. That’s something that age can’t really teach you.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/jobs/29pre.html?_r=1&8dpc