Category Archives: SilverTsunami

Back to the Future…Again

13 Wednesday Jan 2016

Posted by in Accessible Home, Aging in Place. Seniors, SilverTsunami, Uncategorized

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Yesterday, I told my landlord that I would be moving out soon. I dreaded telling him. With all the drama that my tenants put me through in the last year; twelve troubled months felt like a decade. The last thing I wanted was to be a problem tenant.

My landlord told me that he already had a new tenant lined up; a 90 year old lady. She’s been renting someplace else but wanted to move to a ground-floor apartment, one that was easier to access. I was able to maneuver up these three steps when I was on crutches. You can tell a lot about accessibility if you can get where you need to while on crutches. You couldn’t get up here easily in a wheel chair.

Today, my domain name SafeGraySpace automatically renewed. I got an email this morning. So here I am; back to the future.

I looked at the site again. It’s valid. A 90 year old needs to move; at her age? Who was making plans for her safety and comfort? It is society’s disgrace.That’s not where any one should be at 90.

Soon, I will moving out of this space into the downstairs unit of the duplex. It is not the SafeGraySpace I intend to remake it into. But I have a plan. I am certain most of my existing plan will be modified. In the initial step of cleaning up after the renter’s,   I discovered things that the building inspection should have revealed but didn’t.

Trying to clean up around the bathroom window, a huge chunk of termite-ridden debris fell from the area that should have been the window frame. I stopped. It looked more like dirty lace than wood. I suspected that I could be doing more harm than good.

My plan is to move in and stay in it the way it is for awhile. It is livable. I once lived in an off-grid, no running water, log-cabin at 9,000′ elevation for 6 years. I can do this. I need to know that this place is where I want to create my SafeGraySpace. It’s a start.

Anti Anti-Aging

17 Tuesday Mar 2015

Posted by in AARP, Aging, Anti-Aging, Boomers, Retirement, SilverTsunami

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Look at just about any advertisement anywhere, in print, on-line, on TV and it is trying to sell you something to make you look younger, reverse the look of aging, preserve what youth you may still radiate. Not much for anyone who wants to healthfully embrace aging. And not too much concern or conversation about it either. I remember my own Grandmother’s 80 birthday party. I was about 30. She whispered to me that “you will feel old for a lot longer than you ever felt young, so learn not to fight with it.” She aged beautifully. I myself have merely aged. And she was right about feeling old a lot longer than feeling young, especially if you have been injured or you simply live as long as she did. She was almost 93 when she died. On my 50th birthday, my grown kids and I did a Class 5, white-water river rafting trip on the Cache la Poudre. For my 60th, we are going to celebrate with a more mellow, water-based family weekend. There are two babies in our family that need to ripen more before we ever subject them to that extreme level of adventure. The key word here is ripen. I am just ripening too. I don’t want to fight aging. I want to gradually mellow into what nature intended all along, an older me. The wrinkles show more when I laugh than when I keep a straight face but I would much rather laugh than not. The body parts I accidentally wounded and injured over the past 60 years sometimes remind me very loudly of how many miles they have taken me. We have a truce about how to keep adding more miles. My knee doctor told me it was my choice, I could play really hard for a little while longer or I could walk really well for a whole lot longer. I like walking just fine. I plan to mellow to a ripe old age. I am going for a walk…

Senior Moments

05 Thursday Mar 2015

Posted by in Alzheimers, Boomers, Senior Moments, SilverTsunami, Traveling with Alzheimers, Trip Insurance

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With the aging of “Boomers” (those born between 1946 and 1964/ A.K.A. the Silver Tsunami) the incidence of Alzheimer’s disease is expected to almost triple. (13.8 million by 2050) The fifth-leading killer of aging Americans; it destroys brain cells; affecting memory, language, reasoning and behavior. (approximately 5 million Americans every year.) Those are the numbers that are reported. Some familiies hide their ‘problems’ and this area is no different. Excuses are endless. (“senior moment”) Facing this complicated reality is often ignored. My step-dad, Tom started presenting signs of dementia after a stroke. Mom became the brains of their partnership. Against my adamant advice, they embarked on a Baltic cruise in May of 2013. Mom was his ‘keeper’, but she became deathly ill at sea and required immediate hospitalization. The cruise ship was diverted to Stockholm. They were officially disembarked and transported by ambulance to St. Joran’s Hospital. The compassionate doctors were so concerned about Tom literally getting lost without mom, they admitted him to the hospital for ‘safe-keeping’ where he stayed in a bed next to hers. (His own Americian doctor didn’t want to tell him he had Alzheimer’s.) At 7 a.m. on May 27th, I received a phone call from Emma, the Port Agent for the Cruise Lines asking me to come to Sweden and take custody of Tom. After a 4 day stay to stabilze mom, they flew home with a Medical Escort. (Thank goodness for trip insurance!) Mom died March 10, 2014, about 10 months after the cruise. Tom now lives in a ‘Retirement Center.’ I went to visit him yesterday; I go at least once a week. He told me that he had signed some papers that morning. I called my step-sister to ask her what he was talking about. She explained that she had sold mom and Tom’s house. The closing was yesterday. Try to talk to Tom; after a few minutes, you will realize he has some form of dementia. How can anyone with dementia or Alzheimer’s sign a binding legal document? Let’s hope more effective prevention and treatment methods are discovered for Alzheimers! At least 30 state legislatures have adopted plans or task forces to address the disease. “We’re being proactive here in Connecticut,” says Representative Joseph Serra, co-chair of the state’s newly established Task Force on Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia. “I believe we need to get a handle on it before it’s an even bigger problem.” The problems surrounding aging are very complicated with cascading effects. It can unravel families. Start the dialouge with your grown children. Be proactive about your own destiny.

SilverTsunami

26 Thursday Feb 2015

Posted by in AARP, Aging in Place. Seniors, Boomers, Economic Insecurity, Retirement, SilverTsunami

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Millions of people will enter retirement without sufficient resources to house and feed themselves for the rest of their lives. This “Silver Tsunami” is coming as the boomer generation enters their senior years. Between 2010 and 2030, the number of older Americans will double, to 72.1 Million. For the first time in history, people over 65 will outnumber children under 5. This past recession destroyed the dreams of a tradional retirement for many. When seniors are no longer employable or capable of working, there aren’t adequate strategies to keep the boomer generation out of homelessness and hunger. In the next 10 years, the “Silver Tsunami” will burden the social services system, tax communities and stress families to the point of collapse.

President Kennedy established Older Americans Month in 1963. Seventeen million Americans were 65 or older, about a third of those seniors lived in poverty. Now, according to a recent Census Bureau report, there are 40.3 million people aged 65 and older. Over 23 million Americans aged 60+ are economically insecure; living at or below 250% of the federal poverty level. According to AARP, in eight years, from 2001 – 2009, the number of Americans aged 50+ threatened by hunger soared by 79 percent, to nearly 9 million people. The Center for Retirement Research at Boston College said in 2013 that more than half of working-age households faced a deteriorating standard of living in retirement.”

According to the California Commission on Aging, the average income of elderly Californians is about $25,500, and Social Security accounts for 28 percent of older Californians’ income. A UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and the Oakland-based Insight Center for Community Economic Development estimated that 7 out of 10 elderly Latinos and African-Americans and six out of 10 Asians don’t have enough income to pay for their basic needs. Published in 2012, a Pew Research Center study found that the percentage of people ages 55 to 64 who doubt they will have enough to live on during retirement increased to 39 percent in 2012 from 26 percent in 2009. Meals on Wheels Research Foundation reports the number of seniors experiencing hunger rose 200 percent between 2001 and 2011.

There are deliberate decisions to consider and action steps to take.

First- Figure out where you want to live. Housing is the critical issue. The Internet is filled with lists of the most affordable places to retire. Based primarily on home prices, they also take things into consideration like weather and crime rate. Most of them ignore the desire and need to be near family, friends (caregivers) and facilities (healthcare, recreation/community centers/resources) If uprooting and relocating is an option, try an extended stay at a few places before you fully commit to moving. This is a step you should carefully explore before you retire. Prepare your living space for the long haul; if you plan on staying in your current home, make absolute certain it can accommodate you as your body morphs with age and possibly disease. Unforeseen mobility issues will complicate almost every single activity of daily living; practically every possible thing. Think about steps, stairs, hallways, first floor bedrooms, lighting, kitchen and bathroom cabinets, electrical plugs and switches that you can reach. Ease of bathroom access and functionality is essential.  Borrow or rent a wheel chair and see how your activities of daily living work out. Think hard about how much space you actually need and want to maintain. Even if your home is paid off, houses are expensive to heat, cool and maintain. Consider ways your home can provide additional income; rent a room to a college student or another retired person thereby turning it into a source of income for you. If any remodeling or updating needs to be done, do it while you are up for this mentally, and financially challenging process.

Deal with the Directives, wills, etc. (Advanced Directives) Medical and Durable Powers of Attorney. Have these serious,honest and often uncomfortable conversations with your children, friends, family members. Do it now.

Start saving. AARP reports that three out of five households headed by a person 65 or older have ZERO money in retirement savings accounts. Be reasonable about this. Earn potential prosperity from acceptable austerity.

Learn to budget (again) Retired people that live on fixed incomes generally use a combination of Social Security and a pension and/or withdrawals from their 401k or IRA. Occasionally, there may be passive income. Run the numbers now. Create a Long-Term plan and prepare a plan B as well; life can throw costly curve balls.

ALSO- Adjust your expectations. You will not have your parents’ retirement or even the one you were anticipating 10 years ago. Plan to work longer and be creative about producing income and reducing expenses. Be realistic about the life style you want to maintain.