The Legacy Film Festival on Aging, May 13-15, 2011 in San Francisco, showcases the best films from around the world that celebrate older adulthood and deal with the challenges & triumphs of aging. The Festival lineup includes documentaries, shorts and feature films. Living Well is pleased to be one of the Festival Sponsors.
‘Announcements’ Posts
Legacy Film Festival on Aging, May 13-15 2011, San Francisco
Thursday, April 21st, 2011“IF I ever need to go to a nursing home, kill me first”
Saturday, April 2nd, 2011
Aging in Place: You do not need to leave your home!
Given that 89% of people do not want to leave their homes, this statement featured on the article The Technology for Monitoring Elderly Relatives on The New York Times (July 28, 2010) about new technologies to help people stay at their home, makes total sense.
The purpose of many of these technologies is to provide enough supervision to make it possible for elderly people to stay in their homes rather than move to an assisted-living facility or nursing home — a goal almost universally embraced as both emotionally and financially desirable.
An Open Book in Old Age: Specialized Book Group for Marin Seniors
Monday, December 13th, 2010
San Francisco, CA (December 12, 2010) — Marin seniors will soon have an opportunity to participate in a free book group tailored to their needs, interests and perspectives.
Thanks to a partnership between the S.F.-based start-up Engage As You Age and the Berkeley-based Small Press Distributors, Marin seniors can join a six-session book group facilitated by an accomplished anthropologist and journalist. The two organizations share a vision to bring high-level conversation and social stimulation to all seniors.
Brain Wellness À la Wii
Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010
The Wii is a home video game console released by Nintendo on November 19, 2006. As of August 2010, the Wii leads the generation over the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in worldwide sales and in December 2009 broke the record for best-selling console in a single month in the United States.
Nintendo hoped to target a wider demographic with its console. The productions are Nintendo’s first broad-based advertising strategy and include a two-minute video clip showing a varied assortment of people enjoying the Wii system, such as urban apartment-dwellers, country ranchers, grandparents, and parents with their children.The marketing campaign has proved to be successful: pensioners, as old as 103 have been reported to be playing the Wii in the United Kingdom.. A report by the British newspaper The People also stated that Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain has played using the Wii console!
Now, we have data that the Wii games have brought back feelings of being young again as the participants flex their mental muscles and improve their physical fitness. The Wii is improving the quality of life of many aging seniors.
Diane Carbo, in an article written for Senior Advice, states that “…Healthy aging and a brain fitness program along with the Wii promotes the development of new skills, and helps aging seniors learn from their mistakes. The best part of using the Wii as part of a healthy aging program is the laughter and excitement you see in the faces of the participants. The environment is electric as the aging seniors enjoy familiar interests in a new format. For many seniors it feels like old times again…”
Alzheimer’s Association reports on optimism among scientists to solve the Alzheimer’s puzzle!
Wednesday, July 7th, 2010
The Alzheimer’s Association presented an article published by the Health Day News for Healthy Living where the outlook for Alzheimer’s disease research is promising, even as the disease’s looming impact on society grows, experts say. Work is being done on scans and tests that could lead to early detection, and researchers are also identifying genetic and biological markers that could indicate if a person is at increased risk for developing Alzheimer’s.
The Health Day Article by Dennis Thompson states “…Research into Alzheimer’s disease has reached a point of significant potential, even as the disease’s looming impact on society grows more and more dire, experts say. Some leading scientists, in fact, worry that we may not be doing enough to press forward with key advances and new insights into Alzheimer’s, the most common type of dementia among older people…”
Caring for The Elder at Home: The Need For a New Paradigm.
Tuesday, June 29th, 2010
The increasing number of people turning 65, the high number of elders with health constraints, and the sky-rocketing price of health care posits the question of how are we going to care for all the elders who constitute, today the upcoming silver tsunami?
More than 40 percent of adult patients in acute care hospital beds are 65 or older. Seventy million Americans will have turned 65 by 2030. They include the 85-and-older cohort, the nation’s fastest-growing age group. Elderly people often have multiple chronic illnesses, expensive to treat, and they are apt to require costly hospital re-admissions, sometimes as often as 10 times in a single year. Living Well Assisted Living at Home has designed a new model of comprehensive care that will help care for elders at home, including those who are frail, recovering from surgery, accidents or any illness. The model also strives to care for those suffering from dementia, at home.
In an article written by Milt Freudenheim for the Health section of the New York Times, in June 28, 2010, we find how geriatricians and other professionals are lobbying for best practices in the field of aging. In the article it is stressed the fact of how “..to stay independent, the elderly will need to stay healthy. Many of these people could be back on the golf course and enjoying their grandchildren if we did the right thing for them,” said Mary D. Naylor, a longtime geriatric care researcher and professor of gerontology in the School of Nursing at the University of Pennsilvania. Her research showed that even fragile older people could avoid a quick return to the hospital if they are managed by teams of nurses, social workers, physicians and therapists, together with their own family members. Hospital re-admissions, which cost $17 billion a year, could be reduced by 20 percent — $3.5 billion — or more, she said…” Obviously a new approach to care for the elder is imperative if we wnat to promote wellness in this sector of the population and reduce the increasing costs of caring for seniors.
Mr. Freudenheim continues by saying: “…Many internists, family physicians and other primary care doctors are lobbying for payments for a team approach based in the physician’s office. The concept, which they call a patient-centered medical home, will be tried out under the new health care law by Medicare, Medicaid and some private insurers. Secretary Sebelius has called the medical home idea “one of our most promising models for improving the quality of care and bringing down health care costs…”
Baby Boomers May Need to Find New Care Networks to Care for Their Golden Years.
Sunday, June 20th, 2010In a paper presented at the 2010 Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, held this week at Concordia. University in Montreal, Jacques Légaré and other researchers at the Université de Montréal, stated that Baby Boomers will need to be creative when it comes to find new alternatives to senior care.
“…Who are tomorrow’s seniors going to call when the going gets rough? Today’s young adult may not have a child to help out when they become older? Today’s adult is having less children. Because of this when they are elderly they may need to have non-traditional support networks or pay for the care that past generations relied on their own children for. That’s the findings of Jacques Légaré, professor at the Université de Montréal. Légaré studies
Baby Boomers Aging
aging baby-boomers. Baby Boomers are a generation that had fewer children and were less likely to have a stable marriage. Légaré stated that until 2030 the family circle involving senior citizens will be evolving. For about 70 percent of today’s frail seniors the family circle provides care. Generally that care comes from the children or their spouse. They are the last population before the baby boom after World War II. Today’s Baby Boomer generation is rapidly hitting the golden years but not with the same family security that their parents had. With divorce, blended families and common-law unions the family scheme is vastly different than in their parents’ day. Adding in medical advancements that have increased life span brings an unclear picture of who is going to care for those unable to care for themselves. “Tomorrow’s elderly – today’s boomers – had far fewer children. Who will take care of them?” Légaré asked, “They risk finding themselves in difficult circumstances and might have to turn to the public system or pay their way.”
