Older Americans Month: Engage at Every Age

The theme of this year’s Older Americans Month, Engage at Every Age, was announced on the Administration for Community Living website: 

“… you are never too old (or too young) to take part in activities that can enrich your physical, mental and emotional well-being and celebrates the many ways older adults make a difference in our communities.

Participating in activities that promote mental and physical wellness, offering your wisdom and experience to the next generation, seeking the mentorship of someone with more life experience than you—those are just a few examples of what being engaged can mean.”

The Vintage Years:  engagement in fine arts

Older age provides advantages to engage in the fine arts, according to Francine Toder, PhD, author of The Vintage Years: Finding Your Inner Artist (Writer, Musician, Visual Artist) After Sixty (2013).  In her presentation, Stimulating the Brain and Psyche: Benefits of Finding/Practicing a Fine Art Form After Sixty, Francine viewed the vintage years as a reward for decades of hard work, allowing more time and focus for fresh perceptions and new exploration.  Following the multi-tasking overload of our midlife years, our vintage years are characterized by a slower pace, steadier hormones, calmness/more emotional stability, laser sharp focus, more time flexibility, fewer demands on time, and the sense of “if not now, then when?” (like the Tracy Chapman song!)  

Francine’s book opens with Chapter 1, “The Time of Your Life: Now or Never,” about 89-year-old Matty Kahn, who had no musical knowledge before volunteering for Never2Late project, to begin learning to play the cello in a month’s time.  Matty succeeded after meeting 8 hours a day, one day a week, for one month, with cello teacher Bianca Kovic, who documented this experience in a 15-minute film, Virtuoso: It’s Never Too Late to Learn (2008).  Francine shared her own similar experience of taking up cello playing, though she was 20 years younger than Matty, setting aside self-doubt by reasoning, “If she (Matty) can do it, so can I!”  However, instead of cramming, Francine explained that older adults learn best with spaced learning: short daily practice sessions over a long period of time, to reinforce short-term memory so that it can convert to long-term memory. 

Francine noted that “our mature brain thrives on the very things that are pleasurable and add zest to life: creativity and physical, social and mental activity.”  Specifically, Francine’s research found that after midlife, our brain’s right and left hemispheres become better integrated, more interdependent and more functionally intertwined; patterning that facilitates problem-solving in mature brains are based on generic memories that accumulate with age.  The fine arts also offer an abundance of the "magical triad"—novelty/newness, complexity, and problem-solving—for our mature brains to continue developing, according to brain plasticity research.  In addition to supporting brain health, Francine shared the numerous psychosocial benefits of taking up the fine arts:  greater life satisfaction, increased passion, enhanced sense of well-being, increased ability to focus sharply, and an expanded social community.

Francine also practices the fine art of writing daily; her next book is tentatively entitled, Inward Traveler: 51 Ways to Explore the World More Mindfully.

Wonder:  engagement in musical theater

Older adults from Stagebridge Theater were fully engaged in this production of Wonder, “a theatrical curiosity on the impermanence of self” adapted from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.  In this “musical fantasia on dementia,” the audience follows Alice, a retired math teacher who is newly admitted to a Memory Care unit.  

Furious at losing her logical mind, Alice can’t seem to adapt to her new surroundings … after swallowing too many of her meds, Alice is taken on a hallucinatory trip into her imagination revealing many different sides of herself (“I’m not the same person—who am I?”).  Alice is played by an actor dressed like “Tootsie” and the cast starts dancing to “White Rabbit” sung by Grace Slick. 

Audience joined Stagebridge cast on stage, dancing in finale of Wonder.  All four shows of Wonder at Phoenix Theater sold out!  

Wonder was conceived/directed/choreographed by Bruce Bierman, and created with Stagebridge Viewpoints/Composition Class by sharing stories of family and loved ones who have gone through some kind of memory loss.  Bruce is an art prodigy who doesn't have to wait until he's past 60 to quit his day job and practice Art!

Engagement in health and well-being

Tiffany L. Chan, OD, presented Vision Care for Older Adults as part of Healthy Vision Month.  She discussed the most common eye conditions that lead to vision loss (age-related macular degeneration, glaucoma, cataracts, diabetic retinopathy) and low vision rehabilitation (magnifiers, orientation and mobility, home modification, etc.).

Gerontologist Hope Levy of American Bone Health (ABH) presented Freedom from Fractures in conjunction with Osteoporosis Awareness Month.  Some highlights of her talk:

·       Osteoporosis only accounts for about 50% of overall risk for fractures

·       Rapid bone loss occurs in women at menopause and in men at about age 70

·       Warning signs of osteoporosis are loss of height and a fracture

·       About 1 in 2 women, and up to 1 in 4 men, age 50+ will break a bone due to osteoporosis

·       ABH Fracture Risk Calculator https://americanbonehealth.org/calculator/ estimates 10-year risk of breaking a bone, based on personal factors (age, gender, BMI, race), lifestyle factors (smoking tobacco, drinking excess alcohol), medications taken (prednisone or steroid pills, high doses of thyroid medicine), medical conditions (rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes, cancer, serious hormone deficiencies, organ transplant, longstanding malnutrition/malabsorption, chronic liver disease) and fracture history.

·       Fracture risk can be reduced by osteoporosis medicine (if high risk), sufficient nutrients (calcium, vitamin D, protein), movement (weight-bearing, muscle-strengthening), and fall-proof home.

Lizette Martinez and Maria Guillen of Community Living Campaign presented The Informed Patient: Your Rights during a Hospital Stay.  Some highlights:

·       hospital patient rights 

·       tips for more effective doctor visits 

·       hospital inpatient/outpatient admission status for Medicare coverage 

·       proactive patient checklist 

·       challenging hospital discharge decisions  

Engagement in social services

Woo-hoo! This month’s 31^st annual Meals on Wheels San Francisco (MOWSF) Star Chefs and Vintners Gala raised a record $3.3 million to support home-delivered meals and social work services to homebound older adults!  In addition, MOWSF has raised more than $19 million on a $35 million capital campaign to build a new kitchen to serve the growing population of older adults who wish to age in place.  In the past year, MOWSF delivered almost 2 million meals to more than 3,600 seniors. With almost 75% of MOWSF clients living below the Federal Poverty Line, MOWSF provides a crucial safety net.  

Robin, Lara and Regina of MOWSF Social Work Department connected with Patrick Arbore, founder of Friendship Line at its 45^th Anniversary Celebration at Institute on Aging.  Today the Friendship Line is the only 24-hour, toll-free, accredited crisis intervention telephone line (1-800-971-0016) for older adults and adults with disabilities.  Friendship Line volunteers make and receive an average of 12,000 calls every month. 

Engagement in advocacy works!

Residents from Rhoda Goldman Plaza saw resolution to pedestrian safety concerns raised last December during a walk audit with Walk SF and SF Municipal Transportation Agency (MTA) over uneven sidewalk and not having enough time to cross the streets outside their senior living community.  This month, the uneven sidewalk was patched up with asphalt (photo above) and SF MTA pledged to retime traffic signals allowing an additional one second per feet to cross streets.