By Danielle Woodruffe
Some of my former colleagues may be surprised to hear what I’m up to these days. I started my career in broadcast journalism as a television news reporter, and now I’m in the aging services field. How did this turn of events happen?
Yet this comes as no surprise to me. Each phase of my career has prepared me for the next step. My latest move into the role of Communications Manager at Parker feels like I’m at home and is opening my eyes to a new area of work where the vision and mission are not difficult to align with.
My time spent as a reporter was exciting and interesting. I was able to see life through the eyes of the unique people I interviewed. I saw two sides (and more) to every story and gained new knowledge on anything and everything: Red Tide, Hurricanes, how to make glass, teach your kids stranger danger, the legal system and local politics. Yet at times this career choice was discouraging. Many of the stories I covered broke my heart. After spending several years as a journalist, I decided to make the transition to public relations.
As a communications professional for the last twelve years, I’ve worked to elevate the public profiles of many clients: college professors, CEOs, sports figures and lawyers to name a few. Working in the media, has given me insight into what a good story looks like. You learn to have a “nose for news” and tell those stories to the media who are always looking for a good angle.
So what does an aging services organization in Piscataway, NJ offer for news? There are countless, touching stories happening at Parker on a daily basis. They are stories so engrained into the DNA of the people who provide care here that I don’t know if they always realize how amazing what they’re doing is. In just three short months I’ve seen aging in a way I never seen it before. I’ve seen it celebrated and treated with honor, dignity and respect.
Each day I witness a husband making the walk from his home in our assisted living to the nursing home next door where is wife lives. He can still be close to her because Parker focuses on the different stages of aging and is meeting the needs of people aging at all different levels. I’ve seen nurses dancing with residents, recreation staff applying makeup that made all the difference in brightening one woman’s day, our personal trainers inspiring people to become stronger in their late 80s and push five minutes more on the stationary bicycle, and technology being mixed into all aspects of aging. Parker’s vision to Make Aging Part of Life is becoming clearer to me. It’s about celebrating who people are (and have been), their unique differences, and using this step in their life to fine tune that even more. It’s being #WithIt, as Parker has coined the term for people who are defying the stereotypes of aging.
When I left college I sought the “exciting” career. I wanted to make a difference, but the outcome often left me feeling short of that. Now being part of an organization that prides itself on enriching life for all means I finally get to make a difference and share the wonderful stories of my colleagues who do the same.
During my first week of work Parker employees were each asked to describe this company in one word. The word I chose was “welcoming”. Thank you for welcoming me. I look forward to the journey ahead.
(Credit: Adobe Stock)
Old folks just don’t like technology.
That’s been the conventional wisdom for years, particularly as smartphones became a hub of daily life. Slick handheld devices were seen as too expensive and complicated for them.
But Davis Park is a big believer that innovations in what’s known as voice-first technology — best exemplified by smart speakers such as Amazon Echo and its voice, Alexa — could make a big difference in letting older adults age in place and avoid social isolation.
Signs that Voice-First Technology Helps
Park has seen it firsthand. As executive director of the Front Porch Center for Innovation and Wellbeing, he oversaw a pilot project last year at the Carlsbad by the Sea retirement community near San Diego that introduced a group of residents to Alexa and then closely observed how their use of it evolved.
Among the findings from the research (which initially included about 20 residents and later expanded to 90 homes, with most participants older than 80): 75 percent used the smart devices daily, and almost as many said Alexa helped them feel more connected to family, friends and the rest of the community.
“When we deployed the Alexa devices, we focused on helping [the older adults] find a meaningful connection with the technology,” Park said. “So we would ask people, ‘What kind of music do you like? Who’s your favorite sports team?’”
Once a connection was made and participants were trained in using the device, they started to explore other ways to interact with Alexa, such as using it to listen to audiobooks and get medication reminders.
Tying Voice-First Technology to the ‘Smart Home’
A second phase of the project offered residents the opportunity to see how Alexa can be tied to “smart home” technology. Soon, a number of them were controlling lights and thermostats in their homes with voice commands.
That capability gave people, particularly those with mobility issues, a greater sense of control and independence, Park noted. They no longer had to bother partners or caregivers to turn on lights or adjust the temperature.
“They’re simple things, but these simple things can have tremendous and dramatic implications for daily living,” he said. “It blew us out of the water at how really excited people were.”
Amazon still dominates the voice-first market, with other smart speakers, including Google Home and Apple HomePod, playing catchup. Overall, it’s become a booming business, with sales tripling from 2016 to almost $25 million last year.
4 Types of Voice-First Technology Geared to Older Adults
The field of voice-first technology is still fairly new. But it is beginning to flourish thanks to the success of Amazon Echo. Here are four new technologies that look particularly promising:
Ask Marvee: It’s a smartphone app inspired by a real person named Marvee — the mother of its creator, Heidi Culbertson, a voice technology expert. Marvee, Culbertson explained, played tennis into her 80s, but then developed macular degeneration and became blind and frail. When the first Amazon Echo came out in 2014, Culbertson and her siblings bought their mother one.
But Culbertson wanted to customize the experience for her mom and others like her, so when Amazon opened the platform to third-party developers, she went to work on an app that enabled people to use their voice to send messages to family members, friends and caregivers.
Through the basic Ask Marvee service, which is free, a person can send out a “Morning Beacon” every day to loved ones simply by saying, “Alexa, ask Marvee to say I’m OK.” Anyone on the pre-selected list will receive the notification by text, email or both. A person can also, through a voice command, request social visits and retrieve news and updates sent by family members. There is a fee to expand the list of contacts to 10 people ($15 a month) or 20 people ($20 a month).
As Culbertson has trained older adults to use Amazon Alexa, she’s learned that the device can talk too quickly for some. Also, older human voices can be weaker, and for those, she recommends using a remote that allows a person to talk to Alexa from a distance.
But that’s all part of the learning process. “Voice-first,” she said, “is a huge opportunity to change aging.”
Ask My Buddy: It’s not quite like calling 911 — that can’t be done on smart speakers — but Ask My Buddy comes pretty close. It’s an app, accessible through Amazon Echo, Google Home and Microsoft Cortana (a voice assistant which is built into Windows PCs), that sends an alert to designated people.
Once a person tells Alexa or Google Home, “Ask my buddy to send help,” a text message, email or automated phone call is made to everyone on that person’s Ask My Buddy list, and they’re asked to check on him or her. The alerts can also be sent to smaller groups, such as just family members, or to an individual.
“There are so many people who won’t call 911 until it’s too late,” said Pat Coggins, who with his wife, Sheryl, created Ask My Buddy. “This is a way for people to reach out if they’re scared or worried.”
Ask My Buddy is free for 10 messages — each text and call to each person on the list counts as a separate message. A payment of $3.66 a month buys 120 messages and one of $5 a month buys 400 messages.
LifePod: While LifePod will use Alexa’s voice recognition technology, it promises to ratchet human-machine caregiving interactions up another level. Users will not need to “wake” LifePod with a command. Instead the device will initiate conversations based on preconfigured schedules.
The idea is to use prompts from LifePod to help older adults follow their routines. In the morning, they could be reminded to take their meds or call a family member. In the afternoon, they might get a wellness check-in, such as a reminder to stay hydrated or get some exercise, or, if scheduled, the LifePod could play music.
“The content is tailored to the needs of each individual user to help them periodically through the day,” said Stuart Patterson,” LifePod’s CEO and co-founder.
If a person doesn’t confirm that he or she took the pills or doesn’t respond to a pre-set number of check-ins, a text is automatically sent to a caregiver or family member.
Patterson said LifePod will be able to use artificial intelligence to recognize anomalies in the older adult’s condition and behavior, such as sleeping routine and physical activity, and make caregivers aware of lifestyle changes.
LifePod aims to make a soft launch later this year. The cost is expected to be between $75 and $150 for the device, plus a subscription fee of $25 to $50 a month.
ElliQ: This device moves into robot territory, but one that sits on a nightstand or table like a smart speaker. ElliQ, created by Intuition Robotics, is designed to interact with older adults — from sending and receiving messages to playing music to showing pictures of the grandkids. It might even suggest someone take a walk if he or she has been sitting around all day.
“Body language” has been incorporated into ElliQ so the device swivels its “head” toward someone who’s talking, and its “face” lights up when it’s speaking. The concept is to make ElliQ feel engaging, but without seeming too human. It’s meant to be a service bot, not a companion.
That said, older adults involved in an ongoing pilot with ElliQ seem to have connected to it, according to Dor Skuler, Intuition Robotics’ CEO. “Testers refer to ElliQ as ‘she’ and they define her as a new ‘entity’ in the home — clearly not a person, but also not an appliance,” he said.
ElliQ is currently being tested in seven homes in California, but Skuler said the pilot will expand to as many as 30 homes, including some in Florida. It’s tentatively scheduled to go on the market by the end of 2018. No price has been set.
By Kerri Fivecoat-Campbell for Next Avenue
Part of the Transforming Life as We Age Special Report
When H. Frances Reaves, of Miami, had to place her parents in long-term care facilities in 2014 and 2015, she thought it would be a relative easy, at least financially. After all, her parents had bought long-term care insurance decades earlier.
But there were two unpleasant surprises: The policy had a 90-day elimination period, so it wouldn’t start paying until three months after Reaves’ parents were admitted to a facility. And it only paid for two years of care. The challenge then became how the family would manage to pay for any long-term care the policy didn’t cover.
“I knew Mom would outlive the policy,” said Reaves. She was right. Her mother, Charlotte, lived three years in a Marietta, Ga. nursing home for patients with dementia. Her father, Hal, passed away after 20 months in a nearby Woodstock, Ga. facility.
Reaves founded Parent Your Parents in Miami after her experience and now advises others to plan wisely for potential long-term care costs. That’s because about a third of people who enter a nursing home (median price: $97,455 for a private room) stay there for one to three years; roughly a quarter are there for more than three years. Meantime, according to Investment News, insurers are getting pickier about who qualifies for a long-term care policy. In 2017, 22 percent of 50- to 59-year-old applicants for traditional policies and 30 percent of 60- to 69-year-olds were turned down.
Reaves and other experts offer these nine tips to pay for long-term care beyond simply buying a traditional long-term care insurance policy:
1. Choose the appropriate long-term care: Other options aside from a nursing home include hiring a home health agency, adult day services and moving to a residential group home or an assisted living facility. Assisted living can be less expensive than a nursing home if the person doesn’t have medical needs. Choosing the right option can help save money in the long run.
2. Use Social Security or a pension to pay for care: “Most people use their Social Security check to first pay this bill. It is guaranteed income, and this, paired with other guaranteed monthly income such as a pension, can reduce the long-term care bill,” said Hans Scheil, a Certified Financial Planner and founder of Cardinal Retirement Planning in Cary, N.C.
3. Withdraw money from an Individual Retirement Account (IRA): The income received may qualify for a medical expense deduction. “Taking money from an IRA will raise a person’s taxable income, but the tax deduction from using this money only for long-term care costs basically turns one’s IRA into a tax-free health savings account.”
4. Look into the Veterans Aid and Attendance program: This little-known Veterans Administration offering provides up to $1,830 per month for anyone who has served as little as 90 days in the military during a time of war and up to $1,176 for a surviving spouse. “There are other requirements such as income and asset maximums,” said Scheil. “We have helped many people qualify for this and it can significantly reduce the long-term care bill.”
5. Search for long-forgotten whole life insurance policies and savings bonds: Cashing in those old savings bonds sitting in a safety deposit box could help with long- term care expenses. And John Barnes with My Family Life Insurance in Andover, Mass., advises to forage for whole life policies bought years ago. If it has cash value that won’t be needed, Barnes said, the policy could be sold for as much as 50 to 75 percent of the death benefit.
6. Activate a chronic illness rider: If you or your parents own a term life or permanent life insurance policy with a chronic illness rider, you might be in luck. “The triggers for the chronic illness riders are the same as the triggers needed to qualify for a long-term care insurance claim; you can qualify if you can’t do two of six activities of daily living without assistance or if you need assistance for cognitive impairment,” said Gordon E. Conwell III, owner of Americanterm.com, based in Flourtown, Pa.
7. Sell a home or get a reverse mortgage: Reaves had to sell her parents’ home to help pay for their long-term care, but if one spouse is still living in a home, a reverse mortgage might be an option to help pay expenses for the other’s long-term care.
8. Apply for Medicaid: The rules for Medicaid assistance (limited to people with low incomes and assets) differ in every state and you or your parents may not qualify if substantial assets were transferred into someone else’s name during the past few years. Check with a financial adviser in your state.
9. Don’t discount your faith community: Reaves said some religious affiliations and congregations have foundations for members needing help paying for long-term care. Reaves cited a client whose family applied to a Jewish-affiliated foundation that awarded $1,000 per month to help offset the patient’s long-term care costs.
Kerri Fivecoat-Campbell is a freelance writer whose work has appeared on Forbes.com, AOL.com, Mainstreet.com, Creditcards.com, Bankrate.com and elsewhere.
By Robert DiGiacomo
New York Times reporter John Leland thought he knew how to write about the “oldest old” — people 85 and up. For a proposed year-long series, he figured he would chronicle a laundry list of their issues: things like the dangers of falling, financial pressures and family conflict.
As Leland delved deeper, however, he realized the people in this age group were more than the sum of their problems. And he saw how much he didn’t know about the realities of aging. The resulting “85 & Up” series took a more holistic view of their lives. “I thought aging was about decline and loss,” he told Next Avenue. “I found the problems, but none of the people defined themselves by that.”
In his new book, Happiness Is a Choice You Make: Lessons From a Year Among the Oldest Old, Leland expands on the newspaper series and weaves in his experiences with his elderly mother. Writing on this topic also gave Leland, now 58, new insights into how he wants to live out his later years.
“If I look ahead to my life, why see it only in terms of the losses than in terms of the gains?” he said. “I plan to keep growing as a person. I’m not afraid of old age the way I would have been. Not being afraid means being able to imagine a desirable future for yourself.”
I am the middle-aged son of an 86-year-old mother and an 85-year-old father, so I was naturally curious about Leland’s book. Here are my five takeaways:
(Photo Credit: Erica Berger)
1. Don't Let Age Define You
The “elders” in Happiness defied easy categorizations and included: Frederick Jones, an 87-year-old World War II veteran and retired civil servant; Ping Wong, 89, who tried to stay positive despite the deaths of her husband and only son; John Sorenson, 91, who was grieving the loss of his partner of 60 years; Helen Moses, 90, a resident of a Bronx nursing home in the throes of a romance with a man she met there; Ruth Willig, 91, who was trying to find her way in an assisted living facility and hold on to her independence and filmmaker and writer Jonas Mekas, 92, who had a full plate of projects to complete.
“Old age wasn’t something that hit them one day when they weren’t careful,” Leland wrote. “It also wasn’t a problem to be fixed. It was a stage of life like any other.”
2. Continue to Set Personal Goals
Of the folks spotlighted in the book, filmmaker Mekas had perhaps the biggest ambitions for what he still wanted to accomplish. Others had less defined, but important personal goals — Jones wanted to live to 110 and Wong focused on everyday things that brought her happiness, like playing Mah-jongg.
When trying to find your purpose, “Kickboxing might not be a great choice, but painting, political activity, time with family or passing along your skills to the next generation can be a reason for living at any age,” Leland wrote.
3. Focus on What You Can Do
According to Leland, people in this age group don’t try to do “a little of everything” — they focus on the interests that bring them the most satisfaction. “If they have 70 percent of their abilities, they put it into things they can still do instead of pining over what they can’t do,” Leland said.
My mom, for example, maintains her calendar of bridge games and book club meetings, while adding some new pursuits offered at her retirement community, like Wii Jeopardy and bowling. But she’s not training for a 5K race or diving into the completely foreign world of online games.
4. Adapt to Your Current Circumstances
When Leland’s mother decided in her 80s that she preferred to use a wheelchair to get around, he worried it would limit her life. Instead it opened up new options to visit museums and attend plays. As Leland interacted with the subjects of his book, he came to a new understanding about his relationship with his mother, for whom he acts as a caregiver.
“It changed into a two-way relationship where we were doing things for each other,” Leland said. “Caregiving can be really hard for the person receiving the care, because you’re building up a debt they’re unable to pay. When I was no longer looking at the relationship that way, it made it much more pleasant.”
5. Embrace Your Changing Role in Life
For Willig, retaining some level of independence mattered greatly. But even as she came to depend on others for assistance with daily living, she learned she could provide emotional support to her family.
“She was the youngest of four kids and now was the oldest in her family and the matriarch,” Leland said. “It was a role she never expected nor prepared for. She was the one everybody emailed, and she got to hold a great-grandchild, which is a big deal in anyone’s life.”
My mom is going through a similar period of adjustment. She is an active caregiver for my father, who has advanced Parkinson’s disease and now lives in a nursing home, and is our family matriarch. At the same time, she has accepted the need for our help with financial decisions and estate planning.
As Leland notes of the elders in his book, “They are us — if not now, then someday. And if we are not willing to learn from them, we will miss important lessons about what it means to be human.”
(Robert DiGiacomo is a veteran Philadelphia, Pa.-based journalist who covers career issues, personal finance, food and travel and arts and entertainment. He has written for The Washington Post, USA TODAY, Bankrate and The Globe and Mail.@robcomo)
By Danielle Woodruffe
Colleen Patrick-Goudreau lives in California. Her mom, Arlene Patrick is a resident at Parker at River Road in Highland Park. Yet every Thursday they have a standing appointment to see each other and they rarely miss it.
“I put the iPad on Arlene’s lap and she looks at me and gets very excited. You can see it in her eyes,” remarks Tara Salerno, Parker Recreation Coordinator. “It takes her a few moments for Arlene to warm up to the technology, but once she does, it’s like Colleen is in the room with us.”
Their conversations happen with the help of technology. What started as a simple sharing of videos evolved to Skype and later Facetime.
It all began when Colleen wanted to send her mom videos to stay in touch. Recreation staff at Parker at River Road realized the amazing impact the videos made on Arlene and suggested a weekly video chat.
“I didn’t imagine it would be possible because it would take human resources,” Colleen says. “One of my concerns was that it would only be a couple times and then it would be a novelty, but Parker has worked so hard to schedule this regularly. I don’t think that’s really common.”
Arlene cannot speak after having a stroke. Salerno helps prompt her so she can stay engaged as much as possible. She listens as her daughter displays old photos of her and baby images, pans around her California garden, shows her the cats and even sings songs.
“Of course it can be challenging to talk to someone who can’t talk back, but she expresses herself really well,” says Colleen. “Her facial expressions are very animated, so I can always tell how she’s responding and what her mood is.”
Salerno notices a big difference in Arlene’s emotional and mental state after the calls.
“She is so happy. She perks up and has a really good rest of her day,” Salerno proudly adds. “I think she identifies me with these calls. She associates me with the fact that I help her speak to her daughter.”
Arlene still lives what Parker calls a #WithIt life. Finding love at the age of 72, Arlene’s boyfriend lives in New Jersey, which is why she is not in California with her daughter.
The weekly video chat is a reminder to Colleen that her mom is well taken care of.
“It’s the best possible situation it can be considering that I’m 3000 miles away,” Colleen explains. “Bringing her to Parker was one of the best decisions we made.”
By Roberto Muñiz
What moral role do we have in making right the injustices we see in the world?
Recently, Marcy Salzberg, Director of Social Work at Parker, had an opportunity to speak up when parents of her son's class were asked to dress their children as 100-year-olds.
Marcy realized that she had an opportunity–an obligation–to help change the perception many people and children have of what older people should look like. So what exactly does a 100-year-old look like? Or what is the misconception of how they should look? Marcy was determined and tenacious in fixing this wrong. Read about her experience here.
Through our #WithIt campaign, we've celebrated the looks and personalities–the individuality and youthful mentality–of the elders who reside at Parker and those from the local community who participate in our programs. They certainly all "look" different! Marcy even joked that she noticed one Parker resident who wears Adidas sneakers just like her 10-year-old son.
This is one example that we all can make a difference where we live or work. Are there other ways to create a paradigm shift in society's views on aging and impact our world? The Milken Institute, a non-profit organization, identifies opportunities, strategies, policies and practices to help businesses address ageism in its "Turning Silver into Gold: The Business of Aging" report. It's examples like these that will propel the conversation forward.
At Parker, we love to share stories about people who are #WithIt at any age. People are defying stereotypes and misconceptions about aging simply by being themselves–from our aging adults who love their Adidas sneakers as much as teenagers do, to those taking yoga in our health & wellness center, to others who are using Amazon's Alexa for music, news, menus and more.
I've spoken about ageism before and will continue to do so–it is my personal call to action. What other forms of ageism do you see that mask themselves as social norms, and how will you be an agent of change?