Prime Time: A New Look At Aging

The Rest of the Robots

In my previous post I talked about how robots could be used to do household chores, making assisted living more practical for more seniors, and about how the technology used to make robots better might help us get around and be more independent.

There's another way that robotics will impact aging. Here's an example: "During the past eight years, the use of robotic-assisted laparoscopic prostatectomy (RALP) for prostate cancer has grown tremendously and at a pace almost unparalleled in modern surgery. Current estimates indicate that half of all prostatectomies done in the United States are done robotically, and that figure is likely to increase as more and more surgeons gain robotic experience."

Robotic surgery is growing. "Since they were introduced a decade ago, robot-assisted surgeries have become widely accepted in the United States, especially for cardiac, gynecologic, and urologic procedures. The authors note that in 2007, about 60% of all radical prostatectomies were performed with robot assistance, and that robot-assisted cardiac and urological procedures can result in less blood loss and fewer complications than standard open approaches. In addition, the use of robots in cardiac surgery has had a favorable effect on operative time, length of stay in intensive care units, and length of overall inpatient care days, compared with open procedures."

But it's not just surgery. Robots can be used in hospitals: "LONDON, UK: Remote Presence (RP6) Robots may now allow a medical expert to visually examine and communicate with a patient from anywhere in the world, via the machine, using wireless technology, while they can also be used for surgical teaching and even videoconferencing. The robots are controlled with a joystick from a remote site. The doctor 'driving' the robot can view the patient, ask questions and read patient records, view X-rays and test results from the console, as an article in Science Daily reports."

...And out of hospitals, too. Money quote: "We can build robots that repair spaceships and build cars; why not use technology to assist people in reaching their goals of independence despite disabilities?"

It's going to be interesting. And soon.

Robots and Aging: Part 1 of about a million...

Of the three technologies--nanotechnology, biotechnology and robotics--that will make a difference to how we age, robotics is the easiest to talk about. You can see a robot, at least.

 Domestic robots are all the rage in Asia. In South Korea, the government wants every home to have one in 10 years. They can be used for monitoring (most come with webcams), child-minding (I wonder if future psychologists will be talking patients through bonding issues with their robots), but also with domestic tasks. The implications for assisted living are obvious, and we'll talk about them more later.

But the other big point about robotics is that the technology used to make robots more useful can actually be used to make us more capable.

I want one of those just for my household chores. The exciting thing is that this technology will get pushed forward because the various Departments of Defense see the advantages of giving soldiers a bit more oomph (See Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein, for more detail). The last time the DoD put big money into research, it turned into the Internet.

Poetry and Ameliorating Depression

 

Ted's p.o.v.

 

      A major impetus for my poetry appreciation came from the unlikely source first known as Burma-Vita, then, finally, Burma-Shave. At the start of the company’s campaign, small signs on pine boards salvaged from barns carried conventional bromides, all in capital letters. Soon the messages appeared in catchy couplets proclaiming, for example, along one stretch of highway: “He played / a sax / had no B.O / but his whiskers scratched  / so she let him go / Burma-Shave.”

      It was an era when suppliers of other grooming accessories shouted in print about your body’s pungent aroma, crinkly skin and generally miserable appearance, according to “The Verse By the Side of the Road” by Frank Rowsome, Jr. Whimsical Burma-Shave signs provided a fetching counterpoint with the likes of: “The answer to / a maiden’s / prayer / is not a chin / of stubby hair. . .”

      Alexander Woollcott once said that it’s as difficult to read one Burma-Shave sign as it is to eat just one salted peanut. The captivating ads proved addictive to entire families, truck drivers and, for a while, horses traveling the country’s roadways.

      (Horses loved to scratch their backs on signs attached to 9-foot poles. They broke so many, though, the company installed 10-footers.)

      The ad campaign boosted sales to the point where one company executive would later declare, “We never knew there was a depression.”

      It all began with a liniment Clinton Odell developed in Minneapolis.  With some modifications it became a brushless shaving cream, but American men clearly weren’t ready to forsake their strops and brushes even for concoctions from Burma.  That was the prevailing mood until both men and women began reading and reciting the likes of: “His face was smooth / and cool as ice / And oh Louise! / he smelled / so nice. . .”

       Odell’s son, Allan, who wrote most of the initial ads, could also skewer the competition at times, as in: “Beneath this stone / lies Elmer Gush / Tickled to death / by his / shaving brush. . .”

      Electric razors also got their come-uppance. “A silky cheek / shaved smooth / and clean / is not obtained / with a mowing machine. . .”

      My favorite? “Every shaver / now can snore / six more / minutes / than before. . .”

      Some days it seemed most of America’s adults penned poetry after Burma Shave started a series of contests for the best jingles. As many as 50,000 entries arrived for a specific contest, vying for a $100 prize.  Some were bad, some were bawdy, but the best succeeded like apple pan dowdy. One of the rejects said: “The other woman / in his life / said “Go back home / and scratch / your wife. . .”

      The firm pioneered public service ads with “Keep well / to the right / of the oncoming car/ Get your close shaves / from the half-pound jar. . .”  Or, “Past / schoolhouses / take it slow / Let the little / shavers grow. . .” Police chiefs and highway patrol administrators swore these and others like them reduced car accidents and injuries.

      Farmers often reported broken signs and volunteered to replace them if the company sent new ones. You can imagine the consternation if a section was missing from: “If your peach / keeps out / of reach / better practice / what we preach. . .”

      As speed limits increased so did the sign size from 12 to 18 inches high and to 40 inches wide.  The distance between each sign increased from 100 to 150 feet, so motorists could see: “She put / a bullet / thru his hat / but he’s had / closer shaves than / that. . .”

      When Philip Morris acquired Burma-Shave in 1963, the signs were soon phased out. There are still a few left today in the Smithsonian, including Allan Odell’s favorite: “Within this vale / of toil / and sin / your head grows bald / but not your chin. . .”

 

 

Two Views of Aging: Part 2

Tom here again: Science and good civil engineering have removed most of the hurdles to achieving the Biblical three score and ten: infant mortality, death in childbirth, infectious disease.

"Census Bureau's Summary of the Statistics for the Registration Area in 1914. Washington, D. C., January 16, 1916. According to a preliminary announcement with reference to mortality in 1914, issued by Director Sam. L. Rogers, of the Bureau of the Census, Department of Commerce, and compiled by Mr. Richard C. Lappin, chief statistician for vital statistics, more than 30 per cent of the 898,059 deaths reported for that year in the "registration area," which contained about two-thirds of the population of the entire United States, were due to three causes-heart diseases, tuberculosis, and pneumonia-and more than 60 per cent to eleven causes-the three just named, together with Bright's disease and nephritis, cancer, diarrhea and enteritis, apoplexy, arterial diseases, diphtheria, diabetes, and typhoid fever." Typhoid fever. Diptheria. I don't even really now what apoplexy is.

Good civil society and improvements in defense equipment have led to fewer deaths in war and fewer deaths by natural disaster.

So we are now free to concentrate on improving that three score and ten--I don't think we have quite set our sights on Methuselah's 969, but in the industrialised world today, nobody is surprised any longer when people reach ages between 85 and 105 without much of a fuss. In fact, as many Americans die after reaching the age of 80 as die before that age.

Getting to 85 seems very much to be about making good personal decisions regarding alcohol, tobacco and firearms--er, diet. And it would also appear that good decisions are the primary causes of making it from 85 to 105--keeping active, connected and a healthy sense of optimistic perspective.

These are all personal lifestyle choices--so what does technology have to do with it? Well, quite a lot, really. To move the median age of death up by a decade requires that the personal choices people make are supported. By good networks that help families stay connected. By providing technologies that help people stay active and live independently.

But perhaps most importantly, it will be science and technology that eventually overcome the remaining hurdles to 100--or 105, 110 or whatever the new 'limit' becomes. Cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer's--these are diseases of age. These diseases afflict those who have made perfect life choices as well as those of us who are trying to improve. So in my next post I will start introducing the technologies that will make life more 'forgiving' for all of us--technologies that will make it easier to get where we want to be.

Sex after 50. . . 60 . . . 70 . . . etc.

Here's Ted 

 

      “There are some men who are 80 who have sex daily.”

      Brenda Love stated this matter-of-factly after I asked her the question I imagined geezers like me wanted asked—“Does age have much effect on the frequency of sex?”

      Ms. Love, you see, has experience in this. . . What I mean to say is, she’s done considerable research. . . Well, let’s just say she’s the author of the Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices, a former counselor, and before that a certified emergency medical technician. All of which, I feel, qualifies her to talk about seniors and sex.

      When she mentioned the 80-year-old man, I didn’t confess that I lie on surveys, too, but I did ask what seniors can do to continue enjoying this practice, even if performed in the usual ways.

      “You need to focus on good health,” she said. “If you don’t exercise and keep the body in good shape, you can’t do a lot of things.” The cumulative effects of smoking and drinking also will cause problems in the romance department, she added.

      “Attitude is certainly a factor,” she declared. “Don’t buy into the idea sex is just for younger people. As people age, they make better lovers because they do spend more time on foreplay rather than rushing through it.”

      Ms. Love allowed as how some seniors take their time with foreplay out of necessity rather than as an option before fiveplay.

     A strict religious upbringing in Texas made her reluctant to discuss billing and cooing and related birds-and-bees type small talk.

      “I made a checklist—and it was a short list back then—of things  we  might  enjoy  doing, or at  least would be willing to try once. And this took the fear out of it.”

      Now at the age of 45, she’s done such fearful things as appearing on TV and radio talk shows and lecturing throughout the United States.

      Concerned men of all ages, she said, inquire about impotence. Urologists are able to install implants that provide an uplifting boost of the morale of men with problems, but the big news is the “Muse System” being brought by the Vivus Company.

      There’s this plastic device with a section about the size of a pencil lead at the top. The little tip is inserted into the urethra and, voila, in 20 minutes an attention-getting change occurs and lasts for from 20 minutes to two hours. The product will be on the market in 1997 if all goes well.

      Back when she started as a volunteer on a sex information telephone hot line, she found her training hadn’t dealt with the topics of her first two calls—date rape and exhibitionism. So she started researching these and other subjects. The notebook that evolved during the next four years reflected 10,000 hours of reading, and numerous on-the-scene visits, including various 12-step programs and one call on a nudist colony.

      The practices she discovered range from a man who likes having oranges thrown at him to people aroused by, ugh, licking the eyeballs of their inamorata. Who relies on the encyclopedia? Therapists, the FBI and a few rock stars are among a wide variety of buyers.

      As for sex and seniors, Brenda Love, who now lives in California, sums it all up in one word: “Adrenaline.”

________

As a callow fellow, the author confused the golfer’s warning of “Fore!” with  the term “foreplay,” and has been over par ever since.

Two Views of Aging: Part 1

This is Tom here, writing from San Francisco on a beautiful spring evening. The sun is setting behind the Golden Gate Bridge, and I'm writing about aging.

I'm 54 years old. I'm in good health, although I have two chronic conditions (high cholesterol and hypo-thyroidism) that are being successfully controlled through medication. And I feel good. But I don't know what the future holds for me. That's because the future is changing.

There are only 1,083 patents on file with the word 'gerontology' in their title, abstract or text in the scientific database Scirus. Half of them have been filed in the past 5 years. Similarly, there are 11,861 patents with the phrase 'human longevity' in the title, abstract or text. More than half were filed in the past five years.

In thirty years I will be the same age as Ted, my writing partner, is today. He happens to be my father. I think there's actually a chance that both of us will be around to see the day. This blog will be about how to get there--but also why.

Science and technology will provide a lot of the how. But this new society that's being created around us, with the atomisation of the nuclear family, increased mobility looser ties between people, make the why ever-more challenging. And if we don't solve the 'why' part, the how is just mechanics.

The technologies that we know will impact on aging include biochemistry and genetics, nanotechnology and robotics. There are other technologies that will play a part. But the why--that won't be found on the shelf of a store any time soon.

So I get the easy part--I'll be writing about how aging will change. As usual, my dad gets the harder part.

Talk Too Much?

“I’ve had it.”
A board member of an organization to which I belong said this. She quit because another member monopolized meetings with her chatter.

 Chances are you may know a compulsive talker or two. You may wonder, how do others cope?
 “Our Bible study group includes one woman who does go on,” says Russ. “Our leader will say something like, ‘Perhaps we could discuss that a little later; that point isn’t relevant.’” But the people in whose homes the meetings occur lead the group. Not all of them possess the assertiveness to stanch the verbiage, says Marian, Russ’s wife. (“. . .You can all have opportunity to give a message, one after another, and everyone will learn. . .”  I Corinthians, 14:29)

 A therapist I know says, “Shock treatment may be necessary for compulsive talkers.” He uses it with his brother, who spreads words with abandon. “He’s talking to himself, not me,” the therapist says. “Sometimes I just walk out.”

  Edith is selective. “If it’s someone I like, I’ll put up with it,” she says. When a friend got carried away, Edith said, “Stop! I’d like to get a word in edgewise.”

 What happened?

 “Oh, she laughed it off, and apologized for going on,” Edith says. Yes. They’re still friends.
 Samuel Johnson liked the word “bustle” for activity he regarded as foolish. The late San Francisco Chronicle columnist Charles McCabe employed it. “The worst of all bustling is the verbal kind,” he said. “A silence lasting no more than a few seconds seems to threaten some people in some way. There is a necessity to fill that silence, fill it with anything that comes to mind . . .”

 Doctors call the condition “logorrhea.” McCabe said one treatment works, even though it’s brutal. “You just stare at the person and say, ‘You talk too much.’ The result may be a punch in the nose. But you also get quite a much desired silence.”

 Betty, employs the Golden Rule. When her apartment complex neighbors emit unending effluvia, “I listen to them,” she says. “I let them talk. They’re lonely. Some of them have no family around. They’re usually pleasant people.”