Prime Time: A New Look At Aging

Thoughts and sayings that keep on ticking

Ruth Bernhard, a talented photographer and a senior, offers this “Recipe for a long and happy life”:
  1. Never get used to anything.
  2. Hold on to the child in you.
  3. Keep your curiosity alive.
  4. Trust your intuition.
  5. Delight in simple things.
  6. Say “yes” to life with passion.
  7. Fall madly in love with the world.
  8. Remember: Today is the day!
 
A friend sends along these tips:
Discipline yourself to continue expanding and learning, keeping your mind active and open.
Enjoy the feeling that somebody else is in charge; you don’t have to make decisions.
 
 According to Eric Tainter, “A person is not old until regrets take the place of dreams.” He also said, “Happiness is that peculiar sensation you acquire when you’re too busy to be miserable.”
 
From the Internet comes these things people have learned as they aged:
I’ve learned that even when I have pains, I don’t have to be one. (Age 82)
I’ve learned that if you pursue happiness, it will elude you. But if you focus on family, the needs of others, your work, meeting new people, and doing the best you can, happiness will find you. (Age 65)
I’ve learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance. (Age 62)
I’ve learned that it pays to believe in miracles. And to tell the truth, I’ve seen several. (Age 73)
I’ve learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone. People love that human touch—holding hands, a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back. (Age 85)
I’ve learned that whenever I decide something with kindness, I usually make the the right decision. (Age 66)
 I’ve learned that I still have a lot to learn (Age 92)
 
Now for some thoughts by that prolific Anonymous:
Despite the cost of living, it’s still quite popular.
The aging process could be slowed if it had to work its way through Congress.
Don’t take life so seriously—it’s not permanent.
The age of some folks is like the speedometer on a used car—you know it’s set back but you don’t know how far.
 
From a senior center newsletter story about staff changes: “Please bare with us as we acclimate and move forward for a better future.”
  
 And here’s Ashleigh Brilliant’s slant:
 “Life has been very confusing, because I’ve been different ages at different times.
 “ I still have many of my old dreams, but some of the colors have faded.”
“No wonder I feel so tired—I’m older now than I’ve ever been before.”
 
“It is time to be old, to take in sail.”— Emerson
 But, says E.B. Skinner, “It is not a time to be wholly adrift.”

What do seniors need help with?

Looking at what technology can do and where it's going, it seems like an endless list of possibilities. So maybe it's better to start by looking at what seniors need. As a future senior myself, I have a vested interest in getting this right--so please add your own wish list in the comments section.

Senses: Seniors seem to need help hearing, seeing, touching, tasting and smelling. (Technology is all over this).

Moving: Walking, driving, bending, crouching

Cognition: Remembering, making connections, staying connected, staying awake... (well...)

Eating and digestion: Eating what we like, liking what we eat, processing it efficiently and eliminating it in good time and in good order (and especially when it suits us).

Autonomic processes (things we do without thinking about it): breathing, pumping the heart...

Retaining strength

Sex: Both physical function and maintaining interest.

So, okay, what did I leave out?

Activity, work and aging

I would like to live to be 100 or more. So how long should I keep working? Then, what should I replace work with?

In his book 'Dare to be 100,' Dr. Walter Bortz puts forward the suggestion that we should work until age 80--which would suit the performance of my current investment strategy just fine. Ten years ago the thought would have filled me with dread--work until 80? But I am doing work that I enjoy right now, and which is not physically taxing. If my eyes hold out, the idea no longer scares me.

This would give some of my investments to um, (cough, cough) mature a bit, and would relieve my pension strategy from the responsibility of supporting me for the entire 33 years between 67 and 100--I think I can squeeze 20 years out of it.

My wife is similarly inclined, and similarly positioned. Neither of us has considered stacking shelves at the local grocery store--she's a translator and I'm an analyst. New kinds of workers, actually. Neither of us would have been able to do what we do thirty years ago. Translation was a very local profession before the fax and then the internet. Data capture was too slow to generate sufficient revenue to support the army of analysts that now exist.

My message--okay, my messages are, that being one of Peter Drucker's 'knowledge workers' is much more fun than what I used to consider work, and that it's remarkably easy to move into this line of work. I know people who are proofreading at 80 and teaching at even older ages.

The key is to keep learning something useful. I've been studying French sporadically. I now want to learn how to make databases do what I want them to do, by studying a series of commands known as SQL. There are tutorials for both available for free on the internet. So why not?

Technology and aging--the natural way of progress

Twenty years ago, one focus of technology for seniors was the idea of home alerts. Living centers had big, bulky tags with alarm buttons that could be pressed, sending a message to the security guards at the center and prompting a response. Then, along came the mobile phone, email and webcams... We still have (and still need) those alarm buttons--but not as many. General purpose advances in other fields have filled much of the need.

I have written previously about some obvious winning technologies--robotics, nanotechnology and biochemistry. And I'm convinced that these will make life and aging easier for all of us. But I don't think I've been able to predict the huge winner, the game changer, the one invention that will change our definition of aging, of ability.

That's because I'm convinced that it will be some odd combination of two of those scientific disciplines, plus contributions from other technology sectors, that will do the job, and I'm not sure exactly how it will play out. But I'm 100% convinced that play out it will.

If you follow computing at all, you may have heard of Moore's Law, which says that the number of transistors occupying a given area will increase every couple of years. It's not a law of physics--it's an estimate of industrial productivity that has become a goal for producers of microprocessors and a roadmap for those who design software to see where the industry will be in the near future.

What has made Moore's Law come true is actually thousands of minor improvements in a number of very different engineering issues, from circuit design and silicon processing to battery life and software improvements. It's been literally thousands of improvements that were completely unpredictable as individual events but hugely predictable as far as their overall impacts.

The same will be true for technology and aging. The market for suppliers is huge--they can get rich off of geezers like us--and thousands of companies big and small are turning their considerable resources to finding ways of doing things faster, better and cheaper. Which means in the end that we will have better lives--that the period between 70 and 100 years of age will become a normal and productive period of life that won't be frightening, or isolating, or depressing. It will just be the next stage.

Coping with loneliness

Some older people think it is good to be lonely, because it means you have to get reacquainted with yourself. You go inside and ask, “Am I good company? Am I getting to know the right people?”

These realizations are emphasized in the book Positive Solitude: “We choose our attitude toward being alone,” says author Rae André, a psychologist and a professor. She provides verbal sketches of loneliness, such as when you’ve lost a loved one and solo dining lacks talk and soothing concern. There are “actions that don’t get reactions, gestures of love or need or hope that receive no confirmation.” As she describes it, you’ve lost the feedback cycle to which you’d become accustomed.

Her suggestion: “Being alone will become a positive experience when you learn to provide your own feedback. . .with satisfying emotional, intellectual and physical experiences.” When you adopt an attitude of positive solitude, “you learn that you are not really dependent on others for your happiness.” Your likelihood of finding happiness improves as you discover personal autonomy, peace and joy, André adds.

When lonely, some people turn to shopping, TV, eating, sleeping, drinking or drugs. Others may search for solace in a constant round of movies, plays, concerts, or drives in the country. A better approach, she says, is to focus on this three-pronged strategy:

1. Develop awareness—Look at your habits of, say, viewing soap operas or gathering with people who do not particularly care about you. Gauge them in terms of their healthiness and your self-esteem. Check out books such as Liv Ullmann’s Changing and works by Thomas Merton. Talk with people who seem to profit from being alone a great deal.  

2. Change your behavior—Inventory the times when you are alone and feel bored, tired, hostile or excluded, André suggests. Then consider filling your feedback gap with activities and thoughts that, combined, are meaningful, healthful and pleasurable. You might pick up an old hobby, reestablish a previous tradition. “Anyone will adjust to being alone if given enough time, but mere adjustment is not what you seek. . .” she says. “Your goal is positive solitude.”

3. Explore your options—This is the time for looking within, André says. She refers to Scott Peck’s book, The Road Less Traveled, and its opening lines: “Life is difficult,” Peck declares. “Life is a series of problems. Do we want to moan about them or solve them?”

André says you’ll need a conscious effort, a willingness to risk someone else’s ridicule. But it’s worth it. “To discover you are an interesting person is like receiving a wonderful gift,” she states. “A mental space opens up in your life for your own exploring and learning, your own being and becoming.”

Independent or assisted living?

Whether you're a senior yourself or trying to help a parent or friend, technology is working to make it easier for seniors to retain differing levels of independence--and more importantly, a sense of self-worth and dignity.

At one level it all seems like a rearguard battle, fighting on several fronts to continue a normal life, using computers for communication and robotics for cleaning, etc., etc. But from another point of view, it's an exciting experiment in life before death, where the freedom technology buys gives you the time and energy to focus on the important aspects of life that students and workers often dream of contemplating, but cannot due to time constraints.

Tools For Independence links to a number of useful sites, listing them from A (Ability Hub) to T (Technology for Long Term Care). You'd best start navigating.

And agitating. Technology costs money. Other interest groups are successful in getting help from manufacturers, distributors, inventors and yes, even government. They do it by banding together. If you see toys that will help you or your loved ones live a better life, find others in the same situation and ask for help in the form of discounts, trial periods, subsidies and grants. It works for others--it will work for you.

Houston Robertson advocates an aging renaissance

Ted's interview

“My son Joe gave me a birthday card that described me as a smart, witty, adorable old lady,” says Houston Robertson.  “I’ve adopted that as my job title and look forward to my family’s annual performance evaluation." 

She’s launched an “Aging as Renaissance” campaign based on both personal discoveries and research. For example: in middle age, people develop competitive values, but seniors can shelve those and opt for community service that helps them reclaim a playful spirit and feelings of self-worth, maintains Robertson, who describes herself as 70-plus.

“You know, older adults are America’s only growing natural resource,” she says. “We aren’t going to bankrupt the nation; we’re enriching it. Think of the volunteer hours, childcare, and advice we provide, plus our taxes and spending on goods and services.”

Her predictions include significant impacts from older adults in the workplace who value purpose and community more than success. The baby boomers’ encore careers will become vital as well. An elder culture will replace the youth culture most marketing people target today.

“Stereotypes of older adults will change as they develop more playful spirits, provide increasing help to their communities, and impart their wisdom to younger generations,” Robertson says. With longer life spans “You are free to reclaim the person residing in your heart, and value yourself for who you are, not for what you did or failed to do.”

In addition to the job description her son provided, she tells audiences, “I am also  a good neighbor, a funny lady, a sexy woman and a political animal.” This “job” description, as she likes to call it, didn’t come easily. As the daughter of a Nebraska minister, then the wife of a college professor, “I believed I was a failure in the real world,” she says. After her divorce, she felt humiliation in finding work in San Francisco with only P.T.A., kitchen chores, and some community leadership experience for credentials. She passed a typing test and worked for a bank in the economics department.

“At the age of 47 I quit work and became Ribbons the Clown on the streets of San Francisco,” she says. The career change freed her inhibitions and opened doors for the performance activity she now favors. She re-entered the workplace and handled employee and benefit assignments for a publishing house until retiring in 2001.

Formerly Barbara H. Robertson, she began using her middle name professionally ten years ago when she trained for voiceover acting. That fizzled, but she kept Houston for her first name. “I hope it makes me unforgettable as an aging for renaissance advocate.”

“I’d given some talks at my Toastmasters Club on aging and my experience of it,” she says. “It dawned on me that I’d developed enough material to become a public advocate.” She’s presenting her message to forums, senior centers, women’s clubs, and classes for Diablo Valley College’s Emeritus College. Cathie Ramey, a program specialist for the Walnut Creek Seniors Club, says, “The members love her.”

Her web site, http://AgingAsRenaissance.blogspot.com includes her favorite saying: “Model your life after the oak tree. It s most productive years begin at age 50.”
 

More on biotechnology and aging

If you're going to be with us over the long haul (and we certainly hope that you will) you'll probably become familiar with certain names. In nanotechnology, you'll become familiar with Ray Kurzweil. In robotics, the science fiction writer Isaac Asimov. And just for biotechnology and aging, there's Aubrey de Grey, who is passionate about defeating aging. He works in genetics at Oxford University in the UK.

De Gray has been writing about aging for over a decade. His latest article in the Guardian is pretty much of a summary. His main points:

1. Science can 'beat' aging, which kills about 100,000 people a day

2. It can do so without increasing frailty or bringing on some other imaginary horrors associated with increased longevity, such as overpopulation, unequal access to the benefits of long life, boredom, etc.

3. That because we look at deterioration due to aging as both horrible and inevitable, we try pretty hard not to think about it at all.

The article is here. His website is here. This is the start of a long discussion, so let's start by getting some of the basics down.

Brain going lame? You may be to blame

You remember seeing big figures on how many of the brain’s nerve cells disintegrate after the age of 30. Dr. Marian Diamond said Herb Caen, the late San Francisco Chronicle columnist, once reported it was on the order of  30,000 cells per second.  She called to ask him his source. “I got it from another newspaper,” he said.

Her research at the the University of California at Berkeley shows that a normal, healthy brain does not grow new nerve cells after birth, but it does not lose very many after adolescence and can create new branches or, as she calls them, dendrites, even during the later years of life.

That’s the good news.

The bad news is that the brain, to continue adding branches and remain healthy,  needs oxygen in greater quantities than, say, napping provides.  A regimen like Yoga can teach us breathing techniques, she suggested. The brain also needs nutrients from foods like tofu, which comes from a  food group other than ice cream and chocolates. Brain cells, which are made up of protein, appreciates supplements from foods like fish and chicken; nothing was said about cheeseburgers or mashed potatoes with gravy.

 “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks” is another myth, she said. “You have to consider the condition of the old dog.”

Her findings rely on the study of rats. And here’s something to consider: Take three mama rats, each with three babies, and raise them in an enriched environment that includes a variety of games and an ideal diet. Compare them with a mama rat and three of her pups living alone in cramped quarters. The brains of the game-playing, socially active group show significantly more growth of nerve cell branches. And it happens among the older as well as the young animals.

When a trip to Germany revealed that their rats lived about 800 days, Dr. Diamond added another element to a group in an enriched environment. “We tried TLC,” she said. The tender loving care extended the rats’ lives to 900 days, which equates to more than 100 years for humans. 

Change is crucial in enriching an environment. For rats, that means changing the toys, she said. For people, the frequency and duration of newness are factors. Activities with other people stimulate the brain. It needn’t be constant. Another factor is pleasure, which often hinges on successfully reducing destructive forms of stress.

We can take opportunities for more multi-sensory experiences, she said, and I deduced that she does not have TV in mind. Instead, she recommends choosing and planning activities. Variety, it turns out, also enhances the brain. The active participant also needs some time to be alone, she added.

Dr. Diamond is the author of “Enriching Your Heredity,” the winner of a number of teaching awards, and has written some 150 scientific papers on the brain. She likes to quote one of her former professors. After learning the results of one of her breakthrough studies, he observed, “He who lives with his wits dies with his wits.”

Biotechnology and aging

If nanotechnology seems too much like science fiction, biotechnology is working here and now to lessen the impacts of aging--with the goal of even reversing parts of the process.

The principal areas where biotechnology is applied include cloning, applications of stem cell technology, genetic testing for future vulnerability to diseases such as Alzheimers and more.

Let's talk first about cloning. Although you may think of this as creating a replica of yourself, that is far in the future, and prohibited to boot. What is more immediate is cloning a kidney or a liver from your cells and transplanting the cloned organ into you. Currently, if you get a transplant from someone else, you also get a lifetime prescription for drugs that suppress your immune system, so that your body doesn't reject the transplant. But if it's your organ, cloned from your cells, that's not an issue.

The other problem that this would solve is the waiting list for organs. (Are you listed as an organ donor yet? Why not?) Currently far too many people die while waiting for a compatible organ to become available. But if you're the donor, that again is not an issue.

It's been done, in experimental surgery. It is not commonplace as yet. But it's coming soon, and to an (operating) theater near you.

This is not science fiction. The problems to be solved in making it commonplace (and there are quite a few) are more engineering than conceptual. Now that President Obama has changed the rules regarding stem cell research, that engineering will be done soon.

The fun begins when we start using this technology, not to replace failed organs and systems, but to restore vitality and function...