Planning or Procrastinating?
Recently, a HECM client contacted ReverseFocus.com with a crucial question: is his new wife covered under HUD’s Non-Borrowing Spouse (NBS) provision if he passes away first? He’d saved this blog post...
View ArticleAndragogy: Lifelong Learning Around the Globe
In medicine, the motto is: see one, do one, teach one. A little scary if you’re about to be a surgeon’s first patient — but a positive life philosophy when applied to active aging. In France, this...
View ArticleRaw, Unpasteurized, And Ready to Roll
How Elder Living is Evolving Part 1 Older people aren’t milk or horses, but we tend to treat them that way: “pasteurizing” elders by removing their essence as they grow old, putting them “out to...
View ArticleIbasho: Creating Communities by Elders for Elders
How Elder Living is Evolving Part 2 “The paradigm of creating dependence for elders is so ingrained,” says Emi Kiyota, PhD, even those who work in the field may need to be shocked into awareness. For...
View ArticleWhat the Hack Is Going On? Digital Protection for Older Adults
Ideas for Safer Senior Tech I’ve written about how my formerly “Luddite” dad (his term) learned to use a computer at 89, becoming adept enough to hire a plumber based on Yelp reviews and purchase a new...
View ArticleOlder Americans Month: Celebrating Ageless Perennials
For most of human history, “aging” wasn’t a hot topic. In the Iron Age, people didn’t live past their twenties. By 1900, the average lifespan was still under 50 in the United States. When President...
View ArticleReimagining Retirement: Encore Careers At Any Age
For many people, the seventh and eighth decades of life are a work renaissance, as a recent New York Times piece makes clear. And while older adults, particularly women, do need the money, many members...
View ArticleReversing Loneliness- It’s About Attitude, Not Age
Loneliness is epidemic in the world today, especially among people over 50. Half of those 50+ identify as lonely, disconnected, and socially isolated. Social isolation can also be a choice: some elders...
View ArticleAlive Inside! The Old, the Young, the Disenfranchised…and Music
The idea for Alive Inside!, a documentary about the effects of music on elders with dementia, began with 94-year-old Henry, who was unresponsive and “had been parked in the hallway of a nursing home...
View ArticleLate-Blooming Genius: Gut Truth About the “Now” Old Age
It’s a great time to grow old: the discovery of telomerase, the enzyme that replenishes the DNA on our telomeres (the tiny “shoelace caps” that shorten with age), is a massive step forward for...
View ArticleDecluttering Our Later Lives
In a humorous Ziggy cartoon, a man and his dog dig for buried treasure, the man dreaming of gold, and the dog, of course, dreaming of “dog gold”: a chest full of bones. Each uncovers the other’s...
View ArticleCaregiving: Who Will Take Care of Me When I’m Old?
Since 1989, eldercare expert Joy Loverde has been promoting the causes, concepts, and needs of an aging population. Author of the forthcoming, Who Will Take Care Of Me When I’m Old? (October 2017)...
View ArticleI See What You Mean: “Vision”ary Elder Tech
Genomics. Virtual symptom trackers. Socially assistive robots. With the average human lifespan now twice what it was just over a century ago, and the elder population exploding, it makes sense that...
View ArticleRetirement Wizardry: Where the Smart Money Meets Reverse Mortgage Magic
As 10,000 baby boomers a day turn 65 (a phenomenon that began in 2011 and continues through 2029), retirement savings — or the lack thereof — continues to be grist for financial columnists nationwide....
View ArticleChasing the Carrot: We Catch It In Our Late 60s
Are you happy? It’s one of life’s perennial questions. The Declaration of Independence promises us the right to pursue happiness, but doesn’t guarantee its attainment. Instead, the Founding Fathers...
View ArticleBridging Generations: How Tech Takes Care of Seniors Now
Canada has reached a census milestone: for the first time in history, seniors outnumber the nation’s children. Even more startling: within three years, this will be true worldwide. It’s already old...
View ArticleAnd In The End…
We’ve explored death and dying issues a number of times: Death, Be Not Proud The Final Frontier: Saying Yes to Death Facing the Inevitable with Grace and Wit Preparedness: Shedding New Light on the “D”...
View ArticleToo Hot To Handle: Smart Steps to Avoid Heatstroke
A friend’s untimely death in 2014 has always bothered me. As I wrote in this post on grief, Cheryl (“Snake” to her friends) was 68, healthy and fit. In her twenties she led a women’s expedition over...
View ArticleAre You Sure It’s Dementia? Paving New Neural Roads
Scientist, yogi and author Lisa Genova, who wrote Still Alice, shares some encouraging words for brain health. While we can’t change our genes or prevent aging (yet!), restorative sleep is “like a...
View ArticleThe Gig Is Up: How Elders Can Bloom in the Freelance Marketplace
Once upon a 1099, it was called freelancing. The newest catchphrase is “gig economy“. But however one refers to flexible, part-time, independent contractor work, it seems seniors are piloting the ship:...
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