GBO NEWS: Robotic Aging; Investment-Conflict Regs; Older Workers’ Stress; NIA Global Aging Report; & MORE
GENERATIONS BEAT ONLINE NEWS
E-News of the Journalists Network on Generations
April 7, 2016 — Volume 16, Number 6
Editor’s Note: GBO News, e-news of the Journalists Network on Generation publishes alerts for journalists, producers and authors covering generational issues. Send your news of important stories or books (by you and others), fellowships, awards or pertinent kvetches to GBO News Editor Paul Kleyman. You can subscribe to GBONews.org at no charge simply by sending a request to Paul with your name, address, phone number and editorial affiliation or note that you freelance. You’ll receive the table of contents as e-mail, just click through to the full issue at www.gbonews.org.
IN THIS ISSUE: A Rising Delegate Count for Generations Beat Reporters.
1. AGED BY ROBOTIC CULTURE: The Genworth Aging Experience Science Exhibition Raises Questions Reporters Need to Ask–About The Science.
*** “An Aging World: 2015,” U.S. Census Bureau/NIA Report– The world’s older population continues to grow at an unprecedented rate”;
*** “Shorter Life Expectancy Reduces Projected Lifetime Benefits for Lower Earners,” GAO;
*** “March Unemployment Report for Workers Over 55: Slower Recovery for Older Workers,” New School for Social Research, Schwartz Center For Economic Policy Analysis.
*** “New conflict-of-interest rule will protect retirement investors,” by Robert Powell, MarketWatch (April 4).
*** “Long-Term Care Insurance: Less Bang, More Buck,” by Barbara Feder Ostrov, Kaiser Health News/San Jose Mercury News;
*** “Seniors Working Hard for Their Money: 10 Million, Many Ethnic, in Tough Jobs,” by Paul Kleyman, New America Media;
*** DISTANCE CAREGIVING SERIES: “Aging Parents at a Distance Who Aren’t Really ‘Just Fine’,” by Lisa Esposito, U.S. News & World Report;
*** “The Other 2016 Campaign: Reframing Aging,” by Bob Rosenblatt, PBS Next Avenue/New America Media;
*** “Local Art Classes, Activities Decrease Isolation, Improve Mood for Those with Alzheimer’s and Dementia,” by Jennifer L. Boen, Fort Wayne News-Sentinel;
*** “What does it mean to have a ‘good death’?’ by Deborah Natburn, Los Angeles Times.
*** “Health-care workers to be in demand as boomers retire, need more care,” by Encarnacion Pyle, Columbus Dispatch.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Rockin’ Good Wishes to Reporters in Cleveland for the Health Journalism 2016 Conference. See this GBONews link [http://tinyurl.com/gvnkc6h] for more on the generations-beat sessions.
1. AGED BY ROBOTIC CULTURE
A blue humanoid strode into the media on April 1 (insert “no fooling” meme here), to possess homo sapiens, seen strangely submitting to the full-body embrace of its metallic exoskeleton and “augmented-reality” goggles that is possessing them with the infirmities of old age.
No, it’s not the newest Marvel comics super-villain, but the latest science-museum exhibition intended to introduce non-elders to the vicissitudes of old age. New York Times reporter Andy Newman, for instance, led his story, “A Futuristic Suit That Gives You a Taste of Old Age,” (March 31), “What could it possibly be like to be old? The stooped shuffle, the halting speech, the dimming senses.”
The exhibit, called the Genworth Aging Experience, offers the simulated “wretchedness,” writes Newman, of “owning and operating an 85-year-old body” for those willing to try on the R70i Age Suit. The exhibit is at the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, N.J.
Worthwhile as such daily feature stories may be, news of how this latest high-tech exhibition simulates the effects of old age reminds GBO’s editor of the need for reporters focused on the generations beat to question whether the lessons of science may at times slip from empathy to apprehensiveness. Previous science-museum displays have garnered serious concerns among social gerontologists about the unintended consequences of reinforcing the image of growing old as a medicalized inevitability.
Newman’s article continues, “It is not very pleasant. An attendant cranks up a fader and your vision dissolves into melty, grayed-out blobs, like a memorably unvivid psychedelic experience,” approximating age-related macular degeneration.” Other physical deficits superimposed through the suit’s 40-pound electronic exoskeleton fog up one’s hearing, impose the effects of aphasia, and hobble movement in multiple ways to adjustable degrees.
To be clear, this editor has not seen the exhibition first-hand. My aim is to raise questions about overly physical and medical representations of our later years. It’s possible that the curators address the concerns of potential ageism in such a presentations. Generally, those 85-plus experience a range of ailments to varying degrees, yet, how many museum goers will distinguish between the challenges of late life so widely defined from 60 to 100—or older? And how many will be informed of researchers showing that negative images of old age actually affects the wellbeing of those who are aging?
Newman, for example, relates the exhibit’s 85-and-older representation to his 63-year-old father’s recent hip replacement. He writes of finding that “in just 10 minutes, the aging suit induced a remarkable amount of frustration, depression and hopelessness . . . . But it also makes you a little less likely to lose patience and a little more likely to feel empathy with the older people in your life.” That, he adds, is “the main point of the exhibit, which is sponsored by Genworth Financial, a company that sells long-term care insurance.”
Newman quotes the suit’s inventor, Bran (sic) Ferren, whose mother has an incurable, degenerative disease, on this undeniably worthwhile goal: “How do you start people talking about these things which they are averse to talking about?” said Mr. Ferren. “And if what you require is live-in care, how do you pay for that? Most families don’t have the ability to do this, and they blow through their savings early on.” Hmm. Private insurance? Or may the unmentioned long-term care policy reform? (Regarding the stumbling LTC insurance market, see the link in this GBO’s “Storyboard” section to he recent Kaiser Health News article.)
The underlying question about these kinds of exhibitions is: To what purpose? And the follow-up is: What, if any, are the limitations or unintended consequences of “scientific” presentations on aging?
Mixed Results for Past Efforts
Exploring the benefits of feigned elderhood is not new. Industrial designer Patricia Moore’s 1985 book, Disguised: A True Story describes her years of first-hand research by traveling the U.S. disguised as an octogenarian impaired with the help of various prosthetic devices. Not only did Moore document mobility-impeding designs from stairways to hard-to-hold (and dangerous) standard coffee cups, but she exposed widespread ageism, some well-meaning and others not very. Overall, Patty Moore’s undercover investigation helped to establish the argument for universal design in products, architecture and environments, that is, designs that are attractive and usable by those of every ability level.
Yet, in the ensuing decades, the public’s exposure to the experience of aging has had mixed results. Mainly, what personal and societal advantages does the Genworth Aging Experience have to offer, to ensure that its visitors don’t depart the museum with a strictly negative bias toward old age? Does it explore perhaps positive ideas about how to improve our aging lot, that is, more than by purchasing a long-term care insurance policy?
Earlier science exhibitions on aging have also yielded questions, as well as the promoted answers. In the early 2000s, the traveling exhibition Secrets of Aging, created by the Science Museum of Boston with support from the National Science Foundation, garnered both praise and criticism for its interactive immersion of visitors, including many children, in the wrinkling and sagging deterioration of old age.
Back in 2004, former Washington Post health editor Abigail Trafford wrote about Secrets of Aging in her “My Time” column on growing older. She wrote, “In the name of scientific truth-telling, we grown-ups unwittingly pass on these prejudices to the next generation.”
Trafford cited criticism of one particular exhibit that has since been widely displayed by museums around the country. Called “Face Aging,” the interactive computer simulation initially enabled children to have their photos taken and then, as Trafford described, “watch — in horror — visualizations of how their faces might change year after year over the next five decades. What did they see? Their familiar young faces, so full of promise, turned into alien masks marred by blotches, wrinkles, saggy jowls, gray hair and no hair.”
Trafford quoted Margaret Morganroth Gullette’s critique of Secrets of Aging, which the author examined in her then-new book, Aged by Culture (University of Chicago Press): “The children were almost uniformly shaken.”
Trafford added, “Who wouldn’t be? The designers of the program had perpetuated the nightmare image of aging that is the cultural bedrock for advertising anti-aging products from face creams to cosmetic surgery. They hadn’t thought about how to simulate the ways in which people become more beautiful, more expressive, more powerful, more intelligent, more content, as they grow older. ‘Instead, they worked from U.S. culture’s preexisting notions of decline,’ noted Gullette.”
Another version was the Virginia Museum of Natural History’s 2008 exhibit, “Amazing Feats of Aging,” which installed The Age Machine, also, according to the online descriptions, proving a rapid prune-facing of visitors.
In 2006, San Diego’s Fleet Science Center included “Face Aging” as part of their Aging for All Ages exhibition with three sections organized around themes of “Body,” “Mind” and “Community” with each employing video, hands-on exhibits, graphics and text to engage visitors—also, for an extra charge, an IMAX film. Still, the website noted, “Aging for All Ages offers a glimpse into how aging affects basic bodily functions, ranging from muscles and bones to the heart and brain. Age-related conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease, osteoporosis and Parkinson’s disease are examined as illustrations of how aging can affect the brain and body.” The remaining online information says the exhibition also showed visitors wellness-oriented pictures of how they might appear differently depending on such lifestyle factors as exercise, smoking and healthy nutrition.
As science and technology interface to create successive editions of Elderdroids and other AI advances, expect plenty of wide-eyed reporting. These developments are rockin’ fun to report. But also they offer opportunity not only to dazzle readers, but to peal back the Avatar-blue dermis a bit to get to the heart of underlying presumptions and possible ageism that needs to be questioned—even in the not-always unbiased realm of science.
2. GOOD SOURCES
*** “An Aging World: 2015” is a new U.S. Census Bureau report, which states, “The world’s older population continues to grow at an unprecedented rate.” Commissioned by the National Institute of Aging (NIA) it details trends in global aging. The study continues, “Today, 8.5 percent of people worldwide (617 million) are aged 65 and over . . . This percentage is projected to jump to nearly 17 percent of the world’s population by 2050 (1.6 billion).” The report examines the demographic, health and socioeconomic trends accompanying the growth of the aging population.
In an NIA press statement, NIA Director Richard J. Hodes, MD, observed, “People are living longer, but that does not necessarily mean that they are living healthier.” The book-length volume examines international life expectancy, gender balance, health, mortality, disability, health care systems, labor force participation and retirement, pensions and poverty. Among the report’s highlights:
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The United States’ 65-plus population is projected to nearly double from 48 million today to 88 million by 2050.
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By 2050, global life expectancy at birth is projected to increase by almost eight years, climbing from 68.6 years in 2015 to 76.2 years in 2050.
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The global 80-plus population is on track to triple between by 2050 to 446.6 million. This oldest age group is projected to quadruple in some Asian and Latin American countries by 2050.
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Non-communicable diseases, such as chronic ailments, “are the main health concern. In low-income countries, many in Africa, the older population faces a considerable burden from both non-communicable and communicable diseases.
The report was prepared by Wan He, PhD, and Daniel Goodkind, PhD, of the International Programs Center in the Population Division of the Census Bureau, and Paul Kowal, PhD, of the World Health Organization’s Study on Global Aging and Adult Health.
*** “Shorter Life Expectancy Reduces Projected Lifetime Benefits for Lower Earners” is a new report, from the Government Accountability Office (GAO-16-354: Published: March 25, 2016. Publicly Released: Apr 4, 2016). It explains, “To address financial challenges for the Social Security program, various options have been proposed, such as adjusting tax contributions, retirement age, and benefit amounts. Individuals also face challenges resulting from increases in life expectancy because they must save more to provide for the possibility of a longer retirement.”
But this nonpartisan government analysis, requested by Sen. Bernie Sanders, emphasizes, “Life expectancy varies substantially across different groups with significant effects on retirement resources, especially for those with low incomes. For example, according to studies GAO reviewed, lower-income men approaching retirement live, on average, 3.6 to 12.7 fewer years than higher-income men.” The agency “found that lower-income groups’ shorter-than-average life expectancy reduced their projected lifetime benefits by as much as 11 to 14 percent. Effects on Social Security retirement benefits are particularly important to lower-income groups because Social Security is their primary source of retirement income.”
As usual, GAO makes no recommendations, but it notes that the Social Security Administration “agreed with our finding that it is important to understand how the life expectancy in different income groups may affect retirement income.”
*** “March Unemployment Report for Workers Over 55: Slower Recovery for Older Workers,” New School for Social Research, Schwartz Center For Economic Policy Analysis (April 1): “The headline unemployment rate (referred to as U-3) understates the true level of unemployment by only including those actively looking for work in the past four weeks. A broader measure of unemployment – called U-6 — includes both part-time workers who would prefer a full-time job and workers who would look for work if they thought they could get a job (including discouraged workers who have recently given up looking for work).”
The analysis cites two key factors contributing to older workers’ difficulties in the recovering labor market: “First, older workers are less likely to switch industries relative to prime-age workers. Second, older workers experience longer average spells of unemployment than prime-age workers.”
The report continues, “Advocates for cutting Social Security benefits by increasing the retirement age point to headline unemployment rates, which have nearly returned to pre-crisis levels, as evidence that older workers can delay retirement. But the U-6 unemployment rate for older workers suggests otherwise–that delaying retirement is not a one-size-fits all solution for those nearing retirement age without enough retirement savings. Rather than forcing older workers to fend for themselves in an unfriendly labor market, we need Guaranteed Retirement Accounts (GRAs) to allow workers a safe, effective vehicle to accumulate savings over their working lives so that those with limited labor market options can retire in dignity.”
3. THE STORYBOARD
*** “New Conflict-of-Interest Rule Will Protect Retirement Investors,” by Robert Powell, MarketWatch (April 4): Powell, editor of MarketWatch’s Retirement Weekly, reports that the U.S. Labor Department’s (DOL) final conflict-of-interest rule, published in the Federal Register on Wednesday (April 6) redefines financial advisers’ responsibilities in putting “their client’s best interests ahead of their own, at least with respect to retirement accounts.” He compares the new U.S. rules to similar ones enacted in the United Kingdom. He describes key differences, such as that DOL will still, unlike the U.K., permit financial advisors to take commissions on transactions as long as they justify doing so. Hmm.
Powell also says that there’s a shortage of fee-only advisers in the U.S., those who don’t have a stake in commissions on transactions they promote. Although retirement columns routinely and prudently recommend that readers stick with fee-only counselors, Powell noted that they target more well-off clients and are in short supply. He says the expected increase in lower-income consumers could benefit from “robo advisors” and those who can serve the less affluent with retirement investments, as long as they can charge commissions under the limitations of the new rules. Hmm. This informative column provides a useful overview, while raising serious concerns and plenty of editorial fodder for retirement-finance and economics writers.
Meanwhile, thanks to columnist Mark Miller for Tweeting the link to DOL’s rollout of the new fiduciary rule.
*** “Long-Term Care Insurance: Less Bang, More Buck,” by Barbara Feder Ostrov, Kaiser Health News/San Jose Mercury News (March 26): With the rapid contraction of the long-term care insurance (LTCI) market and major insurers like MetLife having pulled out, writes Ostrov, Mary Julia Klimenko, 69, “has seen her monthly premiums nearly quadruple over the past two years, and, is furious about the choices she’s been given: Pay the higher cost, lower her premiums by cutting her policy’s benefits or drop the insurance altogether.”
Ostrov goes on that LTCI “was supposed to help the middle class ease the financial burden of expensive in-home or nursing home care that can now top $90,000 a year.” She reports that about 4.8 million people held LTCI policies in 2014. “’But insurers botched just about every aspect of the policies they sold in the early days of the industry,’ said Joseph Belth, a retired professor of insurance at Indiana University who is one of the insurance industry’s toughest critics. Insurance companies underestimated how long people would live and how long they’d need nursing home care.”
Belth continued, “Hemorrhaging money, many insurers left the business. Those that remain are in financial trouble on their long-term care policies. So they’re charging far more for new policies and sharply raising the premiums of old ones.”
Ostrov quotes Tom McInerney, CEO of Genworth, the largest insurer to stay in the LTCI market, who calls this state of affairs “a ridiculous business model.” She writes that h McInerney told her Genworth has lost $2 billion on its LTCI policies overall and continues to lose between $100 million and $150 million a year.
In addition, the article says, “Medicaid, the nation’s health program for the poor and disabled, will pay for long-term care — but it requires seniors to spend nearly all their assets beforehand. These days, nearly half of all long-term care in the United States is paid for by Medicaid. Policymakers and aging experts had long hoped that long-term care insurance might ease that burden.”
*** “Seniors Working Hard for Their Money: 10 Million, Many Ethnic, in Tough Jobs,” by Paul Kleyman, New America Media (March 30). Raising the Social Security retirement age, says a new study from the Center for Economic and Policy Research, will burden 10 million older workers–many ethnic–in physically tough jobs or working conditions. Among workers ages 58 and older, six-out-of-10 of Latinos, nearly half of black and Asian workers and four-in-10 whites are doing difficult physical labor or are in stressful employment situations.
*** DISTANCE CAREGIVING SERIES: Part 1 — “Aging Parents at a Distance Who Aren’t Really ‘Just Fine’,” by Lisa Esposito, U.S. News & World Report/New America Media (March 31). Living far from your aging parents? On your next visit back home, look for these clues to know when to step in and seek help. Part 2 — “Finding Support for Seniors Facing Challenges Living Alone,” U.S. News & World Report/New America Media (April 1).
*** “The Other 2016 Campaign: Reframing Aging,” by Bob Rosenblatt, PBS Next Avenue/New America Media, (March 24). Advocacy groups in aging aim to “reframe” the public’s image of getting older.
*** “Local Art Classes, Activities Decrease Isolation, Improve Mood for Those with Alzheimer’s and Dementia,” by Jennifer L. Boen, Fort Wayne News-Sentinel (April 1): The long-time generations-beat writer localized an good piece on the undercovered topic of the healthy-aging benefits of community arts programs. The story focuses on the new Unwind Your Mind: Activities for Persons with Early Dementia at the at Fort Wayne Parks and Recreation Community Center, which will offer classes in areas such as music, clay pottery, fabric crafts, chair yoga, computer programming.
Boen wrote, “One analysis of 15 scientific studies found individuals with early stage Alzheimer’s who participated in brain-stimulating activities, such as word and board games, delayed worsening of memory loss and impairment of thinking skills by an equivalent of at least six to nine months. That may not seem like much, but imagine all the things a person might want to do, see, write or record if he knew in a year or two he might not recall his or her own name or address, let alone enjoy a favorite pastime.
Generation-beat reporters can find a good overview of issues and programs in arts and aging the report, “The Summit on Creativity and Aging in America,” done in collaboration with the 2015 White House Conference on Aging by the National Endowment for the Arts with the National Center for Creative Aging.
*** “What does it mean to have a ‘good death’? “ by Deborah Natburn, Los Angeles Times (April1): The story quotes Dilip Jeste, MD, director of the Stein Institute for Research on Aging at UC San Diego School of Medicine, “We talk about personal medicine, but there should be personalized death too.” Jeste, a past president of the American Psychiatric Association, continues, “Finding out what kind of death a person would like to have should not be a taboo topic.”
He and colleagues, writes Natburn, are working on a broad definition of a “good death” to help healthcare workers and family members ensure that a dying person’s final moments are as comfortable and meaningful. “You can make it a positive experience for everybody,” Jeste said. “Yes, it is a sad experience, but knowing it is inevitable, let us see what we can do that will help.”
*** “Health-care workers to be in demand as boomers retire, need more care,” by Encarnacion Pyle, Columbus Dispatch (March 26): The paper’s health and aging reporter writes, “The growing health care needs of baby boomers, combined with shortages of medical professionals that will only worsen as more boomers retire, are straining the industry, says the report by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. The number of Americans 65 or older will increase by 36 percent in the next decade, according to U.S. Census Bureau projections. Over that same period, nearly one-third of all physicians probably will retire because they are in that demographic.”
Pyle goes on, “Foreign-born doctors, nurses, hospital workers and health aides are well-equipped to fill the gap and have been doing so for years, the study says. But an outdated federal immigration system and complicated state-level credentialing requirements pose significant hurdles and will continue to do so if changes aren’t made soon, the report says.” In part the report calls for more “foreign-born health-care workers because of their language skills and cultural sensitivity. Yet visa shortages and licensing issues are complicating their hire,” to answer the nation’s growing immigrant and refugee populations.
The article notes Ohio’s nearly half-million-and-growing population of immigrants and refugees continues to increase. Pyle quotes Juliana Kerr, director of the council’s work on immigration issues: “Reforms to immigration policies are not about partisan politics. They are needed to respond to current demographic, economic and social realities.”
GBONews Editor’s nag: A lot of news orgs these days cite a report like this without bothering to include an online link. In this case the Chicago Council on Global Affairs report is titled, “Midwest Diagnosis: Immigration Reform and the Healthcare Sector,” by Nicole Fisher, CEO of HHR Strategies, described as a “healthcare- and human-rights-focused advising firm.”
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