GBO NEWS: Age Reporting Fellowship Deadline Extended, July 31; Medicare for All vs. Biden’s ACA 2.0 Mostly Ignore Aging; “Atlantic” Ageist Article Debunked; Elder Suicide; CA Governor’s Age Master Plan; Latina Longevity; & MORE
GENERATIONS BEAT ONLINE NEWS
E-News of the Journalists Network on Generations – Celebrating 26 Years.
July 17, 2019 — Volume 26, Number 9
EDITOR’S NOTE: GBONews, e-news of the Journalists Network on Generations (JNG), 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. To subscribe to GBONews.org at no charge, simply sending a request to Paul with your name, address, phone number and editorial affiliation or note that you freelance. For each issue, you’ll receive the table of contents in an e-mail, so just click through to the full issue at www.gbonews.org. GBONews does not provide its list to other entities.
In This Issue: If Herr Trump Went Back to His Grandfather’s Land, Would They Want Him?
1. EYES ON THE PRIZE: Journalists in Aging Fellowship Deadline Extended, July 31.
2. GOOD RESOURCES:
*** “Building a Culturally Competent Workforce to Care for Diverse Older Adults: Scope of the Problem and Potential Solutions,” by Vyjeyanthi S. Periyakoil, MD, Journal of the American Geriatrics Society(May 2019);
*** Calif. Gov. Newsom’s “Master Plan for Aging Must be Part of the Housing Discussion,” by State Treasurer Fiona Ma, Orange County Register(July 4, 2019).
3. HEALTH CARE REFORM SCHOOL: *** “Will Medicare-for-All, or Biden’s ACA 2.0 Plans Include Long-Term Care?”
4. AGEISM WATCH: *** “Your Professional Decline Is Coming (Much) Sooner Than You Think? Bunk!,”Chris Farrell Bonks Arthur C. Brooks, PBS Next Avenue.
5. THE STORYBOARD:
*** “Home Health Care Providers Struggle With State Laws, Medicare Rules As Demand Rises,” by Susan Jaffe, Health Affairs;
*** “Artist Wen-ti Tsen Reflects on Immigration and Aging,” by Ling-Mei Wong, Sampan(New England’s only Chinese-English newspaper);
*** “Experts: Start Talking About Aging and Suicide,” by Elizabeth Fite, Chattanooga Times Free Press;
*** “As Death Approaches, Older Indian Americans Unprepared for the End,” by Viji Sundaram, India West;
*** “Latina Longevity Is Real, But Can Bring Health, Financial Challenges” by Laura Castañeda, NBCNews/Latino;
*** “Dances With Manangs,” by Mariel Toni Jimenez, Positively Filipino
1. EYES ON THE PRIZE
Journalists in Aging Fellowship Deadline Extended to July 31.
*** Deadline Extended: 10th Journalists in Aging Fellowship, July 31: The applications deadline has been extended for the 10thannual Fellowships. A collaboration of the Gerontological Society of America (GSA) and the Journalists Network on Generations (publisher of GBONews.org), the competition will select 14 New Fellows selected from both mainstream and ethnic/special population media based on their proposals for a major article, story package or series on any aspect of aging in America. Chosen Fellows will each receive a stipend of $1,500, plus all expenses paid to attend GSA’s Annual Scientific Meeting, to be held in Austin, Texas, Nov. 13-17.
The GSA meeting is the premier academic conference in gerontology, convening over 4,000 professionals and researchers from more than 30 countries. Hundreds of symposia, papers and posters will be presented on the latest research about nearly every topic in aging. Attending reporters will find ideas for new stories and fresh angles on existing topics ranging from dementia studies to Medicare, and from work opportunities and age discrimination to the latest discoveries in biomed and social research. Besides new scientific findings, presentations will include technological innovations, policy debates and comparisons of evidence-based solutions being tested and applied nationwide.
Recent stories (see details on some with links in “The Storyboard” section below) have examined such issues as seniors’ immigration fears, Medicare home health issues, and increasing suicide among elders. Headlines from the past nine years are linked at GSA’s media site.
For the 2019-2020 fellowships, we are grateful for the continued support of the following foundations: The Silver Century Foundation, which also posts news links and original reporting on its website; the Retirement Research Foundation; the Commonwealth Fund and The John A. Hartford Foundation.
Find full application details at the program’s website. Those with technical or procedural question on how to submit an application, contact Program Co-Director and GSA Director of Communications Todd Klussat tkluss@geron.org or (202) 587-2839. For further details about fellowship requirements and potential stories, contact Program Co-Director and Journalists Network on Generations National Coordinator Paul Kleyman, (415) 821-2801; pfkleyman@gmail.com.
2. GOOD RESOURCES
“Building a Culturally Competent Workforce to Care for Diverse Older Adults: Scope of the Problem and Potential Solutions,” by Vyjeyanthi S. Periyakoil, MD, Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (May 2019): Dr. V.J. Periyakoil provides a thorough overview of what she calls the “ethnogeriatric imperative” in her long-time role as chair of the American Geriatrics Society (AGS) committee on multigenerational medical care in the United States. This article is must-reading for generations-beat reporters covering issues in health and aging.
Also the director of palliative care medical training at Stanford University Medical School (as well as an occasional contributor to the New York Times)Periyakoil writes, “The rapidly increasing number of older adults is one of the largest public health crises globally. All older adults deserve high-quality, culturally sensitive, respectful care. Our current workforce is insufficient in numbers and lacks the training to provide culturally competent care to the growing number of diverse older adults.”
She explains further, “The older population in the United States is expanding not only in terms of numbers but also in diversity. The American Indian and Alaska Native population alone is projected to expand to 996 000 (up from 266 000 in 2012), and the Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander population is projected to be 220 000 (up from 42 000 in 2012). By 2060, the population of older adults will increase among all racial and ethnic groups, and older Hispanics are projected to increase from 3.6 million in 2014 to 21.5 million in 2060. The older Asian American population is also projected to quadruple from 2 million in 2014 to 8.5 million in 2060. This ethnogeriatric imperative underscores the great and growing need for healthcare services that account for the cultural beliefs and behaviors of older persons.”
*** “Master Plan for Aging Must be Part of the Housing Discussion,” by Fiona Ma, Orange County Register. (July 4, 2019): Usually, an op-ed by a politician noting her legislative leadership would draw a ho-hum from reporters, but with the initiative of the state’s new governor, Gavin Newsom, calling for a Master Plan for Aging, Ma is drawing attention for having already worked on legislation protecting older Californians. She writes, “I’ve lived with my aging parents for the past 10 years, with my father being the primary caregiver for my ailing mother. It has often been challenging just to locate the correct information surrounding long-term care services, transportation, and dental care, much less accessing those services.”
In particular, Ma highlights four California Assembly bills that would develop the Housing Older Persons Effectively (HOPE) Task Force, help train and support paid paraprofessional workers and unpaid family caregivers, improve family access to information and services, and create a Long-Term Services and Supports Trust Fund to help alleviate the financial burdens associated with long-term care for older Californians and people with disabilities.
Ma emphasizes, “Some people, such as my parents, are fortunate to have family to help out, but this puts a strain on the next generation, who also struggle with the costs of housing and the socioeconomic challenges of becoming caregivers, while also trying to work and create stability in their own lives.”
It’s unusual for an elected official to take the lead on connecting housing and health care needs toward a more supportive “aging-in-place” system. Why watch California on issues in aging? When almost none of the Democratic presidential hopefuls have detailed plans for health and aging in their variety of “Medicare for All” proposals (keeping in mind that Medicare does not cover most continuing-care needs), the watch-this-space place may well be shaped like the Golden State for new legislative approaches for our aging population.
3. HEALTH CARE REFORM SCHOOL
Will Medicare-for-All, or ACA 2.0 Plans Include Long-Term Care?
The very mention of Medicare elicits thoughts of a safe, secure old age. Yet, as Jay Newton-Small recently wrote in Time Magazine (June 26, 2019), “Like most Americans, Gracyn Robinsonwas shocked to discover that Medicare doesn’t pay for long-term care . . . . Robinson is one of the 45% of Americans who worry that a healthcare event could soon bankrupt them. But, like many, she doesn’t hear any of the Democratic candidates addressing her issues.”
Newton-Small, both a veteran Time political reporter and founder of the dementia care and news site MemoryWell , explained that except for the single-payer plan by Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Dem candidates’ Medicare-for-all, “while nice sounding . . . would do nothing for the most pressing health crisis facing the nation: the millions of Baby Boomers who are in need of, or soon will need, long-term care. As many as 70% of Boomers over retirement age will eventually need long-term care, yet only 30% have saved anything in preparation for such care, according to estimates from the Employee Benefit Research Institute, which tracks retirement data.”
The Associated Press reported in March on the Sanders plan’s inclusion of long-term care benefits, adding that most of the other Dem presidential candidates concurred with its importance but offered no details of their own. The AP story, published in Modern Healthcare, noted, “About two-thirds of U.S. adults favor a long-term care program similar to Medicare, according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll last year. That includes 76% of Democrats and 56% of Republicans.”
This week’s entrance of former Vice President Joe Biden into the health care fray does offer an ironic twist. In the 2020 presidential campaign when the mainstream-media’s narrative is of intergenerational conflict between the Dems’ young progressive blues and presumably staid old grays of the party, it’s striking to see the sharpest policy conflict represented between the two oldest leaders of the pack, Biden, 76, and Sanders, who turns 78 on Sept. 8. Even in most reporting, the principal focus only on the federal-budget cost of Medicare for All ignores three crucial pieces of the debate, and one basic element–the aging of America.
Mind you, most of the candidates are proffering worthwhile reforms of the current system. Biden’s public option would allow the government to negotiate on prices with the drug manufacturers, protect abortion choice, address minority health and much more. But As summarized on his website, long-term or chronic care isn’t mentioned, except for the promise of a proposal on the looming but limited area of Alzheimer’s disease.
One thing that does get repeated without accurate qualification by politicians and mainstream-media political and health-economics reporters is that Sanders’ proposal would cost $32 trillion for total health care spending over the next 10 years. Many mentions fail to include that’s over a decade. As the New York Times reported this week, Biden, in unveiling what he called his Obamacare 2.0 at an AARP forum in Iowa, hit Sanders’ plan’s $3 trillion price tag and saying it would raise taxes on the middle class. (Actually, the figure should be $3 trillion per year.)
That amount ($3T annually or $32T for the decade) comes from Sanders’ own campaign and has been corroborated by expert sources from the centrist-liberal Urban Institute to conservative Mercatus Center at George Mason University. In fact, the latter organization’s controversial analysis of Sanders’ plan, released a year ago, strangely decried the $32 trillion cost—while it also showed his plan would saveabout $2 trillion over the decade. Just for perspective, remember that in 2010 Democrats were so cowed by GOP threats to attack their Obamacare budget if it went over $1 trillion for 10 years, that they cut out important health protections to get the bill under that supposed red-line of $1 trillion.
Key to the saving that Sanders and other Democrats say would come from more government health spending would be (depending on the approach) the reduction or elimination of existing expenditures for private insurance and state Medicaid programs, as well as for things like prescription drug charges. Too few articles clarify this. So reports on a politician or think-tank’s estimated cost, whether favoring or opposing a particular proposal, are questions journalists need to be asking, such as, “How realistic is this, and who else would agree with you?” Of course, you should have sources that would disagree in your contacts list. And, “What’s the history of your approach?” For instance, the incremental developments that Biden favors has a spotty history regarding Medicare.
Yale professor Theodore Marmor’s classic study, The Politics of Medicare, reviewed how originally, it was to be a program for all. But in 1965, advocates for universal health care were persuaded to back the more politically-feasible version only for seniors on the promise of being able to expand it later. Instead, they could merely get through modest extensions of Medicare later, such as adding coverage for kidney dialysis. Mainstream media’s current huffy tone about the new progressives versus prudent and presumably more realistic moderates, is an argument with a history—and one that may well favor the more assertive stance, especially given the opposition’s aggressiveness.
Whatever you think of Sanders’ plan—comprehensive and desirable, or pie-in-the-sky and politically untenable—the scary-sounding price tag in the trillions would, according to multiple analyses, either yield savings or maybe cost somewhat more than the current system. That is something left out of or buried in most coverage. The tax cost of Sanders’ and perhaps other plans may well scare off significant percentages of voters, but reporting doesn’t help the debate unless it clarifies that the proposal eliminates many other costs.
Also, reporter’s need to question simplistic statements that polls show Americans like their current insurance. Journalists need to look more closely – no they don’t. Drill down further to see that what they fear is change. I can say categorically that today’s health-insurance hassles, especially when people are very ill—are a drag. Continual reports, often by reporters, of great experience with health care systems in other countries should prompt media to take a harder look at those claims and polls.
It is also essential that political and economic reporting get out of its dogged, budget-only emphasis. This country needs to get control of the outrageous and embarrassing fact the U.S. now burdens its citizens with unnecessary bureaucracy while costing 50% more than other advanced economies with poorer health outcomes and still leaving 28 million people uninsured Americans. Biden says his plan would reduce that to 5% or under 10 million people. Not bad, unless your grandmother or children are among those millions at the hospital door. Why are reporters continually framing their stories entirely around speculative dollar calculations? Shouldn’t journalists be asking candidates: 1.) How are you going to provide health care to 28 million people, or 10 million? and 2.) What will you plan do to integrate long-term care for elders and their families?
To be stark about it, to paraphrased the late House Speaker Tip O’Neill, a trillion bucks here, a trillion there, and pretty soon it’s all number-shifting. But 28 million Americans vulnerable, sick and in fear for their health – you’re talking about real people in the richest nation in human history. Yeah, the numbers are important, but shouldn’t there be more questioning about the human impact. Instead major reporting quotes statements, such as this week, “We can’t afford that.” How politically possible are proposals effectively saying, “Some sick people left behind”? Add to that seniors and people with disabilities. For all of journalism’s assertion of its role in advancing “the people’s right to know,” U.S. media has done a crappy job of helping Americans know that our system’s omission of continuing care is peculiar among most advanced economies.
Newton-Small’s story in Time continues, “America is already short more than 1 million family caregivers—family members caring for those in need versus paid caregivers— and as the Boomers age, that shortage is estimated to grow to 4 million by 2030. . . .
And yet long-term care is not central to any of the candidates’ Medicare-for-All plans and few ever mention on the campaign trail the largest driver of long-term care expenses: Alzheimer’s and dementia.” She adds that somestates “have begun to take up the slack. Hawaii and Washington State have become the first two states to pass long-term care plans of their own. Maine tried and failed last year, but will try again in 2020.”
For all of that, while some political figures, such as Biden, say they will pay for expanded care with measures such as reversing Trump’s $1.5 trillion tax break, reporters need also to be looking harder at other sources for health spending in terms of minimizing waste, fraud and abuse (the politico’s grand old trope) and maximizing effective use of our national wealth.
As long as so many interrelated aspects of living are constricted to narrowly siloed discussions on this or that need (health, education, housing, environment, defense and so on) those with a stake in bogus zero-sum thinking will continue to perpetuate easily exploitable policies—“Voters will never let you raises taxes that much for that!” That is the prevailing mentality, but only lobbyists and their employers can love it, that is, until they need better health care. Too big a change all at once? An impossible task? The people can’t know their choices unless reporters ask? –Paul Kleyman
4. AGEISM WATCH
*** “Your Professional Decline Is Coming (Much) Sooner Than You Think? Bunk!,” by Chris Farrell, PBS Next Avenue/Forbes (June 28, 2019): (Subhead: “A rebuttal to the provocative Atlantic article people are talking about.”) Ah, The Atlantic. That venerable sot to slickness in liberalism has loved to hate aging since publishing screeds against old-age entitlements by the late billionaire Peter G. Peterson in the 1980s and ’90s. And only five years ago the mag ran, “Why I Want to Die at 75,” by Democratic health policy wonk, Ezekiel Emanuel, MD, then 55. Now comes Arthur C. Brooks, head of the right-wing American Enterprise Institute and long-time author and contributor to the New York Times, The Wall Street Journaland so on. His evaluation of your career is titled, “Your Professional Decline Is Coming (Much) Sooner Than You Think.”
Farrell, whose most recent book is Purpose and a Paycheck:Finding Meaning and Happiness in the Second Half of Life(Amacom/Harper Collins Leadership), notes that also age 55, “Brooks’ blunt message is aimed at college-educated professionals at a similar stage of life: You’ve peaked. Your best years are behind you. He wrote: ‘In sum, if your profession requires mental processing speed or significant analytic capabilities — the kind of profession most college graduates occupy — noticeable decline is probably going to set in earlier than you imagine. Sorry.’”
Brooks’ 6,000-word piece goes on, “Decline is inevitable, and it occurs earlier than almost any of us wants to believe. But misery is not inevitable. Accepting the natural cadence of our abilities sets up the possibility of transcendence, because it allows the shifting of attention to higher spiritual and life priorities.”
Farrell’s response to the article continues, “Research by noted economists, sociologists, neuroscientists, scholars of creativity, students of innovation and other disciplines is inclined towards a very different narrative about the second half of life than Brooks’ declinist view.”
What’s more, he writes “The new narrative of aging calls for a very different set of recommendations than what Brooks advocates for managing ‘decline.’ Instead, it suggests business, government and nonprofits develop policies so people can accomplish more in the second half of life. Society should embrace the economic and social promise that lies at the core of more vigorous aging. (Are you listening, Presidential candidates?)”
5. THE STORYBOARD
What follows are headlines and links to a half-dozen new stories from 2018-19 Journalists in Aging Fellows Program that we co-sponsor.
*** “Home Health Care Providers Struggle With State Laws, Medicare Rules As Demand Rises,” by Susan Jaffe, Health Affairs (June 2019): “Despite the growing desire for in-home medical care for older adults from nearly all quarters, seniors’ advocates and home health professionals claim that rules set by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) along with state regulations have created an obstacle course for the very providers best positioned—and sometimes the only option—to offer that care.”
Jaffe reports further, “Newly minted physicians are increasingly forgoing primary care in favor of more lucrative specialties accompanied by greater apparent prestige. A recent study [J Gen Intern Med., Choi et al, 2013] found that only 2 percent of medical graduates chose a career in primary medicine. By 2032, the Association of American Medical Colleges says, the U.S. will have a shortfall of as many as 55,200 primary care physicians, driven largely by a nearly 50 percent increase in the number of people older than age 65 during the same time period.” The story goes on to examine state approaches and congressional proposals, such as increasing decision-making authority by nurse practitioners.
*** “Artist Wen-ti Tsen Reflects on Immigration and Aging,” by Ling-Mei Wong, Sampan (New England’s only Chinese-English newspaper, June 2019): “Between art shows and exhibitions, you would never know Wen-ti Tsen is 83 years old. ‘Being an artist means not following a set pattern of retiring at 65; nobody ever stops working,’ Tsen said. ‘The older you get, you think better. You have fewer distractions.’
He adds, All my work has involved politics and art.” . . . Tsen helped mentor Ngoc-Tran Vu,a Vietnamese American multimedia artist and organizer based in Dorchester, Mass. Her 2017 work ‘Community in action: A mural for the Vietnamese people’ incorporated community input to tell the journey of Vietnamese individuals to Fields Corner. ‘Wen-ti understands communities and what collaboration is all about,’ Vu said. ‘For the projects he’s working on with the Chinese community in Chinatown, he goes back continuously. It’s not a one-off thing. It’s truly mission-driven work to highlight underrepresented stories that are often times forgotten or misrepresented.”
Read her article in Chinese at https://sampan.org/zh-hant/2019/06/藝術家曾文棣談對移民和年齡的看法/
*** “Experts: Start Talking About Aging and Suicide (Part 1 of Series),” by Elizabeth Fite, Chattanooga Times Free Press(June 16, 2019): “Most media and public health campaigns focus on the important issue of teen suicide, yet suicide risk factors — such as loneliness, loss of loved ones, financial strain, substance use disorders and physical decline — are much more common among seniors. As a result, Tennesseans age 65 and up are nearly three times more likely to die by suicide than those aged 10-19, according to the Tennessee Suicide Prevention Network’s 2019 report, and that likelihood increases with age. In addition to being at greater risk, older adults have unique health needs — the likelihood of two or more chronic conditions at the same time, multiple prescription drugs, physiological differences — so interventions that work for other age groups may not for older adults.”
She goes on, “And the risk is even greater for those aging in Tennessee, where the rate of suicide in seniors is 52% above the national rate, according to the Tennessee Suicide Prevention Network.” Fite cites the America’s Health Rankings 2019 Senior Report, which “found that excessive drinking among seniors is up 42% and the suicide rate is 16% higher than15 years ago, with large disparities across gender in measures of mental health.”
*** “As Death Approaches, Older Indian Americans Unprepared for the End,” by Viji Sundaram, India West (June 12, 2019): “Researchers at Stanford University say that regardless of ethnicity, access to good quality end-of-life care is often impeded by a lack of financial means, poor communication with health care providers, cultural mores and family conflicts. Although these factors cut across all ethnicities, some doctors and researchers say it is more pronounced among older Asian immigrants, especially those from the Indian subcontinent. “It’s difficult to talk about end-of-life issues with them,” asserted Dr. Suresh Reddy, “Culturally, we are not comfortable with making living wills.”
Further, she writes, “In a few families, though, it’s the elders who take the initiative to prepare for their end. Bay Area resident Bella Comelo, 80, decided early on that she and her 87-year-old husband, Ernest, would prepare for their end, leaving no tough decision-making to their four U.S.-born children. In addition to writing their [advance care directive], they have bought funeral service insurance, stipulated what hymns they would like to have sung at their funeral and who should deliver the eulogy.”
The story quotes V.J. Periyakoil, MD, who directs Stanford University’s Palliative Care and Education Program, as “hoping that the letter-writing project she launched in 2015 will overcome some of those hurdles. The Indian American physician gets her patients to write down their ‘bucket list,’ spelling out their wishes and goals. The project is intended to help people from various backgrounds write a simple letter to their physician and their loved ones, making clear what they would like to do.”
“Latina Longevity Is Real, But Can Bring Health, Financial Challenges” by Laura Castañeda, NBCNews/Latino (June 11, 2019):“Statistically, U.S. Latinas can expect a long life. At 84 years, Latina life expectancy is second only to Asian American women (85.8 years) and it’s tied with Asian American men. But experts point out that a longer life can bring health and financial challenges, and Latinas tend to be poorer and rely heavily on Social Security for their retirement income. Moreover, Latinas, like Hispanics as a whole, have much higher rates of diseases such as diabetes and Alzheimer’s.”
She continues, “’Latinas and the Latino community are facing a perfect storm in terms of social and demographic trends,’ said Fernando Torres-Gil, a professor and director of the Luskin Center for Policy Research on Aging at the University of California, Los Angeles. While Latinas have the gift of longevity, Hispanic males do not, living to an average age of 79.2 years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Other communities fare even worse. Non-Hispanic white males live on average to 76.5 years, white women to 81.1 years, Non-Hispanic black males to 72 years, and Non-Hispanic black women to 78.1 years.”
Castañeda adds, “’Will the United States be prepared by 2050, when its older population doubles and we become a majority-minority society?’ asked Jacqueline Angel, a professor of public affairs and sociology at the University of Texas at Austin, and co-author of a 2018 book with Torres-Gil titled, The Politics of a Majority-Minority Nation: Aging, Diversity, and Immigration. The financial challenges facing Latinas are striking. Twenty-five percent of Latinas over the age of 65 live in poverty, and without Social Security, the number would jump to 60 percent, according to the League of United American Citizens (LULAC). Social Security is the sole source of income for 40 percent of unmarried Latinas, and 81 percent of unmarried Latinas depend on it for most of their retirement income, LULAC reported.”
*** “Dances With Manangs” by Mariel Toni Jimenez, Positively Filipino (Stockton, Calif.,June 25, 2019): “Recently, I had the opportunity to attend the first Philippine Independence Dinner and Awards at Red Orchids Restaurant. I eagerly watched a group of elderly Filipinos dance. They are known as Legionarios de Trabajo(Legionnaires of Labor) a mutual benefit organization . . . . Members of the dance group are between the ages of 60 to 80 years old. I spoke to a manang(a Filipino word derived from the Spanish word hermana, meaning “sister”) and asked her how long she had been performing Filipino folk dances. She replied, “I have been dancing for over 35 years, and I do it to stay young.”
The story cites research showing that the health benefits of dancing for seniors improves cardiovascular health, which decreases the chances of developing heart disease. Jimenez reports, “A review of multiple studies on dancing and aging found that any style of dance can help maintain or even improve muscle strength, balance, endurance, and other forms of physical health in older adults.Psychology researchers at the University Oxford published a study in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior. . . They found that there was a huge difference in pain perception before and after they danced together. In short, people engaged in social or group dancing experience less pain, a particular benefit for seniors who often deal with increasing physical discomfort.”
The Journalists Network on Generations (JNG), founded in 1993, publishes Generations Beat Online News (GBONews.org). JNG provides information and networking opportunities for journalists covering generational issues, but not those representing services, products or lobbying agendas. Copyright 2019 JNG. For more information contact GBO Editor Paul Kleyman.
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