General
Neighbors Helping Neighbors: Online Community for “Tweeniors” and Older Adults in Marin
Neighbors Helping Neighbors: Building an Online Information/Community Hub in Marin
Prior to my career as a Marriage & Family Therapist, and gerontologist, I was involved in starting and growing several online communities. I have seen the tremendous benefits to individuals of a well-organized online information hub focused on the needs and interests of a particular demographic or special interest group.
This type of Online Information Resource Center assembles links, reviews and articles in an easily searchable, Central Hub to provide ease-of-use and convenience to the target population. I think we need such a Hub in Marin.
A vibrant, free, online information hub focused on older adults, adult children of older parents, baby boomers, “tweeniors”, and sandwich generation-ers – focused on life in Marin – would link Marinites up to the rich range of excellent resources, services, service providers, products, agencies and activities we have right here in our own backyards.
Plus, we would be able to share with each other how we have solved the wide variety of challenges and successes that come with growing older in general and in our local communities. We participants could serve as a kind of living encyclopedia of help and answers and ideas. Which leads me to the topic of…
Social Media (Online Community) Building Friendships
What we now call social media and used to call online community is a central part of such a community and demographic-focused web site. Members will come, attracted to the information resources, and stay, becoming participants, because of the supportive and interesting community of others with similar concerns and interests. Support and bonds and connections and friendships grow.
There are many examples of successful online communities which offer wonderful stories of mutual support. Some of you may remember The WELL (Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link) which started in Sausalito in the 1980’s as a pioneering and legendary online community affiliated with the Whole Earth Review magazine. The WELL is still thriving and some of its members have been friends online now for 25 years. Dupont Circle Village offers a thriving senior online community as part of its Village membership in the DC area.
Older Population Thriving & Online Too
We are the fastest aging county in California. The fastest growing part of our population is the 85+ age group. Older people are turning to social media tools in droves. Something like 18,000,000 U.S. Facebook users are 55 and older.
For those older people who are not online, some simple and gentle classes and instruction would introduce them to the potential benefits of learning how to access resources and friends/family. I believe it would be empowering for them to at least have the opportunity to make an informed choice about whether the tools are for them or not.
Help! How Do We Find Answers?
The main complaint I hear from older people and their adult children or other loved ones is that they have an extremely difficult time finding answers and help for the dilemmas they are facing. They don’t know where to turn and when they do find phone numbers, they encounter what feels like a land of endless voice mail.
Many older people end up going to the ER’s with problems that would have been easily preventable if they had had help, knowledge, answers and support earlier on.
Isolation is a Major Health Issue
In addition, isolation becomes a tremendous issue for our older people as they experience vision impairment or physical conditions that prevent them from driving. Their worlds start to shrink.
We are blessed to have Whistlestop Wheels in Marin but it is important to note that Whistlestop is ADA paratransit – thus it is not senior transit – it is disabled transit with a rigorous screening process.
Isolation affects so many quality of life issues for seniors – it can lead to loneliness and depression, decline in cognitive capability and even lead to poor nutrition if the individual has no easy access to groceries and little inspiration to eat well-balanced meals.
An Invaluable Tool in Communication Toolkits
Vibrant online communities can provide a bridge between homebound people, give answers to those who are looking for ideas and shared personal experiences, referrals and tips for places to go for help, and friendly connections that can grow into friendships.
Experienced managers train volunteer moderators in conversation and group facilitation and various writing and administration tools. Online policies are crafted, posted and enforced to prevent scam artists from taking hold. Webinars and a host of free online classes can be offered.
Neighbors Helping Neighbors: An Online Information/Community Hub
As our federal, state and county budgets decrease, and at the same time our population is aging (“the Silver Tsunami” we’ve all heard about), what will be our plans for taking care of ourselves as we grow older? Will we choose to “age in place” or, as its being referred to now, “age in community”?
Will we need to look after each other along the lines of what our parents and grandparents did in smaller towns and closer-knit neighborhoods across the country?
Many people think so. There is a growing Village movement across the US and a growing NORC movement (NORC = Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities). These movements represent efforts by thousands of people in hundreds of communities to come up with ways to support each other as we get older.
We in Marin can also look out for each other as we grow older. We only need a will to do so. As I wrote last week for the Patch, the Mill Valley Village will join the group of 4 other Marin Villages (Ross Valley, Homestead Valley, Tiburon/Belvedere and Sausalito) later this year.
As we come up with a variety of ways to help each other out, we will benefit from a full use of a variety of communication tools to help us connect and collaboratively develop answers and support:
- face to face events to facilitate information exchange and relationships
- telephone help lines staffed by live operators
- an up-to-date central online information resource hub on aging in Marin
- vibrant and thriving grassroots online communities that offer us the ability to connect, form and maintain strong and caring relationships
Anybody else interested in exploring these possibilities? I’d love to hear from you!
Have You Heard of NORC’s = Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities
NORC’s = Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities
Not Exactly like the Village Model
Recently, I’ve been involved with the Village Movement and working on organizing a new Village in my home town. I’ve been a fan of the Villages idea for years since I learned about the Beacon Hill Village where the movement started in 2002.
The Village model involves a local grassroots, nonprofit Village forming where members join for annual fees ranging from $200-900 across the country and then have access to a range of services. Members join in activities together, recommend service providers to each other, are provided with a very well screened list of other service providers, provide volunteer services for each other, and can receive a host of volunteer services themselves.
The NORC’s, from what I understand, are a little different. They range in shape and size across the country so each of them are a little different, too, reflecting their communities and members. There is no membership fee so the NORC’s are usually affiliated with a not for profit organization, government grants, donors and other fund-raising sources that allow them to offer services for no charge to members.
NORC Movement Founder Fredda Vladeck
The founder of the first NORC is Fredda Vladeck whose wonderful interview I read yesterday: Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities: An Interview with Fredda Vladeck.
Fredda was a geriatric social worker in NYC in the mid-1980’s and began to notice a lot of older people coming in to the ER with issues that could have easily been addressed – and prevented – at home if they had had the support and knowledge.
Many of these people lived at Penn South Mutual Redevelopment Houses in Chelsea, a cooperative housing development built in 1962 by the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. There were 6,200 residents with 5,000 them seniors.
Many of them were old labor organizers who had devoted their lives to the unions and so did not have traditional family support systems. Fredda designed a unique program to empower these people to age in place – her program became known as a NORC. Now there are dozens in NYC alone and hundreds across the US.
NORC WOW’s
The NORC’s are not just located in housing complexes, there are also NORC WOW’s – Naturally Occuring Retirement Communities Without Walls in communities such as the St Louis NORC which consists of a 3 square mile neighborhood. NORC’s typically have over 50% of the population as older adults and can result from:
- In-migration: a location where retirees move because of things like access to services and quality of life,
- Evolution: where a community naturally ages together, and
- Out-migration: where younger working folks tend to move to other locations leaving older people behind.
The Trouble With Hearing Aids
The Trouble With Hearing Aids
Many older people I know would say they have had a problematic relationship with hearing aids.
First of all, they cost a fortune – typically about $3000 each – and Medicare doesn’t cover them.
Secondly, they get lost so easily! They’re tiny and one lady I know lost hers in her sheets and it all got put in the retirement home laundry, never to be found again.
And lastly, they are tricky to get fitted, to get used to, and oftentimes they don’t work that well, especially at first. It’s important to find a top-notch provider and to have patience through trial experiments and fittings.
Here’s the toughest problem, though, and it’s not about the hearing aids – it’s about hearing loss.
Without good hearing, older people start to feel more and more isolated. As their hearing deteriorates, it’s challenging for them to hear much at all in public spaces where ambient noise is present – places such as church, restaurants, auditoriums. So, they tend not to go out anymore which leads to isolation and loneliness.
So older people experiencing hearing loss are in a bit of a Catch-22. They need to be able to hear in order to participate fully in relationships and their social lives. And they need to be able to find one that works that they can afford.
Here’s a good article published by Consumer Reports called “How to Select a Hearing Aid Provider“. Its full of good tips and can help an older person and/or their family take some first steps towards getting help.
Are We Giving Up on our Oldest Adults Benefiting from the Internet?
The Digital Have-Not’s – Our Oldest Adults – Closing the Gap
(Click on the link above to read a good summary of this issue written by blogger Laurie Orlov.)
Are we as a society just giving up on the 75+ age group as far as encouraging and teaching them about the valuable information, tools, and community they can find online?
People point out there is scarce funding to reach these people – they are the digital have-not’s. I think they are the digital “would be’s” if there were helpers to teach them about the benefits (connection with friends and family, health information, interesting stories, etc.) of online and to teach them how.
Locally-focused online communities focused on aging, grassroots reviews leading to accountability of service and product providers, social connection, information-sharing… this has to be one answer. Again, with some help to teach how.
Patients with Rare Diseases Jump-Start Research thru Social Media
Patients with “Orphan Diseases” Find Each Other Using Social Media Online & Jump Start Research
People who have “orphan diseases” (extremely rare diseases) often find that their local MD’s know very little about their disease because they may have never encountered it in their practice.
Some patients are taking matters into their own hands and finding each other online through social media to exchange information, experiences, and even spur researchers to do clinical trials.
Here’s one such success story about a young woman with a rare disease who found 70 other patients with her disease from around the world and inspired an MD (Dr. Sharonne Hayes) at Mayo Clinic to undertake new clinical trials.
Listen to the story here on NPR Morning Edition: Patients Find Each Other Online to Jump-Start Medical Research.
Some quotes from the story:
“Hayes set up a virtual patient registry and allowed patients from all over the world submit their medical records and scans online. In the first trial, Mayo enrolled 12 patients — and had to turn people away.
…The rise of social media has allowed patients to do for themselves what researchers like Hayes can’t: spread information about research. Through their personal Facebook pages, chat rooms and message boards, patients are recruiting each other in a kind of virtual word-of-mouth.
“This is not investigator-initiated research, this is patient-initiated research,” Hayes says, “and to a certain extent has been patient-sustained research in the case of our study.”
Mill Valley’s Senior’s Club Going Strong at 17 Years Old – for Boomers & Better!
Mill Valley’s Senior’s Club Going Strong at 17 Years Old – for Boomers & Better!
I suspect that many of you might not know about the Mill Valley Senior’s Club that’s been thriving at the MV Community Center for 11 years now in the new Center (and 6 at the old rec center).
This morning I met with K.C. Wilgenbush, Mill Valley’s Senior Services Coordinator – K.C. is a born-and-raised-in-Marinite who recognized early in her life how much she enjoys being around older adults. She studied and interned in social human services, and is warm, friendly and knowledgable about all sorts of fun events and useful services for Mill Valley older adults.
The Senior’s Club is a friendly group of adults 55+ – currently it has 260 members. The Club bases out of the Rec Center Terrace Room. Membership is not required to participate in the activities in the Senior Terrace Lounge, however a $25 annual membership fee includes a monthly newsletter listing all club activities, trips and special events.
Members meet every day of the week for a range of activities including standards like bridge, poker, bingo and scrabble and newer table games such as rummikub and skip-bo. A lively group of “Crafty Crafters” meets on Mondays and the “Nifty Knitters” meet on Thursdays.
The Senior’s Club is able to take advantage of the entire Community Center premises with classes such as Introductory Tai Chi and (the very popular) Intermediate Tai Chi class, pole walking and“Zumba Gold” (Latin and international dance rhythms) in the large Cascade Room, and Water Walking in the beautiful glassed-in pool.
This fall there will be new classes in:
- Conversational German
- Conversational Italian
- AARP Driver Safety Renewal Course (4 1/2 hrs)
- Lip Reading
- Candle Decorating
- Being an Effective Healthcare Advocate
- Medicare & Baby Boomers
K.C. organizes regular excursions to events such as plays in San Francisco, ballet at the Lesher Center in Walnut Creek, holiday luncheons at the Basque Cultural Center and day trips to places like Bodega Bay and the Glen Ellen Botanical Gardens.
Longer trips include an upcoming overnight trip to the Silver Legacy Hotel in Reno for the “Great Italian Festival”. In the past, the Senior’s Club has traveled together to the Northeast for fall color tours, NYC, and Alaska.
For more information, call K.C. at 415-383-1370, ext 107. You can also find more information online at Mill Valley Community Center “Mature Adult Programs”.
This is a great service provided by K.C. and our Parks & Rec Department!
The Sure Foundation Upon Which I Stand
The Sure Foundation Upon Which I Stand
“The sure foundation upon which I stand
turns out to be the center from which I seek.”
– Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche
When We Walk to the Edge of all the Light We Have
When We Walk to the Edge of all the Light We Have
“When we walk to the edge of all the light we have
And take that step into the darkness of the unknown,
We must believe that one of two things will happen:
There will be something solid for us to stand on,
or we will be taught how to fly.”
What you can do for an older relative you take to an emergency room
What you can do for an older relative you take to an emergency room
Here’s a link to an interesting article on NextAvenue.com (see link below) about the debate over whether Senior-focused Emergency Rooms are a good thing and necessary. Or whether MD’s and nurses just need a lot more training in geriatric care.
“Nationally, there are probably fewer than two dozen senior emergency rooms, says Sue Penoza, director of strategic planning at Trinity Health of Novi, Mich., one of the largest Catholic hospital systems in the United States.
All take older patients, generally anyone 65 and older, who aren’t experiencing potentially life-threatening traumas, like heart attacks or strokes, based on findings from an initial evaluaton in the regular ER. Common conditions seen by the medical staff in these special emergency rooms include falls, hip fractures, generalized weakness, abdominal pain and non-urgent chest pain.
The impetus is a growing understanding that older adults have unique medical needs and vulnerabilities that often aren’t very well served in traditional emergency rooms.”
Whether the Senior ER phenomenon will be a growing trend is unknown. In the meantime, this article describes some simple and important ways that family members can advocate for their loved ones in the ER’s to help make sure they receive better care.
What you can do for an older relative you take to an emergency room:
Make sure you bring your relative’s glasses or hearing aids to the hospital. Once the medical staff in the general ER rule out a life-threatening medical problem, ask if there is someone trained to work with older adults, or if the hospital has a senior ER. Ask nurses and doctors attending to the person what the plan of care is. Ask the medical staff if your relative can have food and water and make sure this happens, if appropriate. Speak up if the person’s needs aren’t being met. Be alert to signs of sudden confusion or disorientation that arise in the ER — these can signal the potential onset of delirium — and let medical staff know if this occurs.
Finding Help and Resources Related to Aging in Marin
Finding Help and Resources Related to Aging in Marin
One of the most common frustrations I hear voiced by baby boomer children of aging parents and from elders themselves in Marin is about how confusing it is to try and find answers and information on resources.
Last week I posted an article about a wonderful, new online senior housing resource we have here in Marin called Lucille’s List.
This week I am listing more local, aging-related, helpful web sites, print publications and telephone help lines provided by North Bay agencies and our county government.
- 457-INFO This is the Division of Aging and Adult Services help line which is staffed on weekdays. You can call and ask questions about anything related to aging in Marin and they will either have answers immediately or find answers and get back to you.
- Choices for Living 2012 This annual publication is another resource produced by Marin’s Division of Aging and Adult Services. In addition to information on specific kinds of housing available for seniors in Marin, there are helpful articles on topics such as how to evaluate a residential care home, evaluating skilled nursing facilities, and information on local housing assistance agencies.
- Whistlestop Directory of Services for Older Adults in Marin County 2012 Every two years, Whistlestop updates their directory listing information about all kinds of services including care managers, counseling services, seniors’ clubs, volunteer opportunities, support groups, financial services, recreation and more.
- The Whistlestop Express This newsletter is packed full of useful information, entertaining articles and local flavor. Download your copy from their website, pick up a copy in the last Friday issue of the Pacific Sun each month, or call them to sign up for a subscription to be mailed to your home.
- Whistlestop also has an Information and Referral “Help Desk” at 415-456-9062 staffed by volunteers who will work to help you find answers and resources.
- Born to Age 2012 This is an annual directory that contains very useful articles on a variety of aging-related topics and listings for most of the resources available to seniors throughout Marin and Sonoma.
- Marin Network of Care: Seniors and People with Disabilities This searchable database is another service provided by the Marin County Division of Aging and Adult Services. Its easy to use format allows readers to search for information on everything from legal services, safety and in-home services to employment, education, end of life and counseling assistance and more.
In addition to these fine resources, I believe there is a need in Marin for an interactive, vibrant online community information and resource exchange web site where grassroots citizens can exchange tips, ideas and personal testimonials about how they are navigating the terrain of growing older in Marin. Perhaps one will emerge in the future.