Rarely do you find writing so beautiful that it takes your breath away, even more rarely is it about something we tend to shun, like death. But in this month’s New Yorker is just such an article. It’s one of the most intelligent, caring, informative, thought-provoking and poignant discussions on end-of-life decisions I’ve ever read.
Click link to access article…. www.NewYorker.com
“Aging in Place” is the latest and greatest new buzz term for what most of us want as we get older: a place to live for the rest of our lives, no matter what circumstances or poor health bring.
It sounds nice, but what does it look like?
Philip Moeller of US News & World Reports writes about older adult issues. Earlier this year, he published a ten-part slide show on award-winning “Aging In Place” ideas from AARP and the National Association of Home Builders.
The last three slides come from Seattle’s own Emory Baldwin, award-winning architect with ZAI, Inc., of Seattle. In one of my first blogs I wrote about Baldwin’s great FabCab house that was the rage at this year’s Seattle Home Show (see www.FabCab.com).
What I like about Baldwin’s ideas is that they developed in part from his role as a dad – he makes homes for people all ages. A baby stroller is no easier to manipulate up a flight of stairs and across a door threshold than is a wheelchair for someone with MS or a broken leg. So it makes huge sense to live in homes that work for all of us all of our lives.
Years ago the Alzheimer’s Association lent its logo to a flyer I mailed to neighborhoods in Seattle, advertising my workshops on caring for aging parents. I was pleased, thinking it gave me the credibility that would convince people to attend.
Wrong. Within days I was deluged by calls (probably fewer than a dozen, though it seemed like hundreds) from people demanding, angrily, to know why I thought someone with Alzheimer’s disease lived at their address??
Apart from that one small logo, nothing else on the flyer mentioned Alzheimer’s.
I’m reminded of this misplaced hysteria by an article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune last week.
“In the face of overwhelming opposition from residents in an upscale community called Stonemill Farms in eastern Woodbury, plans for a 45-unit assisted-living facility for people with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia have been put on hold.”
The neighborhood’s worst fears were over “safety concerns for our children,” suggesting demented residents would do bizarre and dangerous things to their kids. Others worried about lowered property values and whether people with brain injuries would live there.
Anyone who knows how a high quality dementia facility is run (Ecumen, the proposed operator of this facility, has a track-record of exceptional services to older 
adults) knows these fears are unfounded. It’s “NIMBY”-ism (“NOT IN MY BACK YARD”) at its worse, where ignorance and uninformed gossip create a firestorm that stops the development of high quality care.
If this happens where you live, check out the reputation of the outfit that proposes to build, and if it isn’t excellent, fight it. But in the long run, consider this:
We need more small, high quality dementia care facilities for older people in our neighborhoods, not fewer. Those of us who want to “age in place” and live near our relatives and friends who require residential care will far prefer to have them next door or down the block. Developing many more care options in our communities is just one way our society is going to change dramatically over the next fifty years because of our demographic imperative.
According to the University of California at Berkeley’s Center on Aging, the number of small children living with grandparents has increased by 50% in the last ten years. Millions of grandparents are providing care during the day while their parents work or are raising their grand-kids 24/7.
Now, in an interesting flip of events, according to an article in the 12/21/09 New York Times (“What a Big House You Have, Grandma,” by Paula Span), more adult grandchildren are moving in and sharing life – and a home — with their grandparents.
Some of the incentives come from economic necessity: steep housing costs that keep young adults from establishing their own households; the months it can take to find work before there’s a paycheck; crowded homes where the primary family lives. When grandma’s house beckons with 4 empty bedrooms, it can be the perfect answer.
The benefits also work in reverse. “Such arrangements can help grandparents age in place,” says Donna Butts, who heads the inter generational advocacy group, Generations United (www.gu.org). They can give “young adults a sense of responsibility and allow elders to pass along family traditions. We think it has a lot of value.”
Other benefits for the older person: help with preparing and eating meals; reminders to take medicine; help with heavy lifting, yard work, and home maintenance; independence without being completely alone; oversight – “just in case.”
Sometimes, Butts says, “There’s less friction in a grandparent-grandchild relationship than between parents and kids. The joke is that they share a common enemy!”
