Coming Soon: The Vanishing Work Force
[29 August 2004 - New York Times] To be perfectly blunt about it, Pittsburgh is getting old. Half the line workers who repair, maintain and upgrade the grid at Duquesne Light, its electric utility, will be eligible to retire by the end of the decade. Likewise, half the 6,500 nurses working at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center hospitals will hit the typical retirement age of 55 in the next seven years. And just outside of town, at Westinghouse Electric, which designs and maintains nuclear power generators, the average age of engineers is the late 40's. The trend has some people worried. "A silent crisis threatens the prosperity of Pittsburgh and western Pennsylvania," warned a report done two years ago by the Center for Competitive Workforce Development at Duquesne University. "A declining and aging population places at risk the stability of the region's work force and opportunities for economic progress." In other words, there just may not be enough young workers to go around in the not-too-distant future. So the older ones may have to stick around a lot longer than they originally planned. ...

New Age Thinking
[July/August 2004 - Stanford Magazine] We're living longer than ever, and the population of elderly is about to double. But Stanford researchers say our approach to aging is stuck in a time warp. ...

How To Live To Be 100
[22 August 2004 - TIME Magazine] New research suggests that a long life is no accident. So what are the secrets of the world's centenarians?

Retirement is a start, not end
[23 August 2004 - Star Tribune] THE CHALLENGE: Persuade people to spend money on training-and-development consultants. THE STRATEGY: Focus on baby boomers who are planning the next stage of their lives. Richard Leider's father retired from his banking job at 65 and died three years later. It's a pattern -- retire and die -- that has fascinated the consulting psychologist since graduate school. Now that he's turned 60, Leider has decided to build his business around the idea that life doesn't have to end, or lose its purpose, at what we call "retirement age." ...

Use it or lose it: Seniors need to socialize to keep communication skills
[12 August 2004 - EurekAlert - From University of Michigan] Senior citizens living alone and independently in apartments should interact often with others�both friends and family members�if they want to maintain their ability to communicate, a new University of Michigan study showed. A lifestyle with organized activities seems to provide the best social opportunities for the elderly, said Deborah Keller-Cohen, a U-M professor of women's studies and linguistics. Much is known about the association between declines in cognitive function among the elderly and the ability to communicate, but little has been explored about what role social engagement might play in that relationship. ...

The Cleveland Foundation's Successful Aging Initiative Becomes Role Model for Cities Facing Surging Population of Older Adults
[10 August 2004 - Cleveland Foundation] With our country's population of older adults (65+) expected to double to potentially 25 percent by 2029, cities are starting to take a critical look at the resources they'll have available to serve this explosion of older adults. The Cleveland Foundation's Successful Aging Initiative is emerging as a leading model.
The Successful Aging Initiative's message is simple: to think differently about aging. Its components include lifelong learning, elder employment and engagement and elder-friendly communities. ...

Imagination Takes Kids' Mind Off Pain
[12 August 2004 - Reuters] Guided imagery, along with medication, can reduce post-operative pain and anxiety in children, new study findings suggest. "The need for interventions that reduce children's acute pain on a short-term basis is growing," Dr. Myra Martz Huth, at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center in Ohio, and colleagues point out in their report, published in the medical journal Pain. Hospitals stays being shortened, and dealing with kids' pain at home is difficult. Their study was designed to test the effectiveness of a professionally developed program, "To Tame the Hurting Thing," comprised of booklets, videotapes and audiotapes. ...

Jobs linked to Alzheimer's risk
[10 August 2004 - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel] People who developed Alzheimer's disease tended to hold jobs with lower mental demands during their 30s, 40s and 50s than people who did not get the disease, according to new research. The study is the latest in a growing body of research suggesting that higher levels of education as well as mentally stimulating activities may offer some protection against a disorder that now affects 4.5 million Americans, a number that is expected to grow dramatically in the coming decades. ... "Not everybody can be an astrophysicist," said lead author Kathleen Smyth, a researcher at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. "(But) you want to keep your mind active. Some people call it novelty seeking . . . things that get you thinking in a different way." ...

States need to get 'boomer-ready'
[8 August 2004 - The Morning Call] Soaring health care costs, coupled with the looming retirement of a record 77 million Americans starting in 2011, are casting a shadow of concern over states that worry their public health care systems can't shoulder the burden of the aging baby boom generation. The problem is of such proportions that Idaho's Republican Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, outgoing chairman of the National Governors Association, spent the past year studying how states can get ''boomer-ready. ...

The rage of the old
[1 August 2004 - The Observer (UK)] Great artists are said to mellow as they face the prospect of death. Not so, argued Edward Said, who died last year, in this the final article of a luminous career. ...

Mind games: Play them now, build brain power for later
[3 August 2004 - Miami Herald] OK, we're getting our bodies in shape. Now, it's time to do a boot camp for your brain. A growing body of research has concluded that by keeping your mind active, you may stave off the memory loss and diminished brain functions associated with aging. Physical exercise and a healthy diet can boost the brain, too. ''If you start in your 30s or 40s, you have four or five decades to control these factors that come into operation that can have a very dramatic effect,'' says Dr. Ranjan Duara, medical director of the Wien Center for Alzheimer's Disease and Memory Disorders at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach. ...

Eternal Youths
[July 2004 - Demos (UK)] The baby boomers are more affluent than their parents, and they are determined to enjoy themselves. Many seem to be trying to 'have their time again' by revisiting their younger selves and dominating youth culture. Eternal Youths is based on in-depth attitudinal research, which sought to understand this generation up close. The authors warn that politicians and marketers patronise them at their peril. ... (download full PDF of report)

The New Old � How Baby Boomers are Redefining Retirement
[July 2004 - AARP INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES] We live in a rapidly ageing society. By 2007, the number of Britons aged over 65 will exceed the number of those aged under 16 for the first time in history. This is part of a global trend, as life expectancy increases whilst birth rates stabilise or decline across most developed and many developing nations. In the UK, as in many other European countries, the public debate about this demographic revolution has mainly focused on the impact an increasingly older population will have on pensions and the potentially negative impact for welfare and care services. However, what has largely been ignored is a radical attitudinal change, as the large post-war baby boomer generation, born in the UK between 1945 and 1965 and making up approximately 29 percent of the total population, reaches retirement age during the next 20 years. The boomers, who have been at the forefront of social change at every stage in their lives, will be different from current generations of older people and redefine the meaning of retirement. ...