We’ve been pretty responsible for quite a while now, don’t you think? We’ve thought and studied and done stuff and registered for stuff and put stuff away in places where we will actually be able to find it again.
We’ve made plans and talked them over with family, we’ve distributed copies of documents hither-and-yon, we’ve survived two Medicare “open enrollments” AND a rather significant winter storm.
ENOUGH, already!
Agreed. Try this:
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the 90-or-better crowd tripled in the last three decades, reaching 1.9 million in 2010! And that is expected to quadruple in the next four decades! In fact, 90-or-better will probably constitute 10% of our whole 65-or-better crowd by 2050! 10%!
And what does the U.S. Census Bureau know about this gangbuster 90+ group? Well, they are overwhelmingly white (88.1%), considering the years in which they were born, they have an unexpectedly high rate of high school completion or beyond (61.3%) and women outnumber men by a ratio of almost 3 to 1.
It gets even more interesting: 99.5% of people in the U.S. who are still alive at 90 are covered by health insurance (…hmm…); further, the median income for 90+ between 2006-2008 was $14, 760, 47.9% of which came from Social Security, but 14.5% of those folks lived in poverty.
Half of men 90+ lived in a household with family members (or whomever) as opposed to only one-third of women, which must say something about…something. The report also says that the likelihood of living in a nursing home increases with age (no real surprise), so here are the odds: 1% of folks in their upper 60’s will reside in an institution, 3% in their upper 70’s, 20% for those in their lower 90’s, 30% for folks in their UPPER 90’s and 40% of folks 100 years of age or better live in a nursing home.
Did you get that? If you’re 100 years old (or better!), the chances are 6 out of 10 that you will NOT live in a nursing home! WOW! We ought to find that a bit encouraging, because it says something about who we are and how tough we are, while it also says something about caregivers and caregiving – And it better say something about how we plan for the “golden years,” huh?
One more: 80.8% of the 70-80% of the 90-or-better crowd that didn’t live in nursing homes had one or more “disabilities.” We don’t know what those “disabilities tend to be, but the report states that “…difficulty doing errands alone and performing general mobility-related activities of walking or climbing stairs were the most common…” things that folks needed help with.
So, what I get from that is (a) ENCOURAGEMENT! and (b) some concern. The “concern” is that a lot of the “programs” I deal with all the time tend to prioritize very personal care (somebody’s hands on your body) and de-emphasize things like errands, housework, etc – Not completely, but more-or-less. And while there’s certainly basis for that, these numbers suggest what some of us in this business have been whining about for years: Help with housework, errands, etc – Chores! – Can help a lot of people stay right where they want to be, which is home.
So, now, let’s take a detour regarding the very personal care, somebody’s-hands-on-your-body part (no pun intended):
According to “the COPENHAGEN post” (What?? You don’t have any weird hobbies??), the use of robots in eldercare has “exploded” in recent years (I hope that’s metaphorical) and a new study seems to show that Danes are positive about these technologies; apparently, robotic vacuum cleaners and robot companions for folks with Alzheimer’s disease are “commonplace.”
Now, this “new study” says that a majority of respondents would prefer to receive technological assistance – Rather than human assistance – when (a) eating, or (b) going to the bathroom.
I know, but that’s what it says.
Of the Danes responding to said survey, 55% believe it is more dignified to be helped by a machine than by another human; in fact, a “bathing robot” is currently “on trial” (I presume that is metaphorical) at a nursing home whose name I can neither pronounce nor type, since this keyboard doesn’t seem to have the necessary letters. The bathing robot was produced in Japan.
A group called “DaneAge,” which works for the interests and well-being of the nation’s “seniors”, warned that the study might be misleading because it came from an online poll so might have attracted more tech-savvy respondents.
In conclusion, two things come to mind:
- Have any of these respondents actually been assisted by the “going-to-the-bathroom robot?”
- I think I know why the “bathing robot” was put on trial.
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