The Century Express

 

By Kathleen Connell
AARP Rhode Island State Director
This article appeared in the June 2018 RI Senior Digest

Seems hardly a day passes that you don’t hear about someone who has just turned 100 or is celebrating a birthday beyond that magical milestone.

We used to talk about people living to be 100 the way we talked about putting a man on the moon. Not so much anymore, as for many people today it has become a real possibility.

When it comes to what this means you’ve probably heard a lot of negativity – mainly about the cost of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and the stress the aging population will place on caregivers. These are indeed serious challenges. But what often is not said is that longer lives will mean more potential years of good health and the good life.

It is not automatic. Living longer, healthier lives means thinking differently and planning carefully. And this was the theme of a recent AARP-sponsored event titled “Disrupt Aging: Implications of Living 100.”

One way to describe the approach presented is to list the guests. Speakers included financial security expert Suze Orman, journalist Ann Curry, author Cheryl Strayed ( Wild), therapist Bea (not the Golden Girls actress) Arthur and former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy. As you see, the discussion was not about getting old, it was about planning and savings, taking risks, facing career choices, making psychological adjustments that prepare us and sustain us we age and adapting forward-thinking policies.

AARP’s Debra Whitman closed the event, stressing that the new Living 100 paradigm, as it is called, requires conscious redesign—both personally and societally. These shifts in demographics and lifespans call for changes in education, health care, and the workplace in ways that support longer vital lives.

She urged participants to have the Living 100 conversation with everyone, from peers and colleagues to family and friends, because our own personal sense of life’s possibilities needs to expand to provide opportunity and meaning at any age. Envisioning these possibilities and pressing for change, she said, lies at the heart of AARP’s work.

Drawing the day full circle, she reiterated the most salient theme of Living 100: “It’s about the living and not the 100.”

Coincidentally, AARP just released some information that, to me, is a valuable piece of the Living 100 reality: Hearing loss.

Writing in the AARP Bulletin, CEO Jo Ann Jenkins declares that hearing loss is America’s silent epidemic. It can, she says, have a more negative impact on the quality of life than obesity, diabetes, strokes or even cancer. Yet according to an AARP survey, more people report having gotten colonoscopies than hearing tests.

Hearing loss is associated with an increased risk of dementia, falls and depression. It is also a serious contributing factor to social isolation and loneliness, and has been linked to poorer job performance and lower salaries, as well.

One would think that advances in hearing-aid technologies would ignite a high rate of adaptation. If you’re going to be around at 100, don’t you want your full faculties?

The facts are staggering. Nearly 30 percent of people in their 50s suffer from hearing loss. For people in their 60s, it’s 45 percent. And for those in their 70s, more than two-thirds have significant hearing loss.

Sadly, people remain reluctant to get their hearing checked or hearing disorders addressed. Because, Jenkins says, unlike many serious and potentially fatal ailments, hearing loss carries with it the stigma of being branded as old

Consequently, the average older adult waits seven to 10 years to get a hearing device. Only 20 to 30 percent of all adults who could benefit from a hearing solution end up getting one. This only makes the problem worse because the longer a person has uncorrected hearing loss, the greater the risk to the brain of losing the ability to translate the sound of someone talking into comprehensible speech.

Concludes Jenkins, “At AARP, as part of our effort to disrupt aging, we’re working to end the ageist stigma of hearing loss and use of hearing aids and other devices. We’re advocating for better access and more affordable coverage of hearing testing and devices. We’re working with companies to spark innovative hearing solutions, and we’re providing consumers with information, guides and other tools to help raise awareness of this serious issue and to help them navigate their way through the advances in technology and their understanding of how hearing loss affects their lives.

“By addressing the issues associated with hearing loss, both individually and as a society, we have so much to gain — better social connections, better health and a better life. Let’s end America’s silent epidemic.”

We hear you, Jo Ann.

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