Bruce Horovitz, Author at �鶹Ů�� Health News

She’s 31, Has Stage 4 Kidney Cancer — And Talked Openly About It in a Job Interview

Bruce Horovitz — Mon, 06 Jun 2022 09:00:00 +0000

Katie Coleman stood face-to-face with a choice no job seeker should ever have to make. She could tell her prospective employer she had stage 4 kidney cancer, the most life-threatening stage of all.

Or she could stay mum.

She knew she risked losing any shot at the job by being honest about her diagnosis — or risked losing her self-respect by keeping quiet about it.

This may sound like the plot of an episode of “Grey’s Anatomy.” It’s not. It’s the decision that confronted the 31-year-old resident of Austin, Texas, who has been battling the deadly disease for nearly three years.

“The number of ppl advising me to not disclose my [diagnosis] is astounding,” she . The concern was that employers might worry about the costs and absenteeism that can result from such a condition — even though federal law prohibits employers from taking health issues into account when hiring.

Yet, while interviewing for the high-pressure software engineering job she desperately wanted, Coleman shared her diagnosis with the CEO of MDisrupt, an Austin-based company that connects clinicians and scientists with digital health companies.

Ruby Gadelrab, CEO and founder of MDisrupt, was unfazed. Moments after interviewing Coleman for a job, she tweeted: “Today I met a candidate who applied for one of our jobs, and she might just be the most inspiring person I have ever met.”

Coleman’s personal story is both hair-raising and hope-inducing. It took 18 months to get an accurate diagnosis in the first place, after eight doctors insisted she was too young for cancer and the real problem must be anxiety. Finally, on New Year’s Eve 2020, an ultrasound performed in an emergency room helped determine she had metastatic renal oncocytoma, a rare form of kidney cancer, which became malignant only after it spread to her liver. Then she underwent extensive surgery to remove a 12-centimeter tumor from her right kidney and numerous tumors from her liver. In a second procedure, doctors burned tiny tumors off her liver that were too small to see during the first surgery. Coleman asked doctors at the National Cancer Institute to perform the surgery and procedure because they were the only ones who she consulted who were willing to operate. She also knew they were interested in studying rare kidney cancers like hers.

None of this — not the surgery, the prognosis, her honesty — stopped Coleman from snaring her dream, nor MDisrupt from hiring her as a full-time software developer.

Coleman’s experience has become something of social media lore as she shares updates about her cancer battle and her new job in posts on Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. She’s leaving a deep footprint across social media that she believes could help fellow cancer patients for years to come.

At the same time, her story has become a high-profile reminder to employers and job candidates that a prospective employee’s medical history is their own business — unless they opt to share it.

The Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits asking prospective employees anything about their medical history — or using health issues as a basis for not hiring them, said Joyce Walker-Jones, senior attorney and adviser at the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Walker-Jones does not recommend sharing medical information with potential employers. “If an applicant knows they have a serious medical condition, they do not have a duty to disclose it — even if they will need reasonable accommodations if they get the job,” she said.

In that regard, Coleman threw caution to the wind.

She applied for the job at MDisrupt because a recruiter who’d spotted her cancer-be-damned social media posts approached her. Gadelrab said she wasn’t aware of Coleman’s cancer battle and never asked about her health. But Coleman opted to lead with her diagnosis and shared her story.

“I look at my diagnosis as my greatest strength,” Coleman said. The type of tumor she has is almost always benign, but in her case, it wasn’t.

Coleman contacted Driven to Cure — an organization for rare kidney cancers — for help. And Driven to Cure connected her to the National Cancer Institute.

Since fall, she has been off treatment and said she is on “active surveillance,” monitoring with scans every three months to keep a close eye on a few suspicious spots too small to treat.

She also is on a personal mission to destroy her cancer — in part by keeping digital tabs on all the twists and turns in her medical journey with an app she built. Coleman started working on her app concept after her surgery but before her liver procedure in 2021.

The app allows her to keep track of her doctors — and everything else she needs for her care — in one place. She shared her creation for other patients to use free of charge. Gadelrab “really liked that I was building a positive out of a negative,” Coleman said.

Gadelrab said she seeks three critical qualities — none health-related — in new employees: passion, purpose, and potential. She said she found all three in Coleman.

“Katie was so passionate. She has a way of communicating her empathy towards providers and patients that’s different from others,” said Gadelrab. “That is exactly the kind of thinking that we need to have as a company: empathy for our users. Katie came in with that.”

Still, Coleman was hesitant about taking the job once she got the offer. She was waiting for yet another critical cancer scan. She was nervous about leaving a company that had been good to her. And she was anxious about changing insurers. Then, something unexpected persuaded her to accept the offer.

While at home packing her bags to go to the hospital for the scan — which the folks at MDisrupt knew was coming — she heard a knock at her door. When she answered, she saw a huge bouquet of orange roses — the color that signifies kidney cancer awareness. It was from MDisrupt. The note said: “Good luck on the scans.”

She took the job.

Coleman’s first day was in late April. She works from home most of the time but visits the office once or twice weekly for group gatherings. She doesn’t recommend that all people with serious illnesses be so open with prospective employers.

“My advice is to first do the research on the company that you want to work for and know that they will be supportive,” she said.

Coleman, who has 40,000 TikTok followers and nearly 5,000 Twitter followers, continues to document her cancer battle on social media — and in a new blog. She pokes fun at herself in her posts because, she said, her self-deprecation often elicits more donations to the kidney cancer research she promotes. Perhaps her recent tweet says it best:

“My pet peeves can be summarized by: 1. Cancer. 2. Mansplaining. 3. Missing sauce packets w/takeout.”

�鶹Ů�� Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at �鶹Ů��—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about .

This article/news/shes-31-has-stage-4-kidney-cancer-and-talked-openly-about-it-in-a-job-interview/">article; first appeared on �鶹Ů��" rel="nofollow">">�鶹Ů�� Health News and is republished here under a

/?republication-pixel=true&post=1504674&ga4=G-J74WWTKFM0" style="width:1px;height:1px;">

I Found My Secret to Feeling Younger and Stronger. The Pandemic Stole It Away.

Bruce Horovitz — Fri, 11 Dec 2020 10:01:54 +0000

Back in early January, before COVID-19 was as familiar as the furniture, I went in for my annual physical. My doctor looked at my test results and shook his head. Virtually everything was perfect. My cholesterol was down. So was my weight. My blood pressure was that of a swimmer. A barrage of blood tests turned up zero red flags.

“What are you doing differently?” he asked, almost dumbfounded.

After all, I’m a 67-year-old balding guy who had spent much of his life as a desk-bound journalist dealing with nasty ailments like hernias (in my 30s), kidney stones (40s) and shingles (50s).

I ruminated over what had changed since my last physical. Sure, I exercise more than 90 minutes daily, but I’ve been doing that for five years. And yes, I watch what I eat, but that’s not new. Like most families with college-age kids, mine has its share of emotional and financial stresses — and there’d been no let-up there.

Only one thing in my life had registered any real change. “I’m volunteering more,” I told him.

I’d been spending less time in my basement office and more time out doing some good with like-minded people. Was this the magic elixir that seemed to steadily improve my health?

All signs pointed to “yes.” And I was feeling great about it.

Then just as I realized how important volunteering is to my health and well-being, the novel coronavirus appeared. As cases climbed, society shut down. One by one, my beloved volunteer gigs in Virginia disappeared. No more Mondays at Riverbend Park in Great Falls helping folks decide which trails to walk. Or Wednesdays serving lunch to the homeless at a community shelter in Falls Church. Or Fridays at the Arlington Food Assistance Center, which I gave up out of an abundance of caution. My modest asthma is just the sort of underlying condition that seems to make COVID-19 all the more brutal.

Writer Bruce Horovitz stands at the refrigerator at the Arlington Food Assistance Center in Arlington, Virginia, on Feb. 28, where he was giving out eggs and milk as part of the food distribution. Horovitz credited volunteering with improving his overall physical and mental health, but stopped when the pandemic hit in March. (Lynne Shallcross/KHN)

It used to be that missing even one day of volunteering made me feel like a sourpuss. After almost eight months without it, I’m downright dour.

Science helps explain why.

“The health benefits for older volunteers are mind-blowing,” said Paul Irving, chairman of the Center for the Future of Aging at the Milken Institute, and distinguished scholar in residence at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, whose lectures, books and podcasts on aging are turning heads.

When older folks go in for physicals, he said, “in addition to taking blood and doing all the other things that the doctor does when he or she pushes and prods and pokes, the doctor should say to you, ‘So, tell me about your volunteering.’”

Athat pooled data from 10 studies found that people with a higher sense of purpose in their lives — such as that received from volunteering — were less likely to die in the near term. Another , an academic journal by MIT Press for the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, concluded that older volunteers had reduced risk of hypertension, delayed physical disability, enhanced cognition and lower mortality.

“People who are happy and engaged show better physiological functioning,” said Dr. Alan Rozanski, a cardiologist at Mount Sinai St. Luke’s Hospital, a senior author of the Psychosomatic Medicine study. People who engage in social activities such as volunteering, he said, often showed better blood pressure results and better heart rates.

That makes sense, of course, because volunteers are typically more active than, say, someone home on the couch streaming “Gilligan’s Island.”

Volunteers share a dirty little secret. We may start it to help others, but we stick with it for our own good, emotionally and physically.

At the homeless shelter, I could hit my target heart rate packing 50 sack lunches in an hour to the beat of Motown music. And at the food bank, I could feel the physical and emotional uplift of human contact while distributing hundreds of gallons of milk and dozens of cartons of eggs during my three-hour shifts. When I’m volunteering, I dare say I feel more like 37 than 67.

Writer Bruce Horovitz gives a carton of eggs to a client at the Arlington Food Assistance Center in Arlington, Virginia, on Feb. 28. (Lynne Shallcross/KHN)

Horovitz had upped his weekly volunteering from one day a week to three days a week before COVID-19 hit. (Lynne Shallcross/KHN)

None of this surprises Rozanski, who looked at 10 studies over the past 15 years that included more than 130,000 participants. All of them, he said, showed that partaking in activities with purpose — such as volunteering — reduced the risk of cardiovascular events and often resulted in a longer life for older people.

Dr. David DeHart knows something about this, too. He’s a doctor of family medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. He figures he has worked with thousands of patients — many of them elderly — over his career. Instead of just writing prescriptions, he recommends volunteering to his older patients primarily as a stress reducer.

“Compassionate actions that relieve someone else’s pain can help to reduce your own pain and discomfort,” he said.

At age 50, he listens to his own advice. DeHart volunteers with international medical teams in Vietnam, typically two trips a year. He often brings his wife and children to help, too. “When I come back, I feel recharged and ready to jump back into my work here,” he said. “The energy it gives me reminds me why I wanted to be a doctor in the first place.”

I think of my personal rewards from volunteering as cosmic electricity — with no “off” button. The good feeling sticks with me throughout the week — if not the month.

When will it be safe to resume my volunteering activities?

I’m considering my options. The park is offering some outdoor opportunities involving cleanup, but that lacks the interaction that lifts me. I’m tempted to go back to the food bank because even Charles Dinkens, an 85-year-old who has volunteered next to me for years, has returned after eight months away. “What else am I supposed to do?” he posed. The homeless shelter isn’t allowing volunteers in just yet. Instead, it’s asking folks to bag lunches at home and drop them off. Oh, they’re also looking for people to “call” virtual games of bingo for residents.

Virtual bingo just doesn’t float my boat.

Truth be told, there is no one-size-fits-all way to safely volunteer during the pandemic, said Dr. Kristin Englund, staff physician and infectious disease expert at the Cleveland Clinic. She suggests that volunteers — particularly those over 65 — stick with outdoor options. It’s better in a protected space where the general public isn’t moving through, she said, because “every time you interact with a person, it increases your risk of contracting the disease.”

Englund said she’d consider walking dogs outside for a local animal shelter as one safe option with some companionship. “While we do know that people can give COVID to animals,” she said, “it’s unlikely they can give it back to you.”

Meanwhile, my next annual physical is coming right up in January. It’s got me to wondering if my labs will be quite as pristine as they were the last go-round. I’ve got my doubts. Unless, of course, I’ve resumed some sort of in-person volunteering by then.

Last year, an elderly woman staying at the homeless shelter pulled me aside to thank me after I handed her lunch of tomato soup and a turkey sandwich. She set down her tray, took my hand, looked me smack in the eye and asked, “Why do you do this?”

She was probably expecting me to say I do it to help others because I care about those less fortunate than me. But that’s not what came out.

“I do it for myself,” I said. “Being here makes me whole.”

This article/aging/volunteering-fountain-of-youth-how-to-help-during-pandemic/">article; first appeared on �鶹Ů��" rel="nofollow">">�鶹Ů�� Health News and is republished here under a

/?republication-pixel=true&post=1056427&ga4=G-J74WWTKFM0" style="width:1px;height:1px;">

What Seniors Can Expect as Their New Normal in a Post-Vaccine World

Bruce Horovitz — Mon, 03 Aug 2020 09:00:33 +0000

Imagine this scenario, perhaps a year or two in the future: An effective COVID-19 vaccine is routinely available and the world is moving forward. Life, however, will likely never be the same — particularly for people over 60.

That is the conclusion of geriatric medical doctors, aging experts, futurists and industry specialists. Experts say that in the aftermath of the pandemic, everything will change, from the way older folks receive health care to how they travel and shop. Also overturned: their work life and relationships with one another.

“In the past few months, the entire world has had a near-death experience,” said Ken Dychtwald, CEO of Age Wave, a think tank on aging around the world. “We’ve been forced to stop and think: I could die or someone I love could die. When those events happen, people think about what matters and what they will do differently.”

Older adults are uniquely vulnerable because their immune systems tend to deteriorate with age, making it so much harder for them to battle not just COVID-19 but all infectious diseases. They are also more likely to suffer other health conditions, like heart and respiratory diseases, that make it tougher to fight or recover from illness. So it’s no surprise that even in the future, when a COVID-19 vaccine is widely available — and widely used — most seniors will be taking additional precautions.

“Before COVID-19, baby boomers” — those born after 1945 but before 1965 — “felt reassured that with all the benefits of modern medicine, they could live for years and years,” said Dr. Mehrdad Ayati, who teaches geriatric medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine and advises the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging. “What we never calculated was that a pandemic could totally change the dialogue.”

It has. Here’s a preview of post-vaccine life for older Americans:

Medical Care

Time to learn telemed. Only 62% of people over 75 use the internet — and fewer than 28% are comfortable with social media, according to data from the Pew Research Center. “That’s lethal in the modern age of health care,” Dychtwald said, so there will be a drumbeat to make them fluent users of online health care.
1 in 3 visits will be telemed. Dr. Ronan Factora, a geriatrician at Cleveland Clinic, said he saw no patients age 60 and up via telemedicine before the pandemic. He predicted that by the time a COVID-19 vaccine is available, at least a third of those visits will be virtual. “It will become a significant part of my practice,” he said. Older patients likely will see their doctors more often than once a year for a checkup and benefit from improved overall health care, he said.
Many doctors instead of just one. More regular remote care will be bolstered by a team of doctors, said Greg Poland, professor of medicine and infectious diseases at the Mayo Clinic. The team model “allows me to see more patients more efficiently,” he said. “If everyone has to come to the office and wait for the nurse to bring them in from the waiting room, well, that’s an inherent drag on my productivity.”
Drugstores will do more vaccinations. To avoid the germs in doctors’ offices, older patients will prefer to go to drugstores for regular vaccinations such as flu shots, Factora said.
Your plumbing will be your doctor. In the not-too-distant future — perhaps just a few years from now — older Americans will have special devices at home to regularly analyze urine and fecal samples, Dychtwald said, letting them avoid the doctor’s office.

Travel

Punch up the Google Maps. Many trips of 800 miles or less will likely become road trips instead of flights, said Ed Perkins, a syndicated travel columnist for the Chicago Tribune. Perkins, who is 90, said that’s certainly what he plans to do — even after there’s a vaccine.
Regional and local travel will replace foreign travel. Dychtwald, who is 70, said he will be much less inclined to travel abroad. For example, he said, onetime plans with his wife to visit India are now unlikely, even if a good vaccine is available, because they want to avoid large concentrations of people. That said, each year only 25% of people 65 and up travel outside the U.S. annually, vs. 45% of the general population, according to a survey by Visa. The most popular trip for seniors: visiting grandchildren.
Demand for business class will grow. When older travelers (who are financially able) choose to fly, they will more frequently book roomy business-class seats because they won’t want to sit too close to other passengers, Factora said.
Buying three seats for two. Older couples who fly together — and have the money — will pay for all three seats so no one is between them, Perkins said.
Hotels will market medical care. Medical capability will be built into more travel options, Dychtwald said. For example, some hotels will advertise a doctor on-site — or one close by. “The era is over of being removed from health care and feeling comfortable,” he said.
Disinfecting will be a sales pitch. Expect a rich combination of health and safety “theater” — particularly on cruises that host many older travelers, Perkins said: “Employees will be wandering around with disinfecting fogs and wiping everything 10 times.”
Cruises will require proof of vaccination. Passengers — as well as cruise employees — will likely have to prove they’ve been vaccinated before traveling, Factora said.

Eating/Shopping

Local eateries will gain trust. Neighborhood and small-market restaurants will draw loyal customers — mainly because they know and trust the owners, said Christopher Muller, a hospitality professor at Boston University.
Safety will be a bragging point. To appeal to older diners in particular, restaurants will prominently display safety-inspection signage and visibly signal their cleanliness standards, Muller said. They will even hire employees exclusively to wipe down tables, chairs and all high-touch points — and these employees will be easy to identify and very visible.

Home Life

The homecoming. Because of so many COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes, more seniors will leave assisted living facilities and nursing homes to move in with their families, Factora said. “Families will generally move closer together,” he said.
The fortress. Home delivery of almost everything will become the norm for older Americans, and in-person shopping will become much less common, Factora said.
Older workers will stay home. The 60-and-up workforce increasingly will be reluctant to work anywhere but from home and will be very slow to re-embrace grocery shopping. “Instacart delivery will become the new normal for them,” Dychtwald said.

Gatherings

Forced social distancing. Whenever or wherever large families gather, people exhibiting COVID-like symptoms may not be welcomed under any circumstances, Ayati said.
Older folks will disengage, at a cost. Depression will skyrocket among older people who isolate from family get-togethers and large gatherings, Ayati said. “As the older population pulls back from engaging in society, this is a very bad thing.”
Public restrooms will be revamped. For germ avoidance, they’ll increasingly get no-touch toilets, urinals, sinks and entrances/exits. “One of the most disastrous places you can go into is a public restroom,” Poland said. “That’s about the riskiest place.”

This article/aging/what-seniors-can-expect-as-their-new-normal-in-a-post-vaccine-world/">article; first appeared on �鶹Ů��" rel="nofollow">">�鶹Ů�� Health News and is republished here under a

/?republication-pixel=true&post=1139446&ga4=G-J74WWTKFM0" style="width:1px;height:1px;">

Inside Meals On Wheels’ Struggle To Keep Older Americans Fed During A Pandemic

Bruce Horovitz — Tue, 07 Apr 2020 09:00:08 +0000

In the best of times, Meals on Wheels faces the herculean task of delivering 200 million meals annually to 2.4 million hungry and isolated older Americans.

But this is the time of the dreaded novel coronavirus.

With the pandemic bearing down, I wanted to get inside Meals on Wheels to see how it would gear up its services. After all, 79% of its existing clients are 75 or older. There would be more demand now that many more seniors — including those who probably never imagined they’d be stuck inside — are advised it is safest to remain housebound.

What I saw was that this agency, a mainstay in the lives of so many, was swamped. Its ideas of what was possible diminished by the hour, and it has had to improvise, sometimes successfully, to complete its mission.

When I reached out to its press office on March 12, I was optimistic I’d be able to see its local operation, meet its director and volunteers, and maybe even talk to a client or two. While the West Coast was already hunkering down, life was still fairly normal on the East Coast and near its national headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. It would be ideal, of course, to go on a delivery. That was probably too much to ask.

By the next afternoon, a publicist from the headquarters told me, “In an effort to minimize risk, they’re no longer allowing visitors or inviting them into facilities.”

But this, she said, could “illustrate how cautious they’re being and how quickly the situation is escalating.”

That’s OK, I thought.

Not an hour later, another email from a local program director in nearby Alexandria, Virginia: “Things are very dynamic. As a precaution, we are no longer having visitors go along on deliveries.”

He invited me to a meal pickup spot to talk with volunteers, so long as there was “no shaking hands, of course.”

Maybe we could even get a look at meal prep. On the next Monday, four days later, we’d go with a photographer to Jeffery’s Catering, a full-service catering company tucked away in one of Alexandria’s industrial sections.

The novel coronavirus marched on.

About five minutes after I pulled up that Monday, I got a text saying all in-person meetings were canceled. Instead of seeing the director, I drove home to interview him by phone. And I could talk to a volunteer by phone, too. But not a client.

What I couldn’t see, but what I learned, was that Meals on Wheels was desperately — though creatively — struggling to honor its mission. This is also an organization that depends on older volunteers, roughly two-thirds of whom are 65 and up. What if they prefer to stay home for their safety? Or worse, what if they had been struck by this nasty virus, which is particularly deadly for older folks?

The need was overwhelming. Most volunteers were taking shelter. All social norms were upended, with people social distancing and working from home.

By the next Thursday, Vinsen Faris, CEO of Meals on Wheels in San Antonio, was worried. The chapter serves 3,600 meals daily and had lost dozens of corporate volunteers as companies shut down.

With fewer volunteers, staff members would make home deliveries. Faris suspected they’d need to move on to shelf-stable food, like canned fruit and beans and boxed pasta.

He was haunted by the idea that they might not be able to deliver at all.

“I’m up at night wondering: How do we continue to be their lifeline?” Faris said.

Bracing for the worst, the San Antonio group has been providing five extra meals for clients to keep in their refrigerators. It will also distribute emergency meal boxes with four days’ worth of food that can be easily opened and requires little preparation.

In Raleigh, North Carolina, executive director Alan Winstead said that its group would soon scrap fresh, hot meals. They would do more with less: delivering frozen and shelf-stable food. He’d lost 75% of his volunteers.

“I have been with Meals on Wheels for seven years, and this experience — and the need to adapt — is unprecedented,” said Ellie Hollander, CEO of Meals on Wheels America.

But adapt it must. “We will need to provide even more meals than we previously had to,” she said, because requests nationally for new aid are mounting.

Winstead’s program is informing folks calling for help right now that it can’t take on new applicants until after April 15.

Meal delivery is more complicated, too. Volunteers must wash hands or use sanitizer between stops. They will have their temperature taken, too.

They will place the bag of food on the doorknob, knock on the door and then step back at least 6 feet. Some clients who can’t walk — or who are blind — can’t navigate the trip to the front door. Others aren’t able to bend down to pick up the food. They must wait for the client to come to the door and retrieve the food before leaving.

Rule No. 1: no contact.

The food is critical. But Meals on Wheels offers something just as precious: human connection. Its volunteers offer a conversation. They check in on folks. They might be the first to know that someone’s struggles are getting the best of them. Staff will now reach out by phone to check in.

As Winstead, in Raleigh, puts it: “The social connection is equally important.”

The group’s need for financial assistance is dire. Its COVID-19 Response Fund has raised more than $5 million. Another silver lining: The government has committed $250 million in supplemental funding to feed the needy as part of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act.

With a boost from that, it will hire more drivers and reach out to ride-hailing companies to assist with delivery, said Hollander, the national CEO.

The real possibility of halting all home delivery has Winstead focused on getting as much food as possible to his clients in Raleigh.

“This is a food crisis. This is a community crisis. This crisis challenges every operating procedure we’ve ever had,” he said. “I’m scared.”

This article/aging/inside-meals-on-wheels-struggle-to-keep-older-americans-fed-during-a-pandemic/">article; first appeared on �鶹Ů��" rel="nofollow">">�鶹Ů�� Health News and is republished here under a

/?republication-pixel=true&post=1073203&ga4=G-J74WWTKFM0" style="width:1px;height:1px;">

How Cruise Ship Passengers Should Prepare For Sickness Or Injury At Sea

Bruce Horovitz — Fri, 20 Sep 2019 09:00:02 +0000

Royal Caribbean’s gargantuan Oasis of the Seas boasts four outdoor pools and an 82-foot zip line and made quite a splash shortly after its 2014 refurbishment when it added the first Tiffany & Co boutique at sea.

But in January 2019, the cruise ship, which bills itself one of the world’s largest, produced less cheerful news: Hundreds of passengers fell ill from the highly contagious norovirus stomach flu.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and 31 crew members were treated for the ultra-contagious gastrointestinal illness on a cruise out of Port Canaveral, Fla. That’s more than the total number of passengers who fell ill from the norovirus on every cruise that set sail in 2018, .

It could have been worse. As miserable as norovirus is, passengers sometimes face more serious crises at sea. In fact, most cruise ships have morgues on board as well as medical centers. Last year, 189 deaths were reported on cruises, according to CDC data provided to Kaiser Health News.

With a record 30 million people taking cruises this year, it is vital to understand the care available.

Before paying a deposit for any cruise, take time to read beyond the company’s marketing material to study the quality of medical accommodations, said Ken Carver, chairman of International Cruise Victims, a nonprofit organization that supports passengers who suffer injuries or illnesses at sea. Most cruise lines are not sufficiently prepared to tend to serious illnesses or accidents, he said.

“Your health is at risk if you get ill on a cruise ship,” Carver said.

Cruise line industry officials strongly disagree.

“The safety and comfort of our guests and our crew is of the utmost importance to the cruise industry — that includes medical facilities and personnel,” said Megan King, a spokeswoman for the Cruise Lines International Association.

There are clear rules and regulations for medical care on cruises. At least one qualified medical professional must be available at all hours on every cruise.

What’s more, all ships that carry at least 250 passengers, have overnight accommodations and embark or disembark in the United States must have an examination room, an intensive care room and equipment for processing lab work, monitoring vital signs and administering medications.

But medical care for passengers who suffer severe injuries or illnesses can be compromised by the limitations of being at sea without the benefit of costly medical equipment and specialized doctors, Carver said. The problems can be further magnified because:

Doctors on cruise ships aren’t usually specialists. Cruise ships typically hire doctors to care for health problems like norovirus. “Many doctors on cruise ships are not even emergency room qualified,” said Philip Gerson, a lawyer who for 49 years has been suing cruise ship lines for everything from personal injury to wrongful death. Most of the cases are slip-and-fall incidents that result in orthopedic injuries, he said.
Medical center hours are limited. For example, when Carnival cruise ships are at sea, clinic service hours are 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. and 3 to 6 p.m. On port days, the hours are 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. and 4-6 p.m., according to the .
Some onboard doctors are not fluent in English. Foreign doctors can be excellent and cruise lines require them to be certified under American standards. But few passengers realize that some onboard doctors may not speak English well, which can be important in critical situations, Gerson said.
Few passengers know how their health insurance works at sea. Before buying a cruise line ticket, it’s critical to check with your health insurer to see whether and how you’re covered for offshore medical issues, said , a Miami-based maritime lawyer who has handled thousands of cruise ship lawsuits over 35 years. The question to ask: If I get sick or injured on the cruise, how am I covered?
Most passengers don’t buy travel insurance. Travel insurance might sound like a waste of money, which may explain why most passengers don’t buy it, but insurance can save very sick passengers hundreds of thousands of dollars, Rivkind said. He had one client stuck with a $500,000 air ambulance bill. Carnival’s Cruise Vacation Protection Plan reimburses up to $10,000 of certain medical-related costs and up to $30,000 for emergency medical evacuation, the company says on its site. Carnival’s policies run from $49 per person for the least expensive cruises to up to $189 per person for costlier trips. But, Rivkind said, it’s typically a better deal to buy insurance from an independent company than directly from a cruise company.
Injured passengers must act as their own investigators. If you slip, fall and break an arm or leg on a cruise ship, it’s critical to quickly act in your own best interests, Gerson said. Take pictures of where you fell (or have someone else do so if you can’t). Get video of the scene, if possible. And, if you get medical care onboard, make certain to request a copy of your medical records. All of this should be emailed to your lawyer, he said.
Some cruise lines try to gather information from passengers for legal reasons. If a cruise line has a passenger injury form that specifically asks what the passenger could have done to prevent the accident, “leave that part of the form blank,” Gerson said. This is the cruise line’s way of trying to shift the blame for the accident or injury.
Being sent off the ship for medical care isn’t always a good thing. When a passenger has a serious medical problem, the ship often will drop the patient off at the next port for aid, Gerson said. If the next port is New Jersey, that might be fine, but if the next port is someplace foreign, maybe not, he said. You might consider refusing to get off the ship if you are wary of the medical care at a port, he said.
Seeing a doctor — particularly after hours — can be difficult. “Sometimes you have to have a very persistent family member,” Rivkind said. “You have to be prepared to be very persistent to do what you need to do to get someone’s attention.”

After the Oasis of the Seas cruise in January, Royal Caribbean offered full refunds to the 5,400-plus passengers, even though fewer than 9% became ill. But refunds won’t pay for unexpectedly huge medical bills at sea.

“The cruise lines are there to protect the cruise lines,” Carver said. “If something bad happens at sea, you have to protect yourself.”

This article/aging/how-cruise-ship-passengers-should-prepare-for-sickness-or-injury-at-sea/">article; first appeared on �鶹Ů��" rel="nofollow">">�鶹Ů�� Health News and is republished here under a

/?republication-pixel=true&post=994720&ga4=G-J74WWTKFM0" style="width:1px;height:1px;">

In The Battle Of The Fitness Trackers, The Most Steps Might Not Win

Bruce Horovitz — Tue, 30 Jul 2019 09:00:47 +0000

When Sonia Anderson got her first Fitbit step tracker, her poor pooch, Bronx, had no idea of all the steps that were coming.

The device — which counts every step Anderson takes and displays those steps on an app — was a Christmas gift from her daughters two years ago.

At the time, Bronx, a Yorkshire terrier, was younger and could still manage the additional walks up and down the trails along the sprawling apartment complex in Alexandria, Va., where Anderson lives. Anderson was on a mission to clock 10,000 steps a day.

More recently, as Bronx hit age 13, the dog started coming to dead stops during these long treks, as if to ask: What’s going on here?

Sonia Anderson and Landy Sorenson often walk together on Friday mornings while volunteering at a local food bank. The friends track each other’s progress on their cellphone apps and compete to see who logs the most steps. (Bruce Horovitz/KHN)

Like many other folks 50 and older, the 63-year-old Anderson has been commandeered by the step-tracker craze that began about a decade ago, and her dog is an unwilling victim.

Anderson has bought into the $26 billion global step tracker industry and matches her daily count with her Fitbit-wearing friend, Landy Sorensen, 43. The two women have become inseparable Fitbit fanatics and competitors at the Arlington Food Assistance Center, where they amass additional steps every Friday morning while volunteering in the food bank. Now, they diligently count each other’s steps on their cellphone apps in real time — and compete to record just one more step than the other.

“My Fitbit made me a friend I’d have never had,” Anderson said.

It might also help her live longer, according to a recent Harvard University study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The study concluded that among older women, as few as 4,400 steps per day helped to lower mortality rates.

With more steps per day, mortality rates decreased before leveling off at 7,500 steps, the study found.

In other words, the magic marketing number of 10,000 daily steps embraced by so many wearers of these devices — from Fitbits to Garmins to Samsungs to Apple Watches — may be about 2,500 steps more than necessary.

Truth be told, even the woman behind the study — who concedes that she, too, is enamored of her step tracker — can’t say how many steps are the right number for each walker.

“No one size fits all,” said I-Min Lee, an associate epidemiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and a professor at Harvard Medical School.

But no matter how many steps you take, merely wearing and using a fitness tracker — particularly for older women, older men and other people who tend to be somewhat inactive — “can be beneficial not only to your health but to your quality of life,” Lee said.

Of course, some folks go over the top with their trackers — and proudly post their more unusual stats on social media sites such as Reddit. Like the vegan fitness buff who posted a video about logging 50,000 steps a day for five days. And the warehouse stocker who said that he slogged 20,000 steps a day on the job. And there’s also the guy who credits his Fitbit for helping him slim his 40-inch waist to a svelte 34 inches.

Clocking miles is even popular with workers who are on the clock. C-SPAN network, for instance, ran a month-long walking challenge sponsored by its health insurance plan, Cigna. The step competition among C-SPAN departments, which ended July 3, totaled 22,862,341 steps walked by 74 participants from 12 teams, spokesman Howard Mortman said. That’s an average 9,966 steps per day per person. More specifically, he said, that’s a total 1,028,805 calories burned — and 294 pounds lost. (For the record, the cable network’s digital media team won.)

For Anderson and Sorensen, fitness tracking has created a special bond — and a way to keep close tabs on each other. Like the day when Sorensen noticed that Anderson had suddenly doubled her step output. She immediately texted her and discovered that Anderson was on a European vacation and that her sightseeing had doubled her daily count. Another time, when Anderson noticed that Sorensen had barely logged 2,000 steps, she sent a concerned text asking: “Are you OK?”

“I thought it was so sweet of her to check in on me,” said Sorensen, who said the problem was actually a battery issue. “This is the kind of connection I wouldn’t otherwise have.”

Sorensen averages about 15,000 steps daily — roughly between 5 and 7 miles — and often tucks her early-generation Fitbit into a specially designed gold bracelet, so folks can’t even see she’s wearing one. When she wears this bracelet to formal affairs, no one suspects she’s tracking her footwork, she said.

Sonia Anderson, 63, checks her Fitbit. A recent Harvard University study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association concluded that, among older women, as few as 4,400 steps per day helped to lower mortality rates. (Scott Suchman for KHN)

Recently, Yorkshire terrier Bronx, who is 13, has started coming to dead stops during long walks. Anderson now carries him most of the way. (Scott Suchman for KHN)

Harvard’s Lee said she first got interested in wearable devices five years ago during a workplace program that promoted healthy lifestyles for doctors. Lee received a free device — whose familiar brand name she prefers not to publicize — and was asked to form a team of walkers. Lee, 59, is hesitant to discuss her step count because she believes the sheer act of regularly exercising is far more important than the sum total of steps. But, after some cajoling, she said she averages about 15,000 steps per day.

Studies show that 150 minutes of moderate activity, such as walking, can lower the risk of heart disease and stroke, improve sleep, help reduce weight gain and improve bone health.

Perhaps no one knows that better than Tom Holland.

He’s an exercise physiologist and sports nutritionist who has regularly appeared on “Good Morning America” as a fitness coach.

He also has worked as a personal trainer with thousands of clients — many of whom use step trackers. He’s a huge fan of fitness trackers because they get people moving.

“The fitness tracker is the first step to getting people off the couch,” he said. At the same time, he is put off by the much-ballyhooed 10,000-step daily goal, which he said is arbitrary.

“We need real numbers to shoot for,” he said. Holland, who recently turned 50, prefers recommending smaller amounts of exercise — not big feats such as 10,000 steps. “I’m a big believer in excessive moderation. Don’t do a lot a little bit — do a little bit a lot.”

Unless, of course, it involves himself.

Like the 70,000, or so, steps he clocked in a recent 50-kilometer trail run. Because Holland also is a triathlete, he not only uses a Fitbit from time to time but also sometimes slaps on “smart” sunglasses or T-shirts or shorts that track fitness data. Most often, however, he wears a Garmin fitness tracker that measures his steps, his sleeping habits and his heart rate.

“I’m not an addict,” he said jokingly, “but if you see me passed out on the side of the road, check my tracker, please.”

As for Anderson’s little dog, Bronx, he sometimes gets extra incentive to go on those walks. Occasionally, Anderson brings along her daughter’s English bulldog, Winston, whose namesake is the British statesman Winston Churchill. Perhaps, in a cosmic nod to future step trackers of all kinds, it was Churchill who said it best: “I never worry about action, but only inaction.”

This article/public-health/fitness-trackers-step-count-how-much-is-too-much/">article; first appeared on �鶹Ů��" rel="nofollow">">�鶹Ů�� Health News and is republished here under a

/?republication-pixel=true&post=964006&ga4=G-J74WWTKFM0" style="width:1px;height:1px;">

Why Your Perception Of ‘Old’ Changes As You Age

Bruce Horovitz — Tue, 11 Jun 2019 09:00:15 +0000

My perception of old age is inextricably linked to my grandmother. When I was a kid, I thought this 65-year-old, white-haired woman whose entire body wobbled when she walked was very old. Now that I’m 66, my personal perception — or perhaps, misperception — of old age has changed. I suspect I’ve got lots of company.

Many of us are convinced that while everyone else is aging, that person we see in the mirror every morning is magically aging at a somehow slower pace. The age confusion can start early. A 2018 Michigan State University online of respondents ages 10 to 89 revealed that most think middle age begins at 30 — and that old age begins at, OMG, 50.

Another , from the University of Zurich, published in 2011, determined that older adults often try to avoid the negative stereotypes of their age group by distancing themselves from their age group. Yet another , from Columbia University, in 2018 found considerable evidence that when confronted with negative age stereotypes, older adults tend to distance and dissociate themselves from this negative stereotype.

Call it what you will, but this gray-haired group of boomers and beyond — myself included — is having a hard time accepting the realities of aging. Yes, we are mortal, but we’re not quite believing it. The great irony, say experts on aging, is that this flirtation with a slightly different reality from our aging peers may, in fact, be a healthy thing.

“Baby boomers are redefining what aging is and what old age looks like,” said Jennifer Ailshire, assistant professor at the Leonard Davis School of Gerontology at the University of Southern California. William Chopik, assistant professor of psychology and principal investigator of the Michigan State study, knows this better than most of us.

“People — particularly older people — usually say they feel younger than they are,” said Chopik. “People who report feeling younger actually tend to live longer and healthier lives — and they don’t tend to have as much of a pattern of decline.”

In most cases, people say they feel about 20% younger than they really are, according to the Michigan State of more than 500,000 people. This keeps ramping up as folks age, he said. Beginning at age 50, he said, many say they feel about 10 years younger.

The fact we’re generally living longer than we used to also plays a role, experts say. “As our life spans get longer, so does our view of old age,” said Chopik. “How we view ourselves changes constantly as we age.”

For me, it’s been more like a sentence to self-motivate. At age 66, when I look in the mirror, I may not see a 46-year-old staring back at me — but, perhaps, someone closer to 56. Maybe it’s because I’m so lousy at sitting still. I’m out walking my dog at 6:15 a.m., lifting weights in the gym by 7:30 a.m. and swimming laps in the pool before 9 a.m. five days a week. Welcome to my nonstop world that seems to somehow keep old age partially in check.

While it might not sound like your world, consider Theresa Paulus — the mother-in-law of USC’s Ailshire — who seems to be constantly in motion, too.

The 63-year-old Tempe, Ariz., resident’s morning bicycle workout, alone, makes my daily workout schedule look lame. She’s typically up by 5 a.m. and quickly out on her Trek bike for the next hour — or more — on a 10-mile-long excursion. If the weather is lousy, she’ll instead find her way to the spinning class at the local gym before heading to the weight room.

“I honestly feel like I’m in my 40s,” said the full-time nursing home caregiver, who three years ago, at age 60, got her degree in health service management from Arizona State University. “I haven’t slowed down one bit from the exercise routine I did at 40.”

In fact, she may have upped it a bit. Not the distance, mind you, but every day she tries to challenge herself a bit. “Each time I ask myself, can I get there and back just a little bit faster?” she said. She may be passing it along to the next generation, too, as she has taught her two granddaughters how to ride bikes.

Paulus’ ability to rebound from injuries is legendary among friends and family. On a recent walking tour of Ireland’s Cliffs of Moher, she twisted her ankle but continued days of walking — only to discover when she got home that she’d broken her foot. Back in 1969, while training on her bike, she was hit by a car — but escaped without so much as one broken bone. And after a moped accident in 2010, she crushed her leg and was advised by her doctor that she’d always walk with a limp — and a cane. She proved the doctor wrong and was soon racing bikes again.

Her daughter-in-law, USC’s Ailshire, isn’t surprised by any of this. After all, she said, some baby boomers’ bodies can perform as if they are between two and 15 years younger than their actual age.

Paola Sebastiani, 55, is living proof. She barely qualifies as a baby boomer, but when asked how old she feels, the professor of biostatistics at Boston University said she doesn’t even feel 40.

Perhaps that’s because she walks 2 miles (in Birkenstock sandals, no less) to and from work every weekday. Or maybe it’s because she’s adamant about eating no red meat and tries to eat avocado daily. Or perhaps it’s her who-gives-a-flip attitude. “My mom would have never worn jeans at my age — but I wear them all the time,” she said. Her point: Folks with a positive attitude toward aging often age more slowly.

Which brings us back to my dear grandmother. The most familiar smell from her kitchen was that of the fried chicken crackling on the front burner every Friday evening. I can’t remember even once seeing her exercise. Action, in her world, was a game of cards. And, as was all too common in her day, she thought her smoking habit helped her to relax.

Is it any wonder she was old at 65?

So, at 66, I’ve given up on most fried foods. I’ve never smoked. I don’t sit around much playing cards or watching TV. And all the time I spent walking our dog, lifting weights and swimming laps this morning I view as an invisible shield that protects me from looking into the mirror and seeing an old man staring back.

Instead, I still see me.

This article/aging/why-your-perception-of-old-changes-as-you-age/">article; first appeared on �鶹Ů��" rel="nofollow">">�鶹Ů�� Health News and is republished here under a

/?republication-pixel=true&post=952977&ga4=G-J74WWTKFM0" style="width:1px;height:1px;">

Boot Camp After 60: 10 Steps To Turn Around Unhealthy Habits

Bruce Horovitz — Wed, 30 Jan 2019 10:00:58 +0000

It takes moxie to flip an unhealthy lifestyle to a healthy one — particularly for folks over 60.

Most baby boomers approach retirement age unwilling to follow basic healthy lifestyle goals established by the American Heart Association, said Dr. Dana King, professor and chairman of the department of family medicine at West Virginia University, referencing his university’s comparing the healthy lifestyle rates of retired late-middle-aged adults with rates among those still working.

Kaiser Health News interviewed three other prominent experts on aging and health about how seniors can find the will to adopt healthier habits.

“People do financial planning for retirement, but what about retirement health planning?” King said.

Motivated seniors can begin by following KHN’s 10-step program:

1. Buy great sneakers. Purchase a pair of top-quality sneakers specifically designed for walking, said Carolyn Rosenblatt, founder of , who started participating in triathlons at age 63 and continues to do them at age 70. Start by walking around the block. Expand that to 30-minute walks at least three times weekly — or set a goal to increase your walking distance 10 percent each week. And leave your sneakers by the front door.

2. Practice your balance. The best way to avoid falls is to retain a good sense of balance, said Rosenblatt. Practice standing on one leg with your eyes closed for at least 30 seconds.

3. Improve your breakfast. Stop eating the sweet roll with coffee. Consider substituting a home-blended smoothie with a banana, seasonal fruits, almond milk and protein powder or a protein patty without sugar. And cut out excess sugar in all your meals, said Rosenblatt. Replace soda with seltzer water.

4. De-stress wisely. Find ways to manage your stress that don’t involve food, alcohol or smoking. There are lots of meditation programs you can download on your phone and listen to for even 10 minutes, said Rosenblatt.

5. Practice resistance training. To keep your muscle mass from disappearing, do resistance training by lifting dumbbells or barbells or using weight machines, said Kay Van Norman, owner of Brilliant Aging, a consulting firm for healthier aging. “Your muscles are amazing, but if you don’t use them, you lose them,” she said.

6. Hit the floor. Aging adults need to regularly practice getting down on the floor and standing back up again. “If you don’t get down on the floor and back up, you won’t be able to do it after a while,” said Van Norman.

7. Challenge your speed. While it might not seem as if folks over 60 need to worry about exercise that involves speed and intensity, they do, said Van Norman. “Most people don’t even think about speed in order to stay healthy. But tennis players are doing that all the time. You need to do something to challenge your speed, not just your power.” That’s why sports like tennis can be terrific as you age, she said.

8. Believe in yourself. Faced with self-doubt and depression after several tragic, challenging events, Sharon Sultan Cutler, 71, turned to therapy to help her feel better about herself. “The first person you have to believe in is yourself,” said Sultan Cutler, an author. “People like to be around other people who believe in themselves.”

9. Tackle a project. Pick a project that has meaning to you. Sultan Cutler opted to co-author (with two other writers) her first book, “Bandstand Diaries: The Philadelphia Years, 1956-1963,” an inside look at her once favorite TV show, Dick Clark’s “American Bandstand.” Never mind that she’d never written a book before. Now she’s on her third book, “Your New You After 65: Valuable Advice to Inspire Your Awesome Aging.” “It’s like having a daydream that you can actually make happen,” she said.

10. Embrace self-improvement. Some call this lifelong learning. Living a healthier lifestyle requires constant learning and self-improvement, said Sultan Cutler. Seek out local learning resources like community colleges, where classes are often steeply discounted for seniors, she said. “Self-improvement isn’t just physical. It’s mental, too.”

This article/aging/boot-camp-after-60-10-steps-to-turn-around-unhealthy-habits/">article; first appeared on �鶹Ů��" rel="nofollow">">�鶹Ů�� Health News and is republished here under a

/?republication-pixel=true&post=908442&ga4=G-J74WWTKFM0" style="width:1px;height:1px;">

Who Knew? Life Begins (Again) At 65

Bruce Horovitz — Mon, 15 Oct 2018 09:00:52 +0000

I was convinced I would become an adult when I turned 21. But now, I’m certain that turning 65 was the watershed moment that finally grew me up.

I’m pleased as pomegranate punch to be 65 — and alive. Not just alive and breathing, but actively engaged in making the right choices about this next chapter.

“We enter this phase of life without a playbook or anything equivalent to institutions like elementary school and college that prepare youth for adulthood,” said James Firman, CEO of the National Council on Aging, who turned 65 two years ago. “There’s really nothing to prepare us for the transition to this next phase of life.”

Bruce Horovitz plays Wallyball with friends early every Friday morning at a local recreation center in Falls Church, Va. (Credit: Alan Frank)

My playbook on preparing for life after 65:

Consider enrolling in Medicare Part A, to cover hospitalization expenses. It works for me because my family is still covered under my wife’s health care plan.
Double up on checkups. My annual visit to my primary care doctor evolved into a biannual visit. “Age 65 is a time to proactively visit a geriatric physician instead of just going when you’re in trouble,” said Dr. Ardeshir Hashmi, director of the Center for Geriatric Medicine at Cleveland Clinic. “Don’t wait until things get to a point where you’re in a cycle of being in and out of the hospital all the time.” Starting at age 65, he said, these visits should last longer than the standard 20 minutes — so older patients have time to discuss what’s on their minds. Older patients who do this regularly tend to require “minor tweaks” instead of major repairs, said Hashmi.
Schedule annual visits to the dermatologist, ophthalmologist — and visits every five years to the gastroenterologist. “Establishing a coordinated care team becomes more important at 65,” said Jean Setzfand, senior vice president of programs at AARP.
Take the leap and sign up for long-term health insurance. My wife and I finally did after putting it off for years. Remember, it’s a lot easier — and cheaper — to get when you’re younger than 65.
Stick to a vaccine regimen. Vaccines are important again. I’ve since received my first pneumonia vaccine. My doctor also told me to get the new shingles vaccine, Shingrix, because I developed shingles about five years ago.
Evaluate your diet. I have mostly stopped eating red meat, except for the very occasional burger. I now opt for meals mostly composed of fruit, veggies and my new diet staple that I used to gag on as a kid: salmon.
Bone up on Social Security. I attended a free county-funded seminar at the local library. Then, to discuss my personal needs, I met (for free) with the same volunteer who led the seminar.
Challenge your financial plan. I changed financial advisers — based on recommendations from trusted friends — because my portfolio really matters now.
Serve your community. I bumped-up my volunteer schedule to once a week instead of once a month at a local food pantry. I also volunteer every other week at a local homeless shelter on the 5 p.m.-to-midnight shift. I’ve most recently started to volunteer at an equestrian therapy center for kids with mental or physical handicaps. Each of my volunteer gigs reflect my personal interests.
Stay active. I extended my daily exercise routine from five days to seven. I now swim at least five days a week; take our dog, Shadow, for 45-minute walks twice daily; and hit the weight room at least twice weekly. I also play (a fast-moving form of indoor volleyball where the walls are considered inbounds) every week with friends who are equally motivated to stay in shape.
Stay flexible. I learned to stretch my back muscles an extra long time before beginning any strenuous exercise. When I forget, I inevitably pay for it.
Look to the future. I initiated “adult,” end-of-life conversations with my kids that I wish my parents had had with me.
Get your paperwork in order. I not only updated my will but I filled out a “Five Wishes” end-of-life pamphlet created by the Aging With Dignity nonprofit group; and I got very specific, in writing, about where I want my ashes to be scattered.
Stay connected — and not solely to devices. I stopped taking my friends for granted, banished past grudges and re-established contact with a best buddy from college whose friendship I’d foolishly let slip away.

Bruce Horovitz, who volunteers weekly for the Arlington (Va.) Food Assistance Center, mans a booth to recruit student volunteers during an event at George Mason High School in Falls Church, Va. (Credit: Marybeth Connelly/Falls Church City Public Schools)

Horovitz takes his dog, Shadow, on two 45-minute walks daily. (Credit: Evelyne Horovitz)

Age 65 is when many of us realize that we’re mortal. “This is when we start thinking about our next 20 to 30 years,” said Hashmi. “It’s when we ask: How can I be smart about investing my remaining decades wisely?”

Eric Tyson, author of “Personal Finance After 50 for Dummies,” theorizes that one of the most powerful undercurrents of turning 65 is how it affects the working lives of so many Americans. It’s when the majority go from working full time to working less — or not working at all, he said. “The best scenario is when this change can unfold over many years instead of all at once.”

It has for me. Things started changing at age 62, when I took a buyout from USA TODAY, where I’d worked for 20-plus years as a marketing reporter. I’m now a freelance writer and media training consultant.

So, at 65, the one thing I’ve opted to put off for at least a few years is retiring. While 65 still remains the most common retirement age, more and more folks are breaking that tradition, said AARP’s Setzfand.

Call it living with purpose.

Turning 65 is not just an extension of middle age. It’s a new life chapter that’s waiting to be written. “It’s a new stage of life that reminds us we don’t have forever,” said Firman. About a decade ago, at age 56, Firman had a quintuple bypass operation. His father, grandfather and uncle all died of heart disease in their 40s and 50s.

Firman isn’t distraught over the family genes he inherited. Instead, he’s celebrating his survival. When he turned 65 two years ago, he said, he had a realization that the real purpose of aging is to make the world a better place. “Life is a gift,” he said. “Success in old age starts with an attitude of gratitude.”

It seems Firman and I share one common trait: We both grew up at 65.

This article/aging/who-knew-life-begins-again-at-65/">article; first appeared on �鶹Ů��" rel="nofollow">">�鶹Ů�� Health News and is republished here under a

/?republication-pixel=true&post=872689&ga4=G-J74WWTKFM0" style="width:1px;height:1px;">

Feel Like The Last Friend Standing? Here’s How To Cultivate New Buds As You Age.

Bruce Horovitz — Mon, 09 Jul 2018 09:00:26 +0000

Donn Trenner, 91, estimates that two-thirds of his friends are dead.

“That’s a hard one for me,” he said. “I’ve lost a lot of people.”

As baby boomers age, more and more folks will . They will not only lose friends but face the daunting task of making new friends at an advanced age.

Friendship in old age plays a critical role in health and well-being, according to recent from the Stanford Center on Longevity’s Sightlines Project. Socially isolated individuals face health risks comparable to those of smokers, and their mortality risk is twice that of obese individuals, the study notes.

Baby boomers are more disengaged with their neighbors and even their loved ones than any other generation, said Dr. Laura Carstensen, who is director of the Stanford Center on Longevity and herself a boomer, in her 60s. “If we’re disengaged, it’s going to be harder to make new friends,” she said.

Trenner knows how that feels. In 2017, right before New Year’s, he tried to reach his longtime friend Rose Marie, former actress and co-star on the 1960s sitcom “The Dick Van Dyke Show.” Trenner traveled with Rose Marie as a pianist and arranger doing shows at senior centers along the Florida coast more than four decades ago.

“When we were performing, you could hear all the hearing aids screaming in the audience,” he joked.

The news that she’d died shook him to the core.

Although she was a friend who, he said, cannot be replaced, neither her passing nor the deaths of dozens of his other friends and associates will stop Trenner from making new friends.

That’s one reason he still plays, on Monday nights, with the Hartford Jazz Orchestra at the Arch Street Tavern in Hartford, Conn.

For the past 19 years, he’s been the orchestra’s pianist and musical conductor. Often, at least one or two members of the 17-piece orchestra can’t make it to the gig but must arrange for someone to stand in for them. As a result, Trenner said, he not only has regular contact with longtime friends but keeps meeting and making friends with new musicians — most of whom are under 50.

Twice divorced, he also remains good friends with both of his former wives. And not too long ago, Trenner flew to San Diego to visit his best friend, also a musician, who was celebrating his 90th birthday. They’ve known each other since they met at age 18 in the United States Army Air Corps. They still speak almost daily.

“Friendship is not be taken for granted,” said Trenner. “You have to invest in friendship.”

Even in your 90s, the notion of being a sole survivor can seem surprising.

Perhaps that’s why 91-year-old Lucille Simmons of Lakeland, Fla., halts, midsentence, as she traces the multiple losses of friends and family members. She has not only lost her two closest friends, but a granddaughter, a daughter and her husband of 68 years. Although her husband came from a large family of 13 children, his siblings have mostly all vanished.

“There’s only one living sibling — and I’m having dinner with him tonight,” said Simmons.

Five years ago, Simmons left her native Hamilton, Ohio, to move in with her son and his wife, in a gated, 55-and-over community midway between Tampa and Orlando. She had to learn how to make friends all over again. Raised as an only child, she said, she was up to the task.

Simmons takes classes and plays games at her community. She also putters around her community on a golf cart (which she won in a raffle) inviting folks to ride along with her.

For his part, Trenner doesn’t need a golf cart.

His personal formula for making friends is music, laughter and staying active. He makes friends whether he’s performing or attending music events or teaching.

Simmons has her own formula. It’s a roughly 50-50 split of spending quality time with relatives (whom she regards as friends) and non-family friends. The odds are with her. This, after all, is a woman who spent 30 years as the official registrar of vital statistics for Hamilton. In that job, she was responsible for recording every birth — and every death — in the city.

Experts say they’re both doing the right thing by not only remaining open to new friendships but constantly creating new ways to seek them out — even at an advanced age.

Genuine friendships at any age typically require repeated contact, said Dr. Andrea Bonior, author of “The Friendship Fix: The Complete Guide to Choosing, Losing and Keeping Up with Your Friends.” She advises older folks to join group exercise classes or knitting or book clubs.

She also suggests that seniors get involved in “altruistic behavior” like volunteering in a soup kitchen or an animal shelter or tutoring English as a second language.

“Friendships don’t happen in a vacuum,” she said. “You don’t meet someone at Starbucks and suddenly become best friends.”

Perhaps few understand the need for friendship in older years better than Carstensen, who, besides directing the Stanford Center on Longevity, is author of “A Long Bright Future: Happiness, Health and Financial Security in an Age of Increased Longevity.”

Carstensen said that going back to school can be one of the most successful ways for an older person to make a new friend.

Bonior recommends that seniors embrace social media. These social media connections can help older people strike up new friendships with nieces, nephews and even grandchildren, said Alan Wolfelt, an author, educator and founder of the Center for Loss and Life Transition.

“It’s important to create support systems that don’t isolate you with your own generation.”

Many older folks count their children as their best friends — and Carstensen said this can be a big positive on several levels.

“I don’t think it matters who your friends are,” she said. “It’s the quality of the relationship that matters most.”

This article/aging/feel-like-the-last-friend-standing-heres-how-to-cultivate-new-buds-as-you-age/">article; first appeared on �鶹Ů��" rel="nofollow">">�鶹Ů�� Health News and is republished here under a

/?republication-pixel=true&post=844133&ga4=G-J74WWTKFM0" style="width:1px;height:1px;">