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.”

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“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.

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.

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.”

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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.”

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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.”

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Pero en enero de 2019, el crucero, que se autodefine como uno de los más grandes del mundo, estuvo en los titulares por noticias menos felices: cientos de pasajeros se enfermaron por norovirus, una afección gastrointestinal altamente contagiosa.

Los Centros para el Control y Prevención de Enfermedades (CDC) informaron que fueron tratados en un crucero fuera de Port Canaveral, en Florida. Más que el número total de pasajeros que se enfermaron por norovirus en cada crucero que zarpó en 2018, .

Podría haber sido peor. Tan miserable como es el norovirus, los pasajeros a veces enfrentan crisis más graves en el mar. De hecho, la mayoría de los cruceros tienen morgues a bordo, y centros médicos. El año pasado, se informaron 189 muertes en cruceros, según datos de los CDC proporcionados a Kaiser Health News.

Con un récord de 30 millones de personas viajando en cruceros este año, es vital entender la atención disponible.

Antes de pagar un depósito por cualquier crucero, tómate el tiempo para leer más allá del material de marketing de la compañía, para estudiar la calidad de las instalaciones médicas, explicó Ken Carver, presidente de International Cruise Victims, una organización sin fines de lucro que apoya a los pasajeros que sufren lesiones o enfermedades en el mar. La mayoría de las líneas de cruceros no están lo suficientemente preparadas para atender enfermedades o accidentes graves, dijo.

“Tu salud está en riesgo si te enfermas en un crucero”, aseguró Carver.

Los funcionarios de la industria de cruceros están totalmente en desacuerdo.

“La seguridad y la comodidad de nuestros huéspedes y nuestra tripulación es de suma importancia para la industria de cruceros, que incluye instalaciones médicas y personal”, dijo Megan King, vocera de la Cruise Lines International Association.

Existen reglas y regulaciones claras para la atención médica en cruceros. Al menos un profesional médico calificado debe estar disponible a toda hora en cada viaje.

Además, todos los barcos que transportan al menos 250 pasajeros, tienen alojamiento para pasar la noche y se embarcan o desembarcan en los Estados Unidos deben tener un consultorio, una sala de cuidados intensivos y equipos para procesar el trabajo de laboratorio, controlar los signos vitales y administrar medicamentos.

Pero la atención médica para los pasajeros que sufren lesiones o enfermedades graves puede verse comprometida por las limitaciones de estar en el mar sin el beneficio de equipos médicos costosos y médicos especializados, dijo Carver. Los problemas se pueden ampliar aún más porque:

• Los médicos en los cruceros no suelen ser especialistas. Los cruceros suelen contratar médicos para atender problemas de salud como un norovirus. “Muchos médicos en cruceros ni siquiera están calificados para una sala de emergencias”, dijo Philip Gerson, abogado que durante 49 años ha demandado a las líneas de cruceros por todo: desde lesiones personales hasta muerte por mala praxis. La mayoría de los casos son incidentes de resbalones y caídas que resultan en lesiones ortopédicas, dijo.
• El horario del centro médico es limitado. Por ejemplo, cuando los cruceros Carnival están en el mar, el horario de atención de la clínica es de 9am a 12pm y de 3pm a 6pm. En los días que el barco está anclado en el puerto, el horario es de 8 am a 10 am y de 4pm a 6 pm, según el sitio web de la compañía.
• Algunos médicos a bordo no hablan inglés con fluidez. Los médicos extranjeros pueden ser excelentes y las líneas de cruceros requieren que estén certificados bajo los estándares estadounidenses. Pero pocos pasajeros se dan cuenta que algunos médicos a bordo pueden no hablar bien inglés, lo que puede ser importante en situaciones críticas, dijo Gerson.
• Pocos pasajeros saben cómo funciona su seguro de salud en el mar. Antes de comprar un paquete para un crucero, es fundamental consultar con tu aseguradora para ver si estás cubierto y cómo estás cubierto por problemas médicos en alta mar, recomendó Brett Rivkind, abogado marítimo con sede en Miami que ha manejado miles de demandas de cruceros durante 35 años. La pregunta que debes hacerte es: si me enfermo o me lesiono en el crucero, ¿cómo estoy cubierto?
• La mayoría de los pasajeros no compran seguro de viaje. El seguro de viaje puede parecer una pérdida de dinero, lo que puede explicar por qué la mayoría no lo compra, pero el seguro puede ahorrarles a los pasajeros muy enfermos cientos de miles de dólares, dijo Rivkind. Contó que tuvo un cliente jaqueado por una factura de ambulancia aérea de $500,000. El Plan de Protección de Vacaciones en Crucero de Carnival reembolsa hasta $10,000 por ciertos costos médicos y hasta $30,000 por evacuación médica de emergencia, dice la compañía en su sitio. Las pólizas de Carnival van desde $49 por persona para los cruceros menos costosos hasta $189 por persona para viajes más caros. Pero Rivkind dijo que en general es mejor comprar un seguro de una compañía independiente que directamente de la línea de cruceros.
• Los pasajeros lesionados deben actuar como sus propios investigadores. Si te resbalas, te caes y te rompes un brazo o una pierna en un crucero, es fundamental actuar rápidamente por tus propios intereses, sugirió Gerson. Toma fotos de dónde te caíste (o pídele a otra persona que lo haga si no puedes). Consigue un video de la escena, si es posible. Y, si recibes atención médica a bordo, asegúrate de solicitar una copia de tus registros médicos. Todo esto debe enviarse por correo electrónico a tu abogado, dijo.

Algunas compañías de cruceros intentan recopilar información de los pasajeros por razones legales. Si una línea de cruceros tiene un formulario de lesiones para pasajeros que específicamente pregunta qué pudo haber hecho el pasajero para evitar el accidente, “deja esa parte del formulario en blanco”, dijo Gerson. Esta es la forma en que la compañía trata de echarte la culpa por el accidente o lesión.

Que te trasladen fuera del barco para atención médica no siempre es algo bueno. Cuando un pasajero tiene un problema médico grave, el crucero a menudo deja al paciente en el próximo puerto en busca de ayuda, dijo Gerson. Si el próximo puerto es Nueva Jersey, eso podría estar bien, pero si es un lugar en el extranjero, tal vez no, dijo. Podrías considerar negarte a bajar del barco si desconfías de la atención médica en un puerto, sugirió.

Ver a un médico, particularmente después de horas, puede ser difícil. “A veces tienes que tener un miembro de la familia muy persistente”, dijo Rivkind. “Debes estar preparado para ser muy persistente y hacer lo que tienes que hacer para llamar la atención de alguien”.

Después de la situación con el contagio por norovirus en el crucero Oasis of the Seas en enero, Royal Caribbean ofreció reembolsos completos a los más de 5,400 pasajeros, aunque menos del 9% se enfermó. Pero los reembolsos no pagarán facturas médicas inesperadamente enormes en el mar.

“Las líneas de cruceros protegen a las líneas de cruceros”, dijo Carver. “Si algo malo sucede en altamar, tienes que protegerte a ti mismo”.

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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.”

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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?

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.

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.”

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Muchos de nosotros estamos convencidos que mientras todos los demás envejecen, esa persona que vemos en el espejo cada mañana está envejeciendo mágicamente a un ritmo algo más lento. Y esta “confusión” puede comenzar temprano. Una de la Universidad Estatal de Michigan de 2018, realizada con personas de entre 10 y 89 años, reveló que la mayoría piensa que la edad mediana comienza a los 30, y que la vejez comienza, oh Dios mío, a partir de los 50.

, de la Universidad de Zurich, publicado en 2011, determinó que los adultos mayores a menudo intentan evitar los estereotipos negativos de su grupo de edad tomando distancia. Y una , de la Universidad de Columbia, encontró evidencia considerable de que cuando se enfrentan con estereotipos de edad negativos, los adultos mayores tienden a distanciarse y disociarse de este estereotipo negativo.

Llámalo como quieras, pero este grupo de “baby boomers” (los nacidos después de la Segunda Guerra Mundial) de cabello canoso, en el que me incluyo, está teniendo dificultades para aceptar la realidad del envejecimiento. Sí, somos mortales, pero no lo creemos del todo. Expertos en el paso del tiempo dicen que la gran ironía es que este flirteo con una realidad ligeramente diferente a la de nuestros compañeros de envejecimiento puede, de hecho, ser algo saludable.

“Los baby boomers están redefiniendo qué es el envejecimiento y cómo se ve la vejez”, explicó Jennifer Ailshire, profesora asistente en la Escuela de Gerontología Leonard Davis de la Universidad del Sur de California. William Chopik, profesor asistente de psicología e investigador principal del estudio de Michigan, lo sabe mejor que nadie.

“Las personas, especialmente los adultos mayores, suelen decir que se sienten más jóvenes de lo que son”, dijo Chopik. “Las personas que dicen sentirse más jóvenes en realidad tienden a vivir vidas más largas y sanas, y no tienden a tener un patrón de debacle tan grande”.

En la mayoría de los casos, las personas dicen que se sienten aproximadamente un 20% más jóvenes de lo que realmente son, según el , que abarcó a más de 500,000 personas. Esto sigue aumentando a medida que la gente envejece, agregó. A partir de los 50, muchos dicen que se sienten unos 10 años más jóvenes.

El hecho de que generalmente vivimos más que antes también juega un papel, dicen expertos. “A medida que nuestra vida se alarga, también cambia nuestra visión de la vejez”, dijo Chopik. “Cómo nos vemos a nosotros mismos cambia constantemente a medida que envejecemos”.

Para mí, ha sido más como una oración de auto motivación. A los 66 años, cuando me miro en el espejo, es posible que no vea a alguien de 46 mirándome fijamente, pero tal vez sí a alguien más cercano a los 56. Tal vez es porque no puedo quedarme quieto. Salgo a pasear a mi perro a las 6:15 am, levanto pesas en el gimnasio a las 7:30 am, y estoy nadando antes de las 9 am cinco días, a la semana. Bienvenido a mi mundo sin escalas que parece que de alguna manera mantiene parcialmente controlada la vejez.

Si bien puede que no suene como tu mundo, considera a Theresa Paulus, la suegra de Ailshire, la profesora de la Universidad del Sur de California, quien también parece estar constantemente en movimiento.

Solo la rutina en bicicleta que tiene cada mañana la residente de Tempe, Arizona, de 63 años, hace ver a la mía como algo pobre. Por lo general, Paulus se levanta a las 5 am y sale rápidamente en su bicicleta Trek durante la próxima hora, o más, en una excursión de 10 millas. Si el clima es pésimo, en su lugar encontrará el camino a la clase de spinning en el gimnasio local antes de dirigirse a la sala de pesas.

“Honestamente, siento que estoy en mis 40”, dijo la enfermera de tiempo completo en un hogar de vida asistida quien, hace tres años, a los 60, se graduó en administración de servicios de salud de la Universidad Estatal de Arizona. “No he disminuido ni un poco la rutina de ejercicios que hacía a los 40”.

De hecho, puede que hasta la haya aumentado un poco. No la distancia, claro, pero todos los días trata de desafiarse un poco a ella misma, preguntándose si puede hacerlo un poco más rápido. También ha pasado su entusiasmo a la siguiente generación, ya que les ha enseñado a sus dos nietas a andar en bicicleta.

La capacidad de Paulus para recuperarse de las lesiones es legendaria entre amigos y familiares. En un reciente recorrido a pie por los Acantilados de Moher, en Irlanda, se torció el tobillo, pero continuó caminando, solo para descubrir cuando volvió a casa que se había roto el pie. En 1969, mientras entrenaba en su bicicleta, fue atropellada por un automóvil, pero escapó sin siquiera un hueso roto. Y después de un accidente con un ciclomotor en 2010, se aplastó la pierna y su médico le aconsejó que siempre caminara con un bastón. Paulus demostró que el doctor estaba equivocado y pronto estaba participando de nuevo en carreras de bicicletas.

A su nuera, Ailshire de la USC, no le sorprende nada de esto. Después de todo, dijo, los cuerpos de algunos baby boomers pueden funcionar como si fueran entre dos y 15 años más jóvenes que su edad real.

Paola Sebastiani, de 55 años, es una prueba viviente. Apenas califica como baby boomer, pero cuando se le preguntó qué edad tenía, la profesora de bioestadística de la Universidad de Boston dijo que ni siquiera se siente de 40.

Tal vez sea porque va al trabajo, y vuelve, caminando dos millas cada día. O tal vez porque se muestra inflexible en no comer carne roja y trata de comer aguacate a diario. O quizás es su actitud. “Mi mamá nunca hubiera usado jeans a mi edad, pero yo los uso todo el tiempo”, dijo. Su punto: las personas con una actitud positiva hacia el envejecimiento a menudo envejecen más lentamente.

Lo que nos lleva de nuevo a mi querida abuela. El olor más familiar de su cocina era el del pollo frito que crujía en la hornalla todos los viernes por la noche. No puedo recordar ni una vez viéndola hacer ejercicio. La acción, en su mundo, era un juego de cartas. Y, como era muy común en su tiempo, pensaba que fumar la ayudaba a relajarse.

¿Es de extrañar que fuera vieja a los 65?

Entonces, a los 66, he renunciado a la mayoría de los alimentos fritos. Nunca he fumado. No me siento mucho a jugar cartas o a mirar televisión. Y todo el tiempo que paso paseando a mi perro, levantando pesas y nadando a la mañana, lo veo como un escudo invisible que me protege de mirarme en el espejo y ver a un anciano que me mira fijamente.

En cambio, todavía me veo a mí mismo.

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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.

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La mayoría de los baby boomers (los nacidos después de la Segunda Guerra Mundial) se acercan a la edad de jubilación y parece que no están muy dispuestos a seguir los objetivos básicos de estilo de vida saludable establecidos por la American Heart Association, dijo la doctora Dana King, profesora y presidenta del departamento de medicina familiar de la Universidad de West Virginia. Esta afirmación se basa en el que realizó su universidad en 2017, que compara las tasas de estilo de vida saludable en adultos jubilados mayores, con las de aquéllos que siguen trabajando.

Kaiser Health News (KHN) entrevistó a otros tres expertos en envejecimiento y salud sobre cómo las personas mayores pueden encontrar la voluntad para adoptar hábitos más saludables.

“La gente hace planificación financiera para la jubilación, pero ¿qué pasa con la planificación de la salud para el retiro?”, se preguntó King.

Los adultos mayores motivados pueden comenzar siguiendo el programa de 10 pasos de KHN:

1. Compra buenas zapatillas. Lo ideal son las deportivas de alta calidad, diseñadas específicamente para caminar, dijo Carolyn Rosenblatt, fundadora de , quien comenzó a participar en triatlones a los 63 años y continúa haciéndolo a los 70. Comienza caminando por tu cuadra. Amplía las caminatas a 30 minutos al menos tres veces por semana, o establece una meta para aumentar la distancia, por ejemplo, un 10% cada semana. Y deja tus zapatillas cerca de la puerta principal de tu casa.
2. Practica tu equilibrio. La mejor manera de evitar las caídas es mantener un buen sentido del equilibrio, dijo Rosenblatt. Practica pararte sobre una pierna con los ojos cerrados durante al menos 30 segundos.
3. Mejora tu desayuno. Deja de comer dulces con café. Considera la posibilidad de sustituirlos por un batido casero con un plátano, frutas de temporada, leche de almendras y proteína en polvo, o un pequeño pedazo de pastel sin azúcar. Y recorta el exceso de azúcar en todas tus comidas, dijo Rosenblatt. Reemplaza la soda por agua mineral.
4. Elimina el estrés sabiamente. Encuentra formas de controlar tu estrés que no impliquen alimentos, alcohol o fumar. Hay muchos programas de meditación que puedes descargar en tu teléfono y escuchar por no más de 10 minutos, explicó Rosenblatt.
5. Practica el entrenamiento de resistencia. Para evitar que tu masa muscular desaparezca, realiza ejercicios de resistencia levantando pesas o usando máquinas de pesas, apuntó Kay Van Norman, dueña de Brilliant Aging, una firma de consultoría para un envejecimiento más saludable. “Tus músculos son increíbles, pero si no los usas, los pierdes”, dijo.
6. Acércate al suelo. Los adultos mayores deben practicar regularmente agacharse y levantarse. “Si no lo haces, después de un tiempo perderás esa habilidad”, dijo Van Norman.
7. Desafía tu velocidad. Si bien puede parecer que las personas mayores de 60 no deben preocuparse por el ejercicio que involucra velocidad e intensidad, sí lo hacen, dijo Van Norman. “La mayoría de la gente ni siquiera piensa en la velocidad para mantenerse saludable. Pero los jugadores de tenis están haciendo eso todo el tiempo. Debes hacer algo para desafiar tu velocidad, no solo tu poder”. Es por eso que deportes como el tenis pueden ser espectaculares a medida que envejeces, dijo.
8. Cree en ti mismo. Sharon Sultan Cutler, de 71 años, enfrentó la duda y la depresión después de varios eventos trágicos y desafiantes. Sultan Cutler recurrió a la terapia para ayudarla a sentirse mejor consigo misma. “La primera persona en la que tienes que creer es en ti misma”, dijo Sultan Cutler, quien es escritora. “A la gente le gusta estar con otras personas que creen en sí mismas”.
9. Aborda un proyecto. Elige un proyecto que tenga significado para ti. Sultan Cutler optó por ser coautora (junto con otros dos escritores) de su primer libro, “Bandstand Diaries: The Philadelphia Years, 1956-1963”, una mirada interna sobre el que fuera su programa de televisión favorito, “American Bandstand”, de Dick Clark. Nunca había escrito un libro antes. Ahora está preparando su tercero, “Tu nuevo yo después de los 65: consejos valiosos para inspirar tu increíble envejecimiento”. “Es como tener un sueño que realmente puedes hacer realidad”, dijo.
10. Abraza la superación personal. Algunos llaman a esto el aprendizaje de por vida. Un estilo de vida más saludable requiere un aprendizaje constante y la superación personal, dijo Sultan Cutler. Busca recursos de aprendizaje locales como los colegios comunitarios, donde a menudo hay buenos descuentos para los adultos mayores que quieren cursar, dijo. “La superación personal no es sólo física. También es mental”.

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