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The Australians continue to take a leadership position in providing resources for helping address issues facing people providing services to multiple cultures.
This time it is Multicultural Mental Health Australia, who recently released a number of new mental health resources in over 20 languages. The topics covered include mental illness, anxiety, bipolar mood disorder, eating disorders and depression and many more.
This would be a good resource to share with your staff and families, especially if you have residents and staff from many different cultures and language bases.
For those of you interested in what’s going on in China – in addition to the Olympics and the issues surrounding Tibet – the Chinese Government has issued a paper describing its plan for dealing with its increasing elderly population. Entitled ‘The Development of China’s Undertakings for the Aged’, the paper outlines their official position on a variety of issues, including:
I. State Mechanism of Undertakings for the Aged
II. Old-age Security System
III. Health and Medical Care for the Aged
IV. Social Services for an Ageing Society
V. Cultural Education for the Aged
VI. Participation in Social Development
VII. Safeguarding Elderly People’s Legitimate Rights and Interests
Can you measure happiness – especially as a function of age?
The European Centre for Social Welfare Policy and Research in Vienna, Austria, has developed a paper that looks into the relationship of ageing and happiness.
It seems that ageing per se does not result in a decline in happiness. But happiness is closely affected by changing preferences (by the decreasing importance of work, the increasing importance of religion, and the declining disutility of being single), and partly by changing circumstances. While changing preferences seem to increase well-being, changing circumstances seem to decrease it. Old days thus are happy above all due to changing priorities in life.
It seems logical to me.
I read BBC online every day to see what’s going on around the world related to ageing. Today I’ll share three articles focusing on research on ageing and ‘drugs’ – I call it The Good, the Bad and the Tasty.
The Good News: Blood pressure drugs help elderly – Imperial College London researchers announce that blood pressure drugs cut the risk of strokes and heart problems in the over 80s.
The Bad News: Medication ‘worsens’ Alzheimer’s’ – a research report from Kings College London says that anti-psychotic drugs have no long-term benefit for patients with mild symptoms and may even cause a deterioration in behavior.
And The Tasty News: Daily Caffeine Protects the Brain – in the past there have been conflicting reports on the benefits or detriments of caffeine. Now research published by the University of North Dakota suggests that coffee may cut the risk of dementia by blocking the damage cholesterol can inflict on the body.
You never know what will effect your life. Personally I avoid taking any medications at all. But I do love a good cup of coffee. Thankfully I don’t have to worry about that, for now at least.
The Centre for Cultural Diversity in Ageing, located in Victoria, Australia, is an online source of information on culturally appropriate aged care.
The Centre was developed to guide and promote best practice standards of care that address cultural diversity across all levels of service design and delivery.
They have developed a glossary of over 1000 terms used in ageing and translated them into 13 community languages. Even though some of the terms are tailored to the Australian ageing service system, I would think that the Glossary of Aged Care Terminology would be very useful for organizations needing to promote consistency of translations of aged care information.
Last week I read an article from the Chicago Sun Times about the growing need for creation of accessible housing for the ageing baby boomers in the US – the Post-WW2 generation that will become the largest segment in US history to age at one time.
As they age and begin to hit geriatric roadblocks, some will need special housing.
Making new housing accessible is required by law – making new construction specifically designed to be lived in or visited by people who have trouble with steps or use wheelchairs or walkers.
But the term ‘visitable’ was new to me. And I think a good addition to the vocabulary. It means that the building is inclusive to everyone. It allows a person with a disability to become integrated into a community – to be able to ‘visit’. And these ‘visitable’ homes are designed to allow for greater adaptations as the owners’ needs change.
Consumers and ageing service providers are expecting a lot from new technologies – helping folks stay independent longer, enabling workers to concentrate on care giving rather then record keeping and reducing the number of medication errors, for example.
And if anyone can make it happen it is Dr. Majd Alwan, CAST* Director and world-recognized researcher in ageing service technologies.
In a recent interview with Nursing Homes Magazine, Dr. Alwan outlined CAST’s new direction in taking a more proactive role in assisting providers to identify their needs and review relevant technologies. CAST is also encouraging pilot research studies with outcome measures to validate the usefulness of various technologies.
“Key factors to success are ease of use, attention to staff training and good availability of technical support”, noted Alwan.
Bookmark CAST’s website – you’ll want to visit it often.
*Center for Aging Services Technologies
Tackling unemployment is a major concern in Europe. The European Employment Strategy (EES), initiated in 1997, was created to help European Union countries create more and better jobs. They recently issued a progress report on their effectiveness of the EES in meeting the employment goals for the EU.
According to AGE, The European Older People’s Platform, the EES needs to place more emphasis on helping older workers reconcile professional and private life, enabling them to take time off to care for dependant family members.
Other observations made by AGE include:
- European labor markets are not sufficiently responsive to the challenges of globalization and ageing
- Older workers still represent one of the largest untapped target groups for raising employment
- The lowest participation rates in lifelong learning throughout the EU continue to be those of older workers
As we’ve noted in earlier postings, many countries are looking to have a supply of older workers to help keep the economy going as their population ages and the number of younger workers dwindle. To make this happen governments will need to be more worker friendly and offer incentives to keep folks from retiring. The EES report shows that not to be the case in Europe, yet.
IAHSA Past Chair, Espen Aspnes is a Senior Advisor with SINTEF, a leading research organization in technological development. He recently visited South Korea to learn more about how that rapidly growing economy is dealing with the challenges of an ageing society. According to the Korea National Statistical Office, it will take only 19 years for the number of people over 65 to double from 7% to 14%. Compare that to 47 years in the UK and 76 years in Norway.
Given these daunting statistics, the Koreans are investing in technology in a big way. One of Espen’s colleagues, Changan Choi, market adviser at Innovation Norway in Seoul, issued a report on the trends and opportunities in the sector – with a major focus on technology. It is good to see how countries are sharing advancements. A good example of creating community across borders. Thanks, Espen, for sending this to us.
Overview of trends and opportunities in the medical and health sector
Design for retirement communities and senior housing is an ever growing field, as providers are becoming more sensitive to consumer needs as well as adopting principles for sustainability.
The American Institute of Architects recently released their 2007 Design for Aging Awards.
It is worth noting that many of the projects on the AIA winners list were also part of IAHSA’s 1st International Design for Ageing Showcase and Symposia that debuted at the IAHSA conference in Malta in the summer of 2007.
We’ll be sponsoring another IAHSA International Design for Ageing Showcase in London in 2009 so stay tuned.
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