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Posts Tagged ‘aging’

A Few 100-Year-Olds

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 19, 2014| 2 Comments »

Erik, this one’s for you. I saw a book on 100-year-olds in your kitchen, and I know you and your company aim to enable us all to be centenarians.

Sally Williams writes in the Guardian, “Three score and 10 may be the span of a man, but no one has broken the news to David Bailey who, at 76, still behaves like someone turning one score and eight.

“Last month he walked into a studio in London (not his: too many stairs) to photograph some of Britain’s oldest people. The youngest was just 100; the oldest 107. Dressed in a baggy polo shirt and a pair of old combat trousers, small but physically imposing, Bailey flirted, flattered, insulted his subjects in order to get the picture he wanted.

“ ‘We’ve been married for 62 years,’ Shirley Arkush told Bailey of her husband David, one of the centenarians waiting to be photographed. ‘Same as me,’ he replied, ‘but not to the same wife.’ And he gave a combative, high-pitched laugh. (Bailey’s marriage to his first wife, Rosemary Bramble, lasted three years, and his second, to Catherine Deneuve, two; he was married to Marie Helvin for 10 years, before marrying Catherine Dyer in 1986.) …

“He worked at an incredible pace – nine portraits in four hours, and on subjects with a collective age of 917 years. ‘I’ve always wanted to photograph old people,’ he said at one point, after pinning one centenarian in forensic close-up (he had requested no makeup, only ‘a tidy-up’ for the women).

“Not everyone was happy. Joe Britton, 103, Chelsea Pensioner and horseracing enthusiast, said he knew Bailey and had been looking forward to seeing him again. But, ‘That’s not David Bailey,’ he said with disappointment after the shoot – his David Bailey is the horse trainer.” More pictures, more story here.

Photograph: David Bailey/Guardian
Violet Butler: ‘I’m no paragon. I used to smoke and drink, but not to excess.’

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Llamas Enliven Retirement Home

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 21, 2014| 6 Comments »

Kathy was telling me on the commuter train about an article on Littleton’s Life Care Center, which uses llamas and other critters to engage the residents.

I said, “Send me a link!”

Today I received the article in the Lowell Sun. Samantha Allen writes, “At the Life Care Center of Nashoba Valley, it’s not uncommon to see patients asleep in their wheelchairs by the saltwater-fish tank, or out for a stroll around a pasture filled with grass-grazing animals like goats and llamas.

“Director Ellen Levinson said while the merits of ‘pet therapy’ have been adopted and used at various skilled nursing facilities across the country, it’s rare to find chickens and alpacas at a site.

“At the 120-bed nursing home, which houses a specialized memory-support unit for those with severe dementia and other conditions that affect the memory, staff members make time to ensure their patients interact with the animals whenever possible.

” ‘This is my philosophy: A lot of places say, “We have pet therapy,” and what they have is someone who brings a dog in on a leash once a week,’ she said. ‘If I were living here, that would make me more miserable. It’s not like real life. It’s not like having a dog, and then you’re just tempted with what you could have all the time.’ …

“This spring, the Life Care Center of Nashoba Valley was awarded a perfect score by the [Massachusetts] Department of Public Health in a survey of nursing homes and senior-care providers.” According to Kathy, the Center is also friendly to outsiders, welcoming the public in for the llama shearing and other events.

Read more about the approach Levinson devised, here.

Photo: Life Care Center of Nashoba Valley 

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Individuality in Assisted Living

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 22, 2013| 5 Comments »

Being in the aging-happily business, Erik is always on the lookout for stories about how seniors are putting their own stamp on their later years, after they have given up skydiving.

He sent me an article about a gentleman called Martin Bayne, who has become a bit of an expert on assisted living, having tried one facility that literally drove him crazy and having eventually found one he loves.

Writes Judith Graham in the NY Times, “Sometimes Martin Bayne speaks in little more than a whisper, like many people with advanced Parkinson’s disease. But his voice has a way of carrying.

“Many consider him the nation’s foremost advocate for people in assisted living. … Dr. William Thomas, a geriatrician and nursing home reformer, wrote in an e-mail, ‘He has been able to do what very few others have done — he has told the story of life on the inside of long-term care.’

After his first assisted-living experience, says Graham, “Mr. Bayne relocated to a facility in northeastern Pennsylvania, where he has a single room and receives several hours of help from aides every day. From this perch, Mr. Bayne blogs about assisted living at thevoiceofagingboomers.com  …

Bayne tells Graham how critical he believes it is to reach out to the others around you when they feel down, “Sometimes just a hand on someone’s shoulder is all it takes. Sometimes picking up a fork that someone drops in the dining room on the floor. Sometimes, just sitting with someone. Trying to make people more comfortable. The simplest things in the world can lead to what I call incremental victories. That’s what I go for in my life.

“I sneak in touches whenever I can. I call them sneak attacks. I just go over and touch someone’s hand or some other part of them. Men are in need of it the most. Men are never touched, at least in this culture.”

Graham asks Bayne how he would run his dream facility, and he says, “First of all, when a prospective resident came to visit, I would have him sit down with 10 other residents. And we would ask, ‘What’s your passion? What motivates you? What’s your mission in life?’ If you don’t have an answer to those questions, then we don’t accept you. Because we want a community that is alive.

“There would be a welcoming committee for every new resident. You’d be taken around and treated like royalty when you first come in. We’d show you that we care about you.

“Once you’re here, you’d get a job. No matter how seemingly insignificant, you’d have responsibilities every day. And the emphasis wouldn’t be on you, the emphasis would be on the community.” More.

Some of the article is sad, but the idea that you can keep making things work for you — over a longer period of time than you may have thought —  is something to ponder.

“Dear Sir,” below, is the first art collaboration of Rhian and Ray Ferrer. Please visit Rhian’s WordPress blog for lots more art, http://artgland.wordpress.com.

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