Thursday, September 6, 2012

10:00 AM Pacific / 11:00 AM Mountain / 12:00 PM Central / 1:00 PM Eastern

We started the second camping trip of the summer at 6 a.m. from the Goleta Valley Senior Center. This wonderful group of women from our center were gung-ho for the journey, if not a little bit sleepy.

How does America rate when it comes to taking care of its older adults? In this year of election grandstanding and ongoing heated rhetoric about the nation's deficit, it's difficult to sort out face from hyperbole. The May/June 2012 In Focus section—as well as other feature articles in this issue of Aging Today—explores some of the realities of life for elder's in today's United States, and peeks into future issues for the many baby boomers who are reaching older age and anticipating use of our national entitlement programs.

Daniel Tepfer’s journey to full-time advocate began with a life-changing admission and an ingrained tendency to serve.

Statistics exist on the number of elders who are homeless, and how many might be mentally ill or drug addicted, but it might be a bit harder to find statistics on the effects of social isolation. What seems rare is to hear directly from those enduring this condition and how those in the aging services network offered them a way toward reconnection. Aging Today spoke with three older adults who talked about life on the fringe, and about how giving back helps them to hang on.

This spring and summer ASA is pleased to offer the MindAlert Speakers Bureau Web Seminar Series, sponsored by the MetLife Foundation. These web seminars, which explore the topic of brain health, are open to the public and include free CEUs. Each presentation is designed to offer tips, tools, and lessons from best-practice programs for professionals to use to implement their own activities to enhance cognitive function in later life. Join us to learn from these innovative community-based programs which are actively translating research to practice.