A ton of things to sort out.

Research published in The Lancet and reported widely in the press this week (for more see www.inmyprime.info) predicts that about half of the children now being born in wealthier countries can expect to live to be 100 or more. Furthermore, with better and earlier medical intervention many of these later years can be free of serious disability. This Danish/German research adds more weight to the ever-growing need to address the issues surrounding population ageing and to acknowledge that the concept and definition of old age needs to be re-examined, mindsets changed and prejudices challenged.

The researchers have even suggested that the lifespans of people should now be considered in four stages: child, adult, young old age and old old age. This is something which those of us who specialise in the field have been banging on about for some time – it is just not possible to lump people who have reached a certain age all together and assume that they are elderly and that their active and useful lives have come to an end, along with their judgement, taste, ability to think for themselves and so on. We are talking about a 50-year time interval here – potentially half of one’s life. And if in “old old age” we can be independent and moderately healthy then what does it say for “young old age” or in my prime as we might describe it?

But living this long is not a “given”. It is dependent on many things – financial security, physical and mental well-being, a good reason to want to live that long, and adequate safety nets for when we might become old or infirm.

The serious debate is only just beginning.

 

 

Important opportunity to contribute to government thinking on age

 In July, in the midst of summer (?) the Government launched its strategy “Building A Society For All Ages” which is intended to help Britain prepare for our ageing society. The strategy builds on work already being done and sets out a number of new proposals which include:

• The launch of an interactive one stop shop for helping people plan ahead from 2010.  This will help people in mid-life to make decisions on financial, health, careers and other issues;
• A new Active at 60 package which will provide people with information about their entitlements and opportunities – helping them to stay active and involved in their later life;
• Working with local areas to develop a Good Place to Grow Old Programme with a National Agreement to promote the importance of ageing issues at a local level, and an innovative service delivery fund to test new approaches to delivering services for older people;
• A new UK Advisory Forum on Ageing will be responsible at a national level for providing advice to ministers across Government on additional steps that Government and partners need to take to improve well-being and independence in later life. 

These proposals form part of a full, formal public consultation in which views are welcomed from all on how government can implement these proposals and what more can be done to reach a vision of a society for all ages. They are keen to receive written responses and to hear views at a number of consultation events taking place across the country in September and October from local government, stakeholders, the voluntary and private sectors and the general public. 

This seems a real opportunity to make the views of older people heard. For further information and to contribute go to http://www.hmg.gov.uk/buildingasocietyforallages/consultation.aspx

It’s not going away!

This week I attended the first in a series of seminars under the title “Just Ageing” (http://justageing.equalityhumanrights.com/) which is being organised by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and the new charity formed from the merger of Age Concern and Help the Aged. The first seminar looked at our assumptions about the process of ageing itself during which Professor Tom Kirkwood, Director of The Institute for Ageing and Health at Newcastle University, gave a fascinating talk on the physiological and social experience of ageing.

I can’t really do justice here to his exposition which in itself was a huge summarisation of the work being undertaken. However, the message coming through loud and clear is that human beings are not per se programmed to die at any particular time – indeed the survival instinct in us is strong right to the end. So, under the right circumstances, increasing life expectancy can be expected to continue and we should celebrate old age, not see it as form of disability or inconvenience. What does happen is that imperfections in us and breakdowns in our ability to function bring on the end of our lives and if these can be eliminated or minimised then our life spans can be increased. Furthermore, many of the causes of this are “malleable” – things such as diet, housing, education, exercise, negative stress – as evidenced by differing life expectancies in different environments even within the same country.

This was the third seminar, organised by varying bodies, that I had attended in the space of a week each focusing on a differing aspect of ageing. There is much excellent work taking place and it is clear that the momentum is increasing. However, to date, government seems to concentrate only on the short term without a real “statesmanlike” approach to the longer term questions, employers (with a few exceptions) seem concerned only with damage limitation and containment of costs, and amongst the population at large there is a massive lack of awareness of the issues involved.

When will all this be pulled together?

Dumb, depressed and drunk?

An interesting piece of research floated past the radar this morning. Apparently a recent University of Michigan study of several thousand “seniors” found that those in the US performed significantly better than their counterparts in England on standard tests of memory and cognitive function. The study is the first known international comparison of cognitive function in nationally representative samples of older adults in the United States and England. It revealed that the overall difference in cognitive performance between the two countries was quite large – approaching the magnitude associated with about 10 years of ageing. In other words, the cognitive performance of 75-year-olds in the U.S. was as good, on average, as that of 65-year-olds in England.

The reasons why this may be are numerous and require further investigation. However the indicators are that a number of factors may play a part: First, higher levels of education and net worth in the United States accounted for some of the better cognitive performance; second, U.S. adults reported significantly lower levels of depressive symptoms than English adults (unlike Brits, they seek medication if they are depressed), and this may have accounted for some of the U.S. advantage in brain health since depression is linked with worse cognitive functioning; and third, significant differences in alcohol consumption between the U.S. and English seniors may play a role with more than 50 percent of U.S. seniors reporting no alcohol use, compared to only 15.5 percent of English seniors. Previous research has shown that moderate alcohol consumption, compared to abstinence, is linked with better cognition among those aged 50 and over.

Interesting links and interesting messages. Okay, maybe we can’t do much about our existing levels of education and net worth in later years, but keeping the brain active, keeping involved, interested and in the mainstream to stave off depression (and perhaps seeking treatment if it does occur), and cutting back on alcohol are all things which are possible and achievable. If it helps keep the brain ticking over that much better in later old age surely it’s got to be worth the effort.

More about the study at http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/553659/

Where’s the action on overcoming age prejudice?

Emma Soames, editor-at-large of Saga Magazine, writing in last Sunday’s Guardian (click here for article) expressed perfectly our sentiments about current attitudes towards age in the UK when she wrote:

“Our thinking about old age needs a serious overhaul, just as previous attitudes to sex and race needed a damn good slap around the face. Legislation can only go so far in introducing a cultural sea change…As the authors of the greatest social and sexual revolutions of the last two centuries, we baby boomers are famous for kick-starting change and confounding prejudice. Well, we had better get on and add another revolution to the list. It won’t be long before it’s too late.”

We’re right there with you Emma. Change isn’t going to come from the rest of society quickly enough or extensively enough. It’s down to us as the relevant age group to show our power and ingenuity and make it happen.

There’s little to fear about ageing

We are told by those who know that with old age come illness and infirmity, poverty, loneliness and social isolation. What a bundle of treats to look forward to. No wonder old age is held in such poor regard.

But if you think about it, it shouldn’t be age per se that we should fear as the years pass, simply illness and infirmity. Without those, we ought to be as liberated as ever to pursue the type of life we would want to lead.

In an equal world we wouldn’t have to worry about poverty as without illness and infirmity we would still be able to work and to continue to fund ourselves through older age.

In the absence of illness and infirmity we can still be as sociable as we ever were and take steps to avoid loneliness.

The message, then, is look after your health. Poor health is the one thing that limits opportunity and reduces possibility. Even if you’re unemployed your situation has the potential to improve. If you have chronic age-related ill-health problems it probably will not.

Pension Reform and Personal Accounts after the Credit Crunch

Last Tuesday (24^th March) the International Longevity Centre-UK (ILC-UK) and the Actuarial Profession hosted a Joint Debate at the Institute of Actuaries in London on aspects of pension reform and personal accounts and the implications of the current credit crunch.

Chaired by Baroness Sally Greengross and introduced by a speech from Nigel Waterson MP, Shadow Pensions Minister and Shadow Minister for Older People, the 2-hour session was remarkably interesting (if you’re into that kind of thing) and was extremely well-attended, mostly by people from within the pensions, actuarial and financial services industry.

As this was a debate mainly consisting of people inside the industry “looking out” there was a substantial element of “preaching to the basically converted” and much of the debate was about the “how” of saving for one’s old age and whether this did the trick. There was, therefore, a lot of comment regarding what one might consider to be the technicalities of structuring and operating a pension scheme. Also, running through, was the (unsupported) hope that people would move away from property as the means to save and back towards pensions.

In this latter respect research by the Pensions Policy Institute, represented by Niki Cleal, was particularly revealing. Her comment was, in a nutshell, that those who saved probably saved across the board, that is pensions, property and ISAs etc., in contrast to those who probably had little of any. This is not a case of substitution and changing asset allocation.

Rather, we believe,  this is due to:-

1)       the lack of sufficient resources for people to be able to save at the current time, or possibly any time

2)       the phenomenal lack of understanding, generally, of what it will take to support oneself in old age in an appropriate style and over an extended and growing potential lifespan.

It is, therefore, the “why” people need to save that must also be addressed. There is an enormous educational task to be undertaken among the population in general and, until this is carried out, even the best designed schemes will have difficulty in succeeding. But all this is manageable given the will.

We are not talking deckchairs, shuffling, Titanic…yet.

Proof of age

A recent interesting article on the Mature Times website (www.maturetimes.co.uk) raised the question of what sort of ID is appropriate for those situations where we are required to provide our (older) age. The standard, of course, is the “bus pass” a strange piece of documentation for those of us who, for various reasons, haven’t been on a bus in many decades.

In the 21st century we really ought to stop making decisions about people based on their age unless there is some legal reason for doing so (e.g. sale of alcohol to minors). Heating allowances and bus passes for people who are affluent and perfectly well able to work (and probably still are) are strange and expensive anomalies.

However when it comes to claiming these and other “perks” the view of most over 60s seems, quite understandably, to be “Well, I’ve paid for it, so I’ll damned well have it”.

In fact concessions do seem like one of the few positive advantages of growing old and a generational characteristic of in my primers seems to be that we do like a bargain. This said, a bus pass is a demeaning and inappropriate proof of age with connotations of impoverishment and senility. Better to bypass it by using a passport or driving licence – unless, of course, you’re trying to board a bus.

For those who have neither, ID cards are sure to be with us within our ageing lifetimes.