What do care home residents really want?
In this era of growing numbers of old people and little money, care home providers will always be aiming to supply their services more efficiently and cheaply. For the people on the receiving end, on the other hand, all that matters is quality of life. But in this relationship, they are definitely the vulnerable party – [...]
Normal service resumes
Normal service is about to resume – with apologies to anyone who noticed that Christmas has been quiet. In the meantime, here are some links: First, a piece I wrote for the Daily Telegraph, pegged to the news that nearly a fifth of people in the UK will live to be 100. Second, a New [...]
The past is not another country
Making conversation in a care home is hard work. The commonest opening gambit is probably, ‘What did you have for lunch?’ which is not a question to which the answer is going to be a) very interesting, unless Heston Blumenthal has popped in, or b) readily available to anyone with a cloudy memory, let alone [...]
Of carers and careers
‘The most serious social policy issue in decades,’ is how the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) describes the ageing population and, in particular, its need for social care. Yet there’s quite astonishing apathy when it comes to planning for what’s about to hit us – the 1.7 million more people who will need social care over [...]
Purpose Prize winners 2010
A former homeless alcoholic and a housekeeper are among this year’s winners of The Purpose Prize, a $100,000 award for entrepreneurs over the age of 60. The five winners, announced today, were selected by a panel of judges chaired by Sherry Lansing, former CEO of Paramount Pictures and the first woman to head a Hollywood [...]
Design for living
People of 80 or 90 plus who are eking out their lives in nursing homes with very poor quality of life are, according to New York geriatrician Mark Lachs, an indictment of society’s priorities. ‘I would argue,’ he writes, ‘that the “life extension” these people have experienced – a good deal of it the result [...]
A good reason to get older
There was a fascinating story in the LA Times recently about an artists’ community which convinced me that I now know how I want to live as I get older. Burbank Senior Artists’ Colony is a five-storey building in Los Angeles, offering one-bedroom apartments for rent to people aged over 55. The building also houses [...]
Life: slide or roundabout?
Something enormous is happening. Two enormous things, in fact, and in time they may find a way to work together. That was the conclusion of this afternoon, which I spent in a very interesting discussion with people in cities all over the world, thanks (again) to Cisco. One of the enormous things is demographic shift; [...]
The comfort of strangers
Gillian had a house; Neil needed somewhere to live. Gillian was worried about being alone and the responsibility of keeping things working; Neil was largely retired, and could fix leaking taps. Gillian is 88, Neil 61, and they found each other through Homeshare, one of several local authority experiments to see whether people with space [...]
Choirs go global
This week I attended an extraordinary international singalong in which two choirs of older people, one in Melbourne, the other in Amsterdam, sang to each other as if they were in the same room. I was in London, and I felt I was there (wherever ‘there’ was) too. The event was made possible by video [...]