Mel Walsh

A Very Moving Tale

This is a very moving story—literally. It’s one for Boomers and their aging parents, and I’ll start it with a question: Have you ever heard of Move Management?

Well, it’s a new and growing industry with about 500 specialists dotted across the United States. When older people decide to move to a retirement community or to assisted living, move managers can take on the burden of the move, leaving the family free to fight about who gets the turkey platter.

Seriously, move managers help the older person through the emotional trauma of downsizing. They sort, organize and pack possessions, give designated items to charity or family members, make dump runs, run tag or estate sales, manage the actual truck move and then arrange the new place so that it replicates the best parts of the old home.

Those move managers whose talent is interior design may oversee painting the new place in favorite colors, arranging the furniture in a familiar pattern and inventing a special  display of the objects and photos that mean the most to the movee.  The end result? There’s no place like the new home---except maybe the old one, but smaller and more edited.

Who Needs a Move Manager?

Can you say millions of us?

If you have ever helped an older parent move out of the old family home into a new smaller apartment, you’ll know how nice it would have been to have expert help during the process. It took my sister and me six weeks to help mom go through the house and garage, decide what to take, dispose of the rest, get the house ready for sale and we were still not finished after six weeks of seven days a week labor.

It would have been great to have a professional direct the proceedings and maybe instruct the men who were cleaning out the garage not to throw and break bottles of 1950’s insecticides into the dumpster.  (When the dumpster began steaming, the town hazmat squad arrived to prevent another Bhopal.)

Well, that was just us, but many are the hurdles to cleaning out the old family home and resettling in a new and smaller nest. There are not only logistics to consider, there are all the emotions connected to leave-taking and change, so a talented move manager will listen to the older person and make sure that when it comes to prized possessions, he/she has the best of the best in the new place. (Example, a vast collection of family photographs can be edited down to the outstanding pictures which can be enlarged, reframed and lit in a special display--- much better than photos sitting in old shoeboxes.)

If you want to talk to a move manager, go to the website of the National Association of Senior Move Managers at www.nasmm.org. Look for the state-by-state search engine. Also ask the manager of any retirement facility. They may have a recommendation. Then, too, some professional organizers will take on senior moves. Find them in the Yellow Pages under organizing services or at the web site of the National Association of Professional Organizers, www.napo.net. Search there under moving/relocation services.

            Opportunity for a Business

            Boomers looking for a business opportunity in a down market may want to learn more about starting a move management business. Begin at www.nasmm.org and also Google: Move Management Washington Post. There you will find an article about how other people started in the business.

            Finding a growing business opportunity in 2009 may be the most moving experience of all. Good luck.

Killer Light Bulbs?

Sometimes the developing news in modern medicine is hard to digest. I had trouble believing that any responsible fertility doc would help a woman into a pregnancy that ended in octuplets when the woman already had six in vitro offspring, no visible means of support and no helping hand from a life partner.

            So I had just struggled with that news when this report popped up on my computer screen:

There is a credible link between cancer and artificial night lighting. While nothing is proved---your desk light is not going to kill you tonight---various studies indicate that people who live or work under nighttime illumination---think graveyard shift workers or night nurses---have a higher rate of cancer than those who don’t. This link seems especially true of prostate and breast cancers.

How Could This Be So?

The best guess so far is that artificial light suppresses the production of the hormone melatonin, the hormone that regulates our natural rhythms. When people live under artificial light at night, it causes melatonin production to drop off.

So what? Well, studies done on rats and conducted in lab Petri dishes indicate that melatonin does slow the development of cancers. So the theory goes that in humans, if the melatonin supplies go down, the risk of cancers goes up.

High in the Sky

Well, this theory was so intriguing to some researchers, they thought up a new way to cross-check the evidence of a night lighting/cancer connection. They used satellite info to detect the most illuminated countries on the planet---they looked at 164 countries---and compared that to the rate of prostate cancer in each country. The rate of prostate cancer was higher in the brightly lit parts of the globe, adding another piece of the puzzle to the theory. 

Now, one way we readers of medical info go wrong is to confuse a relationship with cause and effect. Just because there is a relationship between night illumination and higher cancer rates does not prove one caused the other. However, if several human and lab studies indicate the same connection, and if observations from a satellite also indicate the same connection, then these researchers may be on to something. As David Blask, a professor at Tulane, states: “Put all this together and it argues pretty strongly that light-induced melatonin suppression may be at the heart of this.”

So what’s a 1000-watt night owl to do? Probably nothing until the evidence is clearer and even then, the solution may be simply to take melatonin tablets.

As for the issue of staying up into the wee hours under bright lights, I’m not worried for myself or my age peers. The only lights we see after 9 PM are our bedroom nightlights, probably not visible by satellite.

 

What's In Your Ears?

I have frogs in my ears. They sound like spring peepers on speed. Other people report they have bees, frying pans or dental drills in their ears---at least that’s what it sounds like with a condition called tinnitus.

            Tinnitus is a buzzing or a high-pitched sound in the ear. There are no frogs, bees, frying pans or drills present. There is just phantom noise, usually worse when it is quiet and there are no other sounds around to mask the concert in the head.

Tinnitius is associated with hearing loss and with age---around 13% of people 65 and older have a din in their ears. Exposure to very loud noises can cause tinnitus, not only in older people with ears damaged by high-decibel rock concerts or noisy workplaces, but even in the young who are exposed to loud noises whatever the source. According to audiologist Theresa Schultz, hearing loss with tinnitus is the primary cause of disability for veterans coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan. Think gunfire and grenades.

For some, the sound of tinnitus is so loud and persistent, it damages the quality of their lives. They form support groups. They go to audiologists seeking relief. For other like me, it’s a low buzz at night, but playing a radio or a CD masks the sound. Replacing the frogs with music can work.

Mystery Noises, Mystery Workings

Nobody knows the actual physical pathways of tinnitus, but some think it originates in the central nervous system and has multiple causes. Besides noise-induced damage to the ears, tinnitus is sometimes associated with ear infections, earwax build-up and the use of aspirin or other drugs.

Is there a cure? Well, some strategies can mitigate the problem. Sometimes a hearing aid will reduce symptoms. Soft background music can help. So can sound machines. There are sound machines where the user can choose to listen to waves, running water, rain and other natural noises. (If they ever make one featuring spring peepers, count me out. I get peeped up on my own.)

Sound machines can be investigated at www.soundmachinesdirect.com, but a cheaper solution is to use whatever you already have to generate soft and relaxing music---a radio, CD player or an iPod on low volume. (Note that I say “relaxing”, for some physicians feel that anxiety over tinnitus makes the situation worse.)

Hearing Conservation

Knowing how loud noises can damage the ear and possibly set off tinnitus, I have gotten defensive about preserving hearing. I have walked out of concerts where the decibel level was high to the point of pain. I now carry ear plugs to be used at the movies, especially during Coming Attractions, where the decibel level seems set by teens whose own hearing has already been impaired by their MP3 players.

So yes, I am the Hearing Patrol of the family. My mantra: Turn it down! When a grandchild is in the back seat listening to an iPod through her earbuds and you in the front can hear her music, it’s time for the Hearing Patrol to spring into action.

Yes, I am probably perceived as the hearing nag, but better that than having the next generation grow frogs in their ears. 

The Way We Were (And Are)

Gerontology is the study of older adults and what a trip that field has been for this geezer! I went to gerontology school when I was in my sixties, the oldest person ever to get an MA in Gerontology at USC.

            Usually, young people study older people---20 somethings trying to understand the elders of the tribe. Each beginning gero student is like a young Margaret Mead doing anthropology work in a foreign land, The Land of Age. But I was the foreigner in the group, an indigenous population of one, the only degree candidate who was Socially Secured and Medicared. I studied what I was. They studied what they were going to be. I think I had more fun, already swimming in the surf they could only look at from the shore.

One Shining Memory: The Peak Experience

            Though the scholastic training was great and comprehensive, it didn’t and couldn’t catch all the experiences of aging in the academic net. There are things about being old that aren’t in text books.

Example: each older person’s enduring memory of a lifetime’s peak experience, an indelible image that has been burnished bright by faithful remembering over the decades. I think everybody over the age of 60 carries a proud and often secret recollection of a special moment in life, one that defines who they were and what they loved.

For my mate, Cranky Pants, it’s the time he first flew solo. For others, it’s the time they sang in the Civic Light Opera, or the time they taught school children in a foreign land. Or maybe it was the time they fought forest fires, or the day of the great earthquake when they went through the neighborhood shutting off the gas of people too panicked to find their own wrenches. Often the peak experience required bravery, the overcoming of fears, performance that was beyond the demands of everyday experience.

Whatever it was, the experience of remembering this one special time nourishes the self-esteem of older people whose pride can be eroded by the downers of aging. When people can’t hear, see or move well or even put on their socks, their pride leaks out. The self-esteem balloon loses a little air. So the recollection of a special moment serves to bolster the self-image, to guard against the erosion of a healthy ego.

And So???

And so if you are older and the proud owner of A Memorable Moment, I’d suggest that you not only secretly cherish it, but you display and enjoy any tangible reminder of your experience. Expand the pleasure of remembering with a photograph, a citation, a recording---any shred of physical evidence that you have been there and done that. And find someone who will listen to your story and tell you theirs---equal time to each proud moment.

Sometimes, though, people want to keep their memories to themselves or just share it with blood brothers. I know someone whose personal claim to fame is enjoying three liaisons in one day---his personal best---but you can bet he is not telling his grandchildren.

Giving Comfort to The Elders

One way to bring pleasure to older adults is to listen to their stories and if they repeat the same one too often---ask them to talk about other memorable moments of their lives:

What was the scariest time? Or the thing they most remember about mom or dad? What do they most want younger people in the family to know? To do? Do they have a legacy ideal they want to leave behind? What are their most treasured objects?

Last, though I don’t know the source, here’s a pertinent thought I wrote down and carry around in my wallet: “To love people is to sing the song that is in their hearts and to sing it to them when they have forgotten”.

Really, How Old Are You?

How about making a guess today? Polish up your crystal ball and tell me what age group is most unhappy.

            Some might answer that older people have to be the least happy. After all, if they are retired, they are unemployed with the loss of income and status that comes from the workplace. And what’s more, judging by their behavior, older people evidently have to be in bed by nine. It’s life in the dull lane, bored into unhappiness.

Actually, though, surveys show that older people are as happy as young people. Imagine that. It’s the middle-aged who are the least happy and no wonder. They have more obligations than any other age group. Think kids, jobs and foreclosing mortgages.

            So the idea that older people are crying into their beer (or Ensure) is, in general, a myth. But what makes older people happy?

A Look at Senior Self-Perceptions

            A recent study spotlights one reason we older folks aren’t down in the dumps about aging. We think we are much younger than we are. In a study published in the Journals of Gerontology, over 500 people 70 and older were asked how old they felt they were. On average, they felt about 13 years younger than their chronological age.

            And rather than take a one-moment-in-time snapshot of people’s attitudes, the study tracked perceptions about age and satisfaction with the aging process over a six-year period---this to find what changes might come to pass over time. Well, the perception of age stayed pretty steady over the years.  In other words, if a person felt 13 years younger at 70, he or she was likely to still feel 13 years younger at 76.

            And note that the question asked was very specific: “How old do you feel when you look at yourself in the mirror?” That a mirror was mentioned made the results even more amazing: if you asked me how old I felt when looking in a mirror, I’d have to account for the wrinkles in my answer and would have to up my number. These people had the same dilemma when asked to reflect on their reflections---and yet they still felt 13 years younger.

            Now, if you left the mirror out of the question---if you ignored the visual clues---and just asked how old people felt, you might get an even more amazing answer. I’ll bet they’d say they felt even younger than 13 years. In fact, I have read other studies that placed the perception level at 15 years younger than chronological age.

Kids, Try This At Home!            

Heck, you can try this experiment on yourself. Without looking in a mirror, how old do you feel? Then, when looking in a mirror, how old do you feel? Is there a difference? What is it?

I Make Me Feel So Young

Now, when it came to the study, was there a gender difference? Yes, indeed. Men saw themselves as four years younger than women who were their age equals. The investigators could only guess at the reason. Maybe women were trained over a lifetime to look more closely at their physical appearances and so were more realistic in their assessments. Or, one could say unkindly that men were more delusional about their actual age, which, if true, could account for older guys going after all those young trophy wives.

Bottom line: Nobody knows.

What Drags Down the Cheery View

            The researchers found that getting sick was likely to make people think of themselves as older. So staying well is a key to maintaining a pleasant illusion about our actual age. But then you already knew that. Nothing makes a person feel older than being marooned in a hospital bed or diagnosed with a geezer-related illness.

More research in this study---the Berlin Aging Study---indicates that “people who feel younger are less likely to die than those who don’t, given the same level of chronological age and equivalent physical health”.

So maybe thinking we are younger than we are is more than a pleasant illusion. It may be a life-saver.

Me, today I feel 50, but my knees are having an 80^th birthday party down below my belt. 

Grammy Knew Best

You know, the old folks at home had it right about health. Grandmothers back then were doctors in housecoats, and though we today think we own the advanced ideas about nutrition, my grandma knew as much in 1948 as many of us today, even though we are overfed on dietary info.

My grandma “got” the fact that fish and fish oils could help keep a family healthy. That’s why, like many Americans back then, cod liver oil was part of our daily diet. So were sardines---many, many cans of sardines. Sardines on Ritz crackers---that was the blue plate lunch special in Grandma’s Kitchen, with a side of tomato soup for a veggie blast.

Walking Her Talk

But gram didn’t just know what should be done, she did it and made us do it too. You swallowed your cod liver oil and your black strap molasses--no questions allowed.

Today, though, while many of us know what to do, we don’t do it and we don’t make our families do it. Our talk about health may be just show. If little Jason doesn’t like the veggies or fish that we oldsters know he should eat, he may be allowed to exist on burgers, fries and “juice” boxes full of sugar water.

Well, we had to eat what we were served and in an era of food scarcity, it made survival sense. The rule was: Eat it, no substitutions. Hating the globbiness of oyster stew, I was once made to sit at the table by myself for the hour it took to get that stew down.

Vitamin D and The Art Deco Grandmother

And it wasn’t just on the food front that my grandmother and others in the 1930’s showed some health smarts. Though today we are told the sun is our enemy---think skin cancer----the grannies and moms of yesterday used to put babies out to nap in the sun. Look at family photos from the Depression and you may see a diapered ancestor getting a Vitamin D bath outside in her baby carriage.

While I would not take sides on the sunning issue—not enough evidence  on benefits (Vitamin D and nature’s anti-depressant) versus drawbacks (skin cancer, sunburn)--- I do know that the women of yore were onto the sunshine vitamin and saw that children got it in short daily sunbaths.

The Gospel of Gram on Preserving Health

It was also gram’s goal to keep us from getting “run down”. Run down meant you didn’t eat right, spent too much time in the house reading the funnies and above all, didn’t go to bed early enough to get a good night’s sleep. Early to the mattress was the rule or you might get health cooties like colds.

Well, it took over 60 years for scientists to catch up to grandmother. This month a new study concluded that a lack of sleep was related to catching a cold. Published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, the investigation involved 153 men and women who were sequestered in a hotel for two weeks while cold viruses were stuck up their noses.

 But and however, only 35% of those exposed to the virus got a cold. The amount of sleep was the key to the puzzle. Those who got less sleep were five and a half times more likely to be sick than those who caught more dreamtime.

Grandma would be heartened to see that after 60 years, scientists have caught up with her. Really, scientists could have saved time and trouble and just asked my grandmother, who might have sent them to bed without supper for wasting money on something that was as plain as a sardine on a cracker.