Presentation on Control Beliefs

This is a presentation I came across recently about control beliefs. It reviews Seligman's shock treatment of dogs and Rodin / Langer's work about control in nursing homes. I'm a neophyte when it comes to psychology and found this presentation, even without its accompanying text / speech, to explain a bit more about control beliefs.

Personal Control Beliefs

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Hospital Delirium - More than Just Scary

The New York Times published this truly disturbing article about hospital patients suffering from delirium. The majority of delirium sufferers are older adults. The condition is very serious, as recent studies indicate that there are long-term effects, even death, that result from the condition.

The NYT article touches on some well known and relatively fixable aspects that contribute to the condition: that older adults react differently to medications, that most doctors don't know how to properly prescribe for the metabolism of an older adult, eg.

It seems quaint, but even something as basic as the presence of a candy striper - someone willing to come around and talk to hospitalized patients, stimulate their minds and give them basic interactions can help.

I had no idea that there was even such a thing hospital delirium. Truly stunning, and it makes me all the more committed to this kind of work.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/21/science/21delirium.html

Nifty Stats from the Page that Counts at Yes Magazine

Average annual health care costs of an elderly person with income under $10,000/year: $14,692

Average annual health care costs of an elderly person with income over $30,000/year: $8,855(4)

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Number of American medical schools, out of 126 surveyed, that required students to take a course on death and dying before graduation: 4(13)

The Page that Counts

The International Longevity Center

Nancy sent me this great article on ageism, though I agree with her comment that it's a little too hoo-rah, swinging to the opposite end of the spectrum on what's expected in aging.

The article led me to the International Longevity Center site because the ILC's founder, Dr. Robert N. Butler,coined the term "ageism" in 1968.

I thought Karen's group would be particularly interested in the work that the ILC is doing related to aging and corporate America. I also like the consistent messaging of the "Age Boom" and "Longevity Revolution" on the site. Very positive. It turns the notion from "aging" to "living longer."

The National Academy for Teaching and Learning About Aging

While researching a class project ageism and how it's played out in our language, I came across the NATLA site. The broad subject of our project for the social policy class is to combat ageist attitudes in language usage via a social policy program. NATLA fits neatly with that, in that it's entirely about teaching to counteract ageism.

What Do You Call Older People?

The study by the AARP referenced in this article is an example of a Research and Development project on ageism.

This site is just a treasure trove of good info. This is a list of the key understandings that the National Academy for Teaching and Learning about Aging is trying to get into school curricula.

White House Conference on Aging

Yesterday, we had a great lecture about the Aging Network, which touched on the history of the AOA, Administration on Aging. The AOA, which oversees the Aging Network, was created as a result of the passage of the OAA, the Older American's Act in 1965. According to the site, the OAA:

The original legislation established authority for grants to States for community planning and social services, research and development projects, and personnel training in the field of aging.

Ever since the passage of the OAA and subsequent creation of the AOA in 1965, there has been a once-a-decade White House Conference on Aging. President Bush was notoriously absent from the most recent White House Conference on Aging, which was held in December, 2005. Instead of having a speaking at the conference, as all of his predecessors have done since its inception, President Bush was stumping the successful passage of the Medicare Part D law.

The website for the White House Conference on Aging is pretty thin on info... essentially a splash page that doesn't so much as highlight successes of conferences past. It does, however offer a webcast of the most recent conference... I find it more than mildly disturbing that the webcast is hosted via "Kaisernetwork.org." Can you say "conflict of interest" anyone?

The main takeaway from the White House Conference on Aging site is the executive summary the most recent, 2005, conference, which was entitled "The Booming Dynamics of Aging." Here's the direct link, should you prefer to copy and paste:

http://www.whcoa.gov/Final_Report_June_14nowater.doc

Second Bill of Rights

I haven't seen Michael Moore's new movie yet, on Capitalism, but I guess it makes reference to FDR's idea of creating a Second Bill of Rights.

Here's a quick quote:

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.

Among these are:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

The right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.

America’s own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for our citizens.

Also, here's a clip (audio, but hosted on YouTube) of Roosevelt' speech.




This is unbelievably powerful. If Roosevelt had succeeded, what would things look like now? In order to make these "rights" realities, we would have had to have made some hard choices... One of my first thoughts is that we certainly couldn't have globalized our markets nearly as much as we have. Secondly, in order to secure "the right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad," we must have limited corporate power to some extent. Finally, and unpopularly, it seems that in order to provide many of these rights, we would have had to limit our population growth, which would have meant further immigration quotas than already exist.

Thoughts?

NYT Article on People Leaving Nursing Homes

A great deal of the reading we're doing in the Social Policy class talks about how the present structure of public policy tends to force elders into institutions and poverty (if they weren't already impoverished to begin with). Recently, some states have been working on ways to redistribute Medicaid money so that more people can stay at home rather than nursing homes.

This article from the New York Times (linked here in the mobile version, which has less banner ads, etc), does a pretty decent job of going over some of the high-level pros and cons of these "Money Follows the Person" programs.

Some main points:

• PRO: people are thrilled, thrilled, thrilled to escape having their final days in a nursing home
• PRO: it looks like people moving out of nursing homes costs less money
• CON: the "less money" part is most likely due to family members doing labor that is paid for in nursing homes. The article implies that this is a problem, or at least potential hardship for family members, but doesn't delineate that most of the burden of care falls on... you guessed it... women.
  

The article is very good also because it touches on how devastating things can be in older age - a slip and fall can rapidly lead to being shuttled into a nursing home and never getting to go home, much less wrap up your possessions. Life is so very fragile.

Finally, the article mentions:

A recent study by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, found that home care costs taxpayers $44,000 a year less than a nursing home stay - though this number cannot be used to estimate total savings, because often home-based services replace family care, not nursing home care.

I'd bet that Carroll Estes is somehow related to that study!

(the article noted in this post is "Helping Elderly Leave Nursing Homes for a Home" by John Leland)

National Bureau of Economic Research

One of my questions about study on Universal Mid-Life Crisis seems is a little satisfied. I'd asked why economists were performing the study. What I meant by that was why economists and not psychologists, since it seems to be about a relatively "soft" topic of subjective states, as opposed to "hard" definable topics like numbers.

The study looks like it was done at the NBER via their

Here are some handy links:
http://www.nber.org/programs/ag/ - Great synopsis, state of the state-type overview of economics and aging in the "Program Report" on this page.

Also, you can sign up to receive a free email copy of the quarterly Bulletin on Aging and Health here

You can view the latest copies of the Bulletin here.

Finally, you can request a CD of 3 years' worth of related studies here.

Follow up on Mid Life Crisis Study

Here's an abstract on the Universal Mid-life Crisis study I posted about:

Recent research has argued that psychological well-being is U-shaped through the life cycle. The difficulty with such a claim is that there are likely to be omitted cohort effects (earlier generations may have been born in, say, particularly good or bad times). Hence the apparent U may be an artifact. Using data on approximately 500,000 Americans and Europeans, this paper designs a test that makes it possible to allow for different birth-cohorts. A robust U-shape of happiness in age is found. Ceteris paribus, well-being reaches a minimum, on both sides of the Atlantic, in people's mid to late 40s. The paper also shows that in the United States the well-being of successive birth-cohorts has gradually fallen through time. In Europe, newer birth-cohorts are happier.

NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health

Mid-Life Crisis is Universal?

This article in The Financial Times discusses a recent study that claims mid-life crisis is universal.

I found this article to be interesting on a number of levels. First, it's interesting that women appear to have the crisis earlier in life. I wonder if there's a correlation between dwindling biological reproductive prospects and the depression of mid-life crisis.

Second, why are economics professors doing a study on mid-life crisis?

Third, both of the readings from the classes I'm taking referenced how perspectives on aging have shifted since gerontology began. The initial belief was that as we age, we disengage from society and life. Two newer perspectives are that we either have successful aging, wherein we are active and get more involved in life after retirement, or that we simply experience an extension of ourselves throughout the life spectrum. The quote below from the article seems to reference this last perspective as having been a point now refuted by the study:

"...the findings contrasted with many previous studies and with applied psychology textbooks – suggesting that, on average, our mood stays relatively consistent as we age."

The article also gives a few descriptions of the aging process that are very interesting, again, considering that the observations are coming from economists:

The most likely explanation, the researchers speculate, is that people “learn to adapt to their strengths and weaknesses, and in mid-life quell their infeasible aspirations”. Minor contributing factors might include a “selection effect”, with people living longer if they are cheerful than miserable, and – towards the end of life – a “comparison process” in which people count their blessings as they see their old friends dying off.

“For the average person in the modern world, the dip in mental health and happiness comes on slowly,” said Prof Oswald. “Only in their 50s do most people emerge from the low period. But, encouragingly, by the time you are 70, if you are still physically fit then on average you are as happy and mentally healthy as a 20-year-old. Perhaps realising that such feelings are completely normal in mid-life might even help individuals survive this phase better.”