a photographer, editor, designer, and artist based in Frankfurt, Germany. Thormaehlen traveled the globe taking photographs of the world's oldest people.
He has found that too many people of his generation are becoming defeated by the frustrations of an aging body and mind and are just waiting until the end without purpose or plan.
Let's face it… like it or not, we are all getting older! At 85 there are a lot of things that I could do at 75 or 65 or 50 that I can no longer do.
So what?
I can either dwell on the things I CAN NO LONGER DO, or I can celebrate the many things I CAN DO!
I decided to create this website because I want everyone, at whatever age, to enjoy life to the fullest, using the experience gained from the past to make the future better for ourselves and for those around us!
This website is not about adding years to our life; it is about adding life to our years. The statistics are undeniable! Living to be one hundred is no longer a rarity. It is rapidly becoming a realistic expectation and that means we should take care of ourselves and our health and we should continue to engage with others to make our communities better and more livable.
As Jo Ann Jenkins, notes in her excellent book, Disrupt Aging, "For the first time in history long life isn't a rarity. If you're fifty, you have half of your life ahead of you. Over half of the people born today will live to be one hundred. The fastest growing age group is people eighty-five and older." By the year 2030, one in five Americans will be eighty or older.
The new reality is that we're not just tacking more years of physical and mental decline at the end of life; in most cases we're adding more years of healthy and productive living."
About four decades ago, leaders in the field of aging made a revolutionary shift in their concept of aging. "Instead of merely accepting a gradual decline as inevitable, [they] began to focus on how to delay that decline through prevention, lifestyle changes, and health improvements aimed at pushing back the onset of morbidity."
Today, turning fifty no longer marks the beginning of a long, slow descent into old age; instead, it marks the beginning of a new period of growth, an extended middle age that did not exist for most of our ancestors.
"The truth is, aging isn't a roll of the dice. You don't have to get old, if you don't want to. That's because getting older doesn't inevitably lead to disease, decline and dependence, as so many people believe, No matter what your chronological age, you can continue to enjoy good health, happiness and an active lifestyle." (Healthy Aging, p. 11)
Aging…by the Numbers
- 47.3: Average life expectancy at birth, 1900
- 78.7: Average life expectancy at birth, 2011
- 43 million: Number of Americans ages 65 and over, 2012
- 72 million: Estimated number of Americans ages 65 and over, 2030
- 89 million: Estimated number of Americans ages 65 and over, 2050
- 6 million: Number of Americans ages 85 and older, 2012
- 19 million: Estimated number of Americans ages 85 and older, 2050
- 3 thousand: Number of Americans ages 100 and older, 1950
- 62 thousand: Number of Americans ages 100 and older, 2012
- Approximately 1 million: Estimated number of Americans ages 100 and older, 2050
- 23 million: Americans ages 65 and older reporting difficulty performing at least one basic or complex activity, 2010
- 45.4 percent: Americans ages 65 or older reporting two or three chronic health conditions, 2012
- 14.1 percent: Americans ages 65 and older reporting four or more chronic health conditions, 2012
(Adults were categorized as having 0 to 1, 2 to 3, or 4 or more of these conditions: hypertension, coronary heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cancer, arthritis, hepatitis, weak or failing kidneys, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or current asthma)
Sources: Older Americans 2012: Key Indicators of Well-Being; CDC and ACL dataAre we seniors prepared for this new stage of life?
Unfortunately, many of society's institutions have not adapted to the new reality of aging. Employers have been slow to make changes to accommodate the needs of older workers, colleges and universities are struggling to figure out how to best serve older students, our transportation system needs major improvements, and our homes were not designed to accommodate our needs as we age.
Harvard psychologist Ellen Langer gives a graphic illustration of one of the ways society has not adapted to the needs of older persons. I recently bought a car and my number one requirement was ease of getting in and out of the car. While aging legs and a reduced sense of balance heightened my concern, the larger issue is the failure of car manufacturers to design seats that swivel so a person can get in or out easier than sliding into or out of a fixed seat from the side.
Every day older people are forced to navigate an environment that was designed neither by or for them. Rather than blame our limitations on the fact that we are getting older, the reality is that our environment doesn't fit us anymore.
There are many other challenges that most seniors share, including:
- Access to affordable health care and reasonably priced prescription medicine;
- financial concerns;
- where will I live;
- how will I get to the doctor, the grocery store, etc. when I can no longer drive; and
- the loss of independence or control over our own future.
We will focus on these issues and identify the best resources available
relative to these and other challenges facing seniors today. It may sound like a cliche but we can all manage the challenges that come with advancing age more effectively by sharing what we have learned from our own experience. In other words, Seniors Helping Seniors is a large part of the motivation for designing this website and the related programs that will follow.