I’m one of many people who are increasingly living longer with or past cancer. In the 1970s, only 49 percent of patients survived five years after their illness, but that rate has risen to 70 percent. Doctors now commonly talk about cancer as a chronic disease which can be managed.
But even as older cancer patients receive the gift of extra time, greater longevity brings its own challenges.
Recent ICE actions threaten the stability of the current and future caregiver workforce, impacting those who are undocumented, as well as nearly 500,000 workers with legal status.
On Feb. 26, 109 organizations sent a letter to Congress calling for reining in ICE actions due to the harm to older adults, people with disabilities and their caregivers.
Shari Horne spends much of her day caring for her husband Hal in their sunny apartment in Orange County’s Laguna Woods, where she was once mayor.
I’m sharing the Hornes’ story in my inaugural column for the California Health Report. Over the next year, I’ll write about health equity and aging, drawing on my personal experiences, as well as those of the people I interview.
As a rehabilitation clinician and director working directly with older adults, I see how effective early mobility support can be. Mild losses in leg strength or balance respond well to structured, simple routines when they are addressed early. The greatest need is access.
Several programs across California demonstrate how this access can be expanded.
California, through the Master Plan on Aging, has led the nation in recognizing the unique and increasingly urgent needs of older adults.
But Gov. Newsom’s recently released budget proposal for the 2025-26 fiscal year could cut aging and disability-focused programs. We’ve heard firsthand from older adults, people with disabilities and family caregivers about the challenges in accessing support and affordable housing. Many people feel left behind by the system.
Modeled after AmeriCorps, the program would recruit high school or college graduates to spend a year providing nonmedical care to seniors with cognitive impairment.
When the older adult news agency Next Avenue released its 2016 list of top 50 Influencers in Aging last month, it was rife with Californians, yet none so deeply involved in a dizzying array of initiatives than David Lindeman, director of the Oakland-based Center for Technology and Aging.
The exploding number of older adults in the United States – over 8,000 people turn 65 each day according to the U.S. Census Bureau – means Baby Boomers are staring into a terrifying abyss as a faltering economy wreaks havoc with retirement funds and the ability to pay for long-term care.
The grim effects of smoking, drinking, and poor eating are commonly cited by doctors as appalling and expensive health scourges. Yet for aging Californians, an often hidden health plague can be just as deadly: loneliness. Social isolation and its common offspring – loneliness – became a political hot potato when California recently cut back on its adult day health care program, disqualifying 20% of the state’s older and disabled citizens from its attendance rolls. Families who depended on the centers for medical supervision and social interaction suddenly had to scramble to find new programs to care for these relatives.
As the U.S. population ages in the coming decades, the need for some sort of insurance to cover long-term health care expenses – such as in-home support services – will also rise. With this in mind, Congress and the Obama Administration last year included in the controversial health care reform act a little-discussed provision to implement a government-run long-term health care insurance program known as CLASS in October 2012.