A kind of role reversal can happen when your parents take risks or jeopardize their health, and you worry and insist they do what you think they should do. That often gets you nowhere. In this article, Judith Graham, a columnist for KFF Health News, consults experts for tips on how to handle such situations. Her piece was posted on the KFF Health News website on May 19, 2023. It also ran on CNN. Funding from the Silver Century Foundation helps KFF Health News develop articles (like this one) on longevity and related health and social issues. 

It was a regrettable mistake. But Kim Sylvester thought she was doing the right thing at the time.

Her 80-year-old mother, Harriet Burkel, had fallen at her home in Raleigh, NC, fractured her pelvis and gone to a rehabilitation center to recover. It was only days after the death of Burkel’s 82-year-old husband, who’d moved into a memory care facility three years before.

With growing distress, Sylvester had watched her mother, who had emphysema and peripheral artery disease, become increasingly frail and isolated. “I would say, ‘Can I help you?’ And my mother would say, ‘No, I can do this myself. I don’t need anything. I can handle it,’” Sylvester told me.

Now, Sylvester had a chance to get some more information. She let herself into her mother’s home and went through all the paper work she could find. “It was a shambles—completely disorganized, bills everywhere,” she said. “It was clear things were out of control.”

Sylvester sprang into action, terminating her mother’s orders for anti-aging supplements, canceling two car warranty insurance policies (Burkel wasn’t driving at that point), ending a yearlong contract for knee injections with a chiropractor and throwing out donation requests from dozens of organizations. When her mother found out, she was furious.

“I was trying to save my mother, but I became someone she couldn’t trust—the enemy. I really messed up,” Sylvester said.

Dealing with an older parent who stubbornly resists offers of help isn’t easy. But the solution isn’t to make an older person feel like you’re steamrolling them and taking over their affairs. What’s needed instead are respect, empathy and appreciation of the older person’s autonomy.

Before interfering, try asking yourself whether what your loved one is doing really matters to their health or safety.

“It’s hard when you see an older person making poor choices and decisions. But if that person is cognitively intact, you can’t force them to do what you think they should do,” said Anne Sansevero, RN, president of the board of directors of the Aging Life Care Association, a national organization of care managers who work with older adults and their families. “They have a right to make choices for themselves.”

That doesn’t mean adult children concerned about an older parent should step aside or agree to everything the parent proposes. Rather, a different set of skills is needed.

Cheryl Woodson, MD, an author and retired physician based in the Chicago area, learned this firsthand when her mother—whom Woodson described as a “very powerful” woman—developed mild cognitive impairment. She started getting lost while driving and would buy things she didn’t need, then give them away.

Chastising her mother wasn’t going to work. “You can’t push people like my mother or try to take control,” Woodson told me. “You don’t tell them, ‘No, you’re wrong,’ because they changed your diapers and they’ll always be your mom.”

Instead, Woodson learned to appeal to her mother’s pride in being the family matriarch. “Whenever she got upset, I’d ask her, ‘Mother, what year was it that Aunt Terri got married?’ or ‘Mother, I don’t remember how to make macaroni. How much cheese do you put in?’ And she’d forget what she was worked up about and we’d just go on from there.”

Woodson, author of To Survive Caregiving: A Daughter’s Experience, a Doctor’s Advice, also learned to apply a “does it really matter to safety or health?” standard to her mother’s behavior. It helped Woodson let go of her sometimes unreasonable expectations. One example she related: “My mother used to shake hot sauce on pancakes. It would drive my brother nuts, but she was eating, and that was good.”

“You don’t want to rub their nose into their incapacity,” said Woodson, whose mother died in 2003.

Try to offer help in a way that’s face-saving for the other person.

Barry Jacobs, PsyD, a clinical psychologist and family therapist, sounded similar themes in describing a psychiatrist in his late 70s who didn’t like to bend to authority. After his wife died, the older man stopped shaving and changing his clothes regularly. Though he had diabetes, he didn’t want to see a physician and instead prescribed medicine for himself. Even after several strokes compromised his vision, he insisted on driving.

Jacobs’ take: “You don’t want to go toe-to-toe with someone like this, because you will lose. They’re almost daring you to tell them what to do, so they can show you they won’t follow your advice.”

What’s the alternative? “I would employ empathy and appeal to this person’s pride as a basis for handling adversity or change,” Jacobs said. “I might say something along the lines of, ‘I know you don’t want to stop driving and that this will be very painful for you. But I know you have faced difficult, painful changes before, and you’ll find your way through this.’”

“You’re appealing to their ideal self rather than treating them as if they don’t have the right to make their own decisions anymore,” he explained. In the older psychiatrist’s case, conflict with his four children was constant, but he eventually stopped driving.

Another strategy that can be useful: “Show up, but do it in a way that’s face-saving,” Jacobs said. Instead of asking your father if you can check in on him, “go to his house and say, ‘The kids really wanted to see you. I hope you don’t mind.’ Or, ‘We made too much food. I hope you don’t mind my bringing it over.’ Or, ‘I wanted to stop by. I hope you can give me some advice about this issue that’s on my mind.’”

This psychiatrist didn’t have any cognitive problems, though he wasn’t as sharp as he used to be. But encroaching cognitive impairment often colors difficult family interactions.

If you think this might be a factor with your parent, instead of trying to persuade them to accept more help at home, try to get them medically evaluated, said Leslie Kernisan, MD, author of When Your Aging Parent Needs Help: A Geriatrician’s Step-by-Step Guide to Memory Loss, Resistance, Safety Worries, & More. 

You always want to give the older adult a chance to weigh in and talk about . . . their feelings and concerns.

—Leslie Kernisan, MD 

“Decreased brain function can affect an older adult’s insight and judgment and ability to understand the risks of certain actions or situations, while also making people suspicious and defensive,” she noted.

This doesn’t mean you should give up on talking to an older parent with mild cognitive impairment or early-stage dementia, however. “You always want to give the older adult a chance to weigh in and talk about what’s important to them and their feelings and concerns,” Kernisan said.

“If you frame your suggestions as a way of helping your parent achieve a goal they’ve said was important, they tend to be much more receptive to it,” she said.

A turning point for Sylvester and her mother came when the older woman, who developed dementia, went to a nursing home at the end of 2021. Her mother, who at first didn’t realize the move was permanent, was furious, and Sylvester waited two months before visiting. When she finally walked into Burkel’s room, bearing a Valentine’s Day wreath, Burkel hugged her and said, “I’m so glad to see you,” before pulling away. “But I’m so mad at my other daughter.”

Sylvester, who doesn’t have a sister, responded, “I know, Mom. She meant well, but she didn’t handle things properly.” She learned the value of what she calls a “therapeutic fiblet” from Kernisan, who ran a family caregiver group Sylvester attended between 2019 and 2021.

After that visit, Sylvester saw her mother often, and all was well between the two women up until Burkel’s death. “If something was upsetting my mother, I would just go, ‘Interesting,’ or, ‘That’s a thought.’ You have to give yourself time to remember this is not the person you used to know and create the person you need to be your parent, who’s changed so much.”

Judith Graham

Judith Graham writes a column on aging and health for KFF Health News, where she’s a contributing columnist. She also freelances for other publications. Earlier in her career, Judith contributed more than 80 pieces to the New York Times blog, The New Old Age. She was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for a series on defective pacemakers and was part of a Chicago Tribune team that won a Pulitzer in 2001.

Because of inflation and other factors, millions of older people, who had been managing reasonably well on limited budgets, are now unable to make ends meet. Writing for Kaiser Health News, journalist Judith Graham interviews three women whose stories illustrate how easily even people who worked hard all their lives and did everything they were supposed to do can end up in a financial bind. Her article was posted on the KHN website on September 7, 2022. It also ran on CBS News.

Economic insecurity is upending the lives of millions of older adults as soaring housing costs and inflation diminish the value of fixed incomes.

Across the country, seniors who until recently successfully managed limited budgets are growing more anxious and distressed. Some lost work during the COVID-19 pandemic. Others are encountering unaffordable rent increases and the prospect of losing their homes. Still others are suffering significant sticker shock at grocery stores.

Dozens of older adults struggling with these challenges—none poor by government standards—wrote to me after I featured the Elder Index, a measure of the cost of aging, in a recent column. That tool, developed by researchers at the Gerontology Institute at the University of Massachusetts-Boston, suggests that 54 percent of older women who live alone have incomes below what’s needed to pay for essential expenses. For single men, the figure is 45 percent.

To learn more, I spoke at length to three women who reached out to me and were willing to share highly personal details of their lives. Their stories illustrate how unexpected circumstances—the pandemic and its economic after-effects, natural disasters, and domestic abuse—can result in unanticipated precarity in later life, even for people who worked hard for decades.

Bettye Cohen

“After 33 years living in my apartment, I will have to move since the new owners of the building are renovating all apartments and charging rents of over $1,800 to 2,500/month which I cannot afford.”

Cohen, 79, has been distraught since learning that the owners of her Towson, MD, apartment complex are raising rents precipitously as they upgrade units. She pays $989 monthly for a one-bedroom apartment with a terrace. A similar apartment that has been redone recently went on the market for $1,900.

This is a national trend affecting all age groups: As landlords respond to high demand, rent hikes this year have reached 9.2 percent.

Cohen has been told that her lease will be canceled at the end of January and that she’ll be charged $1,200 a month until it’s time for her apartment to be refurbished and for her to vacate the premises.

“The devastation, I cannot tell you,” she said during a phone conversation. “Thirty-three years of living in one place lets you know I’m a very boring person, but I’m also a very practical, stable person. I never in a million years would have thought something like this would happen to me.”

For those on a waiting list for senior housing, the wait can last more than two years.

During a long career, Cohen worked as a risk manager for department stores and as an insurance agent. She retired in 2007. Today, her monthly income is $2,426: $1,851 from Social Security after payments for Medicare Part B coverage are taken out, $308 from an individual retirement account and $267 from a small pension.

In addition to rent, Cohen estimates she spends $200 to $240 a month on food, $165 on phone and internet, $25 on Medicare Advantage premiums, $20 on dental care, $22 for gas and $100 or more for incidentals such as cleaning products and toiletries.

That doesn’t include nonroutine expenses, such as new partial dentures that Cohen needs (she guesses they’ll cost $1,200) or hearing aids that she purchased several years ago for $3,400, drawing on a small savings account. If forced to relocate, Cohen estimates moving costs will top $1,000.

Cohen has looked for apartments in her area, but many are in smaller buildings, without elevators and not readily accessible to someone with severe arthritis, which she has. One-bedroom units are renting for $1,200 and up, not including utilities, which might be an additional $200 or more. Waiting lists for senior housing top two years.

“I’m miserable,” Cohen told me. “I’m waking up in the middle of the night a lot of times because my brain won’t shut off. Everything is so overwhelming.”

Carrie England

“It’s becoming too expensive to be alive. I’ve lost everything and break down on a daily basis because I do not know how I can continue to survive with the cost of living.”

England, 61, thought she’d grow old in a three-bedroom home in Winchester, VA, that she said she purchased with her partner in 1999. But that dream exploded in January 2021.

Around that time, England learned to her surprise that her name was not on the deed of the house she’d been living in. She had thought that had been arranged, and she contacted a legal aid lawyer, hoping to recover money she’d put into the property. Without proof of ownership, the lawyer told her, she didn’t have a leg to stand on.

“My nest was the house. It’s gone. It was my investment. My peace of mind,” England told me.

England’s story is complicated. She and her partner ended their longtime romantic relationship in 2009 but continued living together as friends, she told me. That changed during the pandemic, when he stopped working and England’s work as a caterer and hospitality specialist abruptly ended.

“His personality changed a lot,” she said, and “I started encountering emotional abuse.”

I do not have a life. I don’t do anything other than try to find work, go to work and go home.

—Carrie England

Trying to cope, England enrolled in Medicaid and arranged for eight sessions with a therapist specializing in domestic abuse. Those ended in November 2021, and she hasn’t been able to find another therapist since. “If I wasn’t so worried about my housing situation, I think I could process and work through all the things that have happened,” she told me.

After moving out of her home early in 2021, England relocated to Ashburn, VA, where she rents an apartment for $1,511 a month. (She thought, wrongly, that she would qualify for assistance from Loudoun County.) With utilities and trash removal included, the monthly total exceeds $1,700.

On an income of about $2,000 a month, which she scrambles to maintain by picking up gig work whenever she can, England has less than $300 available for everything else. She has no savings. “I do not have a life. I don’t do anything other than try to find work, go to work, and go home,” she said.

England knows her housing costs are unsustainable, and she has put her name on more than a dozen waiting lists for affordable housing or public housing. But there’s little chance she’ll see progress on that front anytime soon.

“If I were a younger person, I think I would be able to rebound from all the difficulties I’m having,” she told me. “I just never foresaw myself being in this situation at the age I am now.”

Elaine Ross

“Please help! I just turned 65 and [am] disabled on disability. My husband is on Social Security and we cannot even afford to buy groceries. This is not what I had in mind for the golden years.”

When asked about her troubles, Ross, 65, talks about a tornado that swept through central Florida on Groundhog Day in 2007, destroying her home. Too late, she learned her insurance coverage wasn’t adequate and wouldn’t replace most of her belongings.

To make ends meet, Ross started working two jobs: as a hairdresser and a customer service representative at a convenience store. With her new husband, Douglas Ross, a machinist, she purchased a new home. Recovery seemed possible.

Then, Elaine Ross fell twice over several years, breaking her leg, and ended up having three hip replacements. Trying to manage diabetes and beset by pain, Ross quit working in 2016 and applied for Social Security Disability Insurance, which now pays her $919 a month.

She doesn’t have a pension. Douglas stopped working in 2019, no longer able to handle the demands of his job because of a bad back. He too doesn’t have a pension. With Douglas’ Social Security payment of $1,051 a month, the couple live on just over $23,600 annually. Their meager savings evaporated with various emergency expenditures, and they sold their home.

Their rent in Empire, AL, where they now live, is $540 a month. Other regular expenses include $200 a month for their truck and gas, $340 for Medicare Part B premiums, $200 for electricity, $100 for medications, $70 for phone, and hundreds of dollars—Ross didn’t offer a precise estimate—for food.

“All this inflation, it’s just killing us,” she said. Nationally, the price of food consumed at home is expected to rise 10 to 11 percent this year, according to the US Department of Agriculture.

To cut costs, Ross has been turning off her air conditioning during peak hours for electricity rates, 1 p.m. to 7 p.m., despite summer temperatures in the 90s or higher. “I sweat like a bullet and try to wear the least amount of clothes possible,” she said.

“It’s awful,” she continued. “I know I’m not the only old person in this situation, but it pains me that I lived my whole life doing all the right things to be in the situation I’m in.”

Judith Graham

Judith Graham writes a column on aging and health for KFF Health News, where she’s a contributing columnist. She also freelances for other publications. Earlier in her career, Judith contributed more than 80 pieces to the New York Times blog, The New Old Age. She was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for a series on defective pacemakers and was part of a Chicago Tribune team that won a Pulitzer in 2001.

Home health care workers are so hard to find right now that some families have to handle all the care of older relatives alone, and some older people, without family available, are entirely without care. Journalist Judith Graham describes the situation and its repercussions in this article written for Kaiser Health News. KHN posted her story on February 3, 2022; it also ran on CNN. Funding from the Silver Century Foundation helps KHN develop articles (like this one) on longevity and related health and social issues.

Frail older adults are finding it harder than ever to get paid help amid acute staff shortages at home health agencies.

Several trends are fueling the shortages: hospitals and other employers are hiring away home health workers with better pay and benefits. Many aides have fallen ill or been exposed to COVID-19 during the recent surge of omicron cases and must quarantine for a time. And staffers are burned out after working during the pandemic in difficult, anxiety-provoking circumstances.

The implications for older adults are dire. Some seniors who are ready for discharge are waiting in hospitals or rehabilitation centers for several days before home care services can be arranged. Some are returning home with less help than would be optimal. Some are experiencing cutbacks in services. And some simply can’t find care.

Janine Hunt-Jackson, 68, of Lockport, NY, falls into this last category. She has post-polio syndrome, which causes severe fatigue, muscle weakness and, often, cognitive difficulties. Through New York’s Medicaid program, she’s authorized to receive 35 hours of care each week. But when an aide left in June, Hunt-Jackson contacted agencies, asked friends for referrals, and posted job notices on social media, with little response.

“A couple of people showed up and then disappeared. One man was more than willing to work, but he didn’t have transportation. I couldn’t find anybody reliable,” she said. Desperate, Hunt-Jackson arranged for her 24-year-old grandson, who has autism and oppositional defiant disorder, to move into her double-wide trailer and serve as her caregiver.

“It’s scary: I’m not ready to be in a nursing home, but without home care there’s no other options,” she said.

Because comprehensive data isn’t available, the scope and impact of current shortages can’t be documented with precision. But anecdotal reports suggest the situation is severe.

Most home care agencies have had to refuse new clients at times during the past year.

“Everyone is experiencing shortages, particularly around nursing and home health aides, and reporting that they’re unable to admit patients,” said William Dombi, president of the National Association for Home Care & Hospice. Some agencies are rejecting as many as 40 percent of new referrals, according to reports he’s received.

“We’re seeing increasing demand on adult protective services as a result of people with dementia not being able to get services,” said Ken Albert, RN, president of Androscoggin Home Healthcare and Hospice in Maine and chair of the national home care association’s board. “The stress on families trying to navigate care for their loved ones is just incredible.”

In mid-January, the Pennsylvania Homecare Association surveyed its members: Medicare-certified home health agencies, which provide assistance from aides and skilled nursing and therapy services, and state-licensed home care agencies, which provide nonmedical services such as bathing, toileting, cooking and housekeeping, often to people with disabilities covered by Medicaid. Ninety-three percent of Medicare-certified home health and hospice agencies and 98 percent of licensed agencies said they had refused referrals during the past year, according to Teri Henning, the association’s chief executive officer.

“Our members say they’ve never seen anything like this in terms of the number of openings and the difficulty hiring, recruiting and retaining staff,” she told me.

Lori Pavic is a regional manager in Pennsylvania for CareGivers America, an agency that provides nonmedical services, mostly to Medicaid enrollees who are disabled. “Our waiting list is over 200 folks at this time and grows daily,” she wrote in an email. “We could hire 500 [direct care workers] tomorrow and still need more.”

Another Pennsylvania agency that provides nonmedical services, Angels on Call, is giving priority for care to people who are seriously compromised and live alone. People who can turn to family or friends are often getting fewer services, said C.J. Weaber, regional director of business development for Honor Health Network, which owns Angels on Call.

“Most clients don’t have backup,” she said.

Families are doing their best to fill the gaps in home care.

This is especially true of older adults with serious chronic illnesses and paltry financial resources who are socially isolated—a group that’s “disproportionately affected” by the difficulties in accessing home health care, said Jason Falvey, DPT, an assistant professor of physical therapy and rehabilitation science at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

Many agencies are focusing on patients being discharged from hospitals and rehab facilities. These patients, many of whom are recovering from COVID, have acute needs, and agencies are paid more for serving this population under complicated Medicare reimbursement formulas.

“People who have long-term needs and a high chronic disease burden, [agencies] just aren’t taking those referrals,” Falvey said.

Instead, families are filling gaps in home care as best they can.

Anne Tumlinson, founder of ATI Advisory, a consulting firm that specializes in long term care, was shocked when a home health nurse failed to show up for two weeks in December after her father, Jim, had a peripherally inserted central catheter put in for blood cell transfusions. This type of catheter, known as a PICC line, requires careful attention to prevent infections and blood clots and needs to be flushed with saline several times a day.

“No show from nurse on Friday, no call from agency,” Tumlinson wrote on LinkedIn. “Today, when I call, this 5 star home health agency informed me that a nurse would be out SOMETIME THIS WEEK. Meanwhile, my 81 year old mother and I watched youtube videos this weekend to learn how to flush the picc line and adjust the oxygen levels.”

Tumlinson’s father was admitted to the hospital a few days before Christmas with a dangerously high level of fluid in his lungs. He has myelodysplastic syndrome, a serious blood disorder, and Parkinson’s disease. No one from the home health agency had shown up by the time he was admitted.

Because her parents live in a somewhat rural area about 30 minutes outside Gainesville, FL, it wasn’t easy to find help when her father was discharged. Only two home health agencies serve the area, including the one that had failed to provide assistance.

“The burden on my mother is huge: she’s vigilantly monitoring him every second of the day, flushing the PICC line and checking his wounds,” Tumlinson said. “She’s doing everything.”

Many nursing homes are so understaffed that they can’t take new patients. 

Despite growing needs for home care services, the vast majority of pandemic-related, federal financial aid for health care has gone to hospitals and nursing homes, which are also having severe staffing problems. Yet all the parts of the health system that care for older adults are interconnected, with home care playing an essential role.

Abraham Brody, PhD, associate professor of nursing and medicine at New York University, explained these complex interconnections: when frail older patients can’t get adequate care at home, they can deteriorate and end up in the hospital. The hospital may have to keep older patients for several extra days if home care can’t be arranged upon discharge, putting people at risk of deteriorating physically or getting infections and making new admissions more difficult.

When paid home care or help from family or friends isn’t available, vulnerable older patients may be forced to go to nursing homes, even if they don’t want to. But many nursing homes don’t have enough staffers and can’t take new patients, so people are simply going without care.

Patients with terminal illnesses seeking hospice care are being caught up in these difficulties as well. Brody is running a research study with 25 hospices, and “every single one is having staffing challenges,” he said. Without enough nurses and aides to meet the demand for care, hospices are not admitting some patients or providing fewer visits, he noted.

Before the pandemic, hospice agencies could usually guarantee a certain number of hours of help after evaluating a patient. “Now, they really are not able to guarantee anything on discharge,” said Jennifer DiBiase, MSW, palliative care social work manager at Mount Sinai Health System in New York City. “We really have to rely on the family for almost all hands-on care.”

Judith Graham

Judith Graham writes a column on aging and health for KFF Health News, where she’s a contributing columnist. She also freelances for other publications. Earlier in her career, Judith contributed more than 80 pieces to the New York Times blog, The New Old Age. She was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for a series on defective pacemakers and was part of a Chicago Tribune team that won a Pulitzer in 2001.

Though the internet has come to the rescue for many older adults isolated by the pandemic, others own digital devices but don’t fully understand how to use them—or have no idea. Journalist Judith Graham, a columnist for Kaiser Health News (KHN), reports on the many ways elders can learn more about computers, smartphones and tablets. Her story was posted on the KHN website on June 24, 2021. 

Six months ago, Cindy Sanders, 68, bought a computer so she could learn how to email and have Zoom chats with her great-grandchildren.

It’s still sitting in a box, unopened.

“I didn’t know how to set it up or how to get help,” said Sanders, who lives in Philadelphia and has been extremely careful during the coronavirus pandemic.

Like Sanders, millions of older adults are newly motivated to get online and participate in digital offerings after being shut inside, hoping to avoid the virus, for more than a year. But many need assistance and aren’t sure where to get it.

A recent survey from AARP, conducted in September and October, highlights the quandary. It found that older adults boosted technology purchases during the pandemic, but more than half (54 percent) said they needed a better grasp of the devices they’d acquired. Nearly four in 10 people (37 percent) admitted they weren’t confident about using these technologies.

Sanders, a retired, hospital operating room attendant, is among them. “Computers put the fear in me,” she told me, “but this pandemic, it’s made me realize I have to make a change and get over that.”

With a daughter’s help, Sanders plans to turn on her new computer and figure out how to use it by consulting materials from Generations on Line. Founded in 1999, the Philadelphia organization specializes in teaching older adults about digital devices and navigating the internet. Sanders recently discovered it through a local publication for seniors.

Before the pandemic, Generations on Line provided free, in-person training sessions at senior centers, public housing complexes, libraries and retirement centers. When those programs shut down, it created an online curriculum for smartphones and tablets, and new tutorials on Zoom and telehealth, as well as a family coaching kit, to help older adults with technology. All are free and available to people across the country.

Demand for Generations on Line’s services rose tenfold during the pandemic as many older adults became dangerously isolated and cut off from needed services.

Those who had digital devices and knew how to use them could do all kinds of activities online: connect with family and friends, shop for groceries, order prescriptions, take classes, participate in telehealth sessions and make appointments to get COVID vaccines. Those without were often at a loss—with potentially serious consequences.

There’s a national hotline for those who need technical support. 

“I have never described my work as a matter of life or death before,” said Angela Siefer, executive director of the National Digital Inclusion Alliance, an advocacy group for expanding broadband access. “But that’s what happened during the pandemic, especially when it came to vaccines.”

Other organizations specializing in digital literacy for older adults are similarly seeing a surge of interest. Cyber-Seniors, which pairs older adults with high school or college students who serve as technology mentors, has trained more than 10,000 seniors since April 2020—three times the average of the past several years. (Services are free and grants and partnerships with government agencies and nonprofit organizations supply funding, as is true for several of the organizations discussed here.)

Older adults using digital devices for the first time can call 1-844-217-3057 and be coached over the phone until they’re comfortable pursuing online training. “A lot of organizations are giving out tablets to seniors, which is fantastic, but they don’t even know the basics, and that’s where we come in,” said Brenda Rusnak, Cyber-Seniors’ managing director. One-on-one coaching is also available.

Lyla Panichas, 78, who lives in Pawtucket, RI, got an iPad three months ago from Rhode Island’s digiAGE program, one of many local technology programs for older adults that started during the pandemic. She is getting help from the University of Rhode Island’s Cyber-Seniors program, which plans to offer digital training to 200 digiAGE participants in communities hardest hit by COVID-19 by the end of this year.

“The first time my tutor called me, I mean, the kids rattle things off so fast. I said, ‘Wait a minute. You have a little old lady here. Let me keep up with you,’” Panichas said. “I couldn’t keep up and I ended up crying.”

Panichas persisted, however, and when her tutor called again the next week she began “being able to grasp things.” Now, she plays games online, streams movies and has Zoom get-togethers with her son in Arizona and her sister in Virginia. “It’s kind of lifted my fears of being isolated,” she told me.

OATS (Older Adults Technology Services) is set to expand the reach of its digital literacy programs significantly after a recent affiliation with AARP. It runs a national hotline for people seeking technical support, 1-920-666-1959, and operates Senior Planet technology training centers in six cities (New York; Denver; Rockville, MD; Plattsburgh, NY; San Antonio, TX; and Palo Alto, CA). All in-person classes converted to digital programming once the pandemic closed down much of the country.

Germaine St. John, 86, a former mayor of Laramie, WY, found an online community of seniors and made dear friends after signing up with Senior Planet Colorado during the pandemic. “I have a great support system here in Laramie, but I was very cautious about going out because I was in the over-80 group,” she told me. “I don’t know what I would have done without these activities.”

Older adults anywhere in the country can take Senior Planet virtual classes for free. (A weekly schedule is available.) Through its AARP partnership, OATS is offering another set of popular classes at AARP’s Virtual Community Center. Tens of thousands of older adults now participate.

For those with low incomes, a federal program is temporarily offering discounts on devices and internet service. 

Aging Connected, another new OATS initiative, is focusing on bringing one million older adults online by the end of 2022.

An immediate priority is to educate older adults about the government’s new $3.2 billion Emergency Broadband Benefit for low-income individuals, which was funded by a coronavirus relief package and became available last month. That short-term program provides $50 monthly discounts on high-speed internet services and a one-time discount of up to $100 for the purchase of a computer or tablet. But the benefit isn’t automatic. People must apply to get funding.

“We are calling on anybody over the age of 50 to try the internet and learn what the value can be,” said Thomas Kamber, OATS’ executive director. Nearly twenty-two million seniors don’t have access to high-speed internet services, largely because these services are unaffordable or unavailable, according to a January report cosponsored by OATS and the Humana Foundation, its Aging Connected partner.

Other new ventures are also helping older adults with technology. Candoo Tech, which launched in February 2019, works with seniors directly in 32 states as well as organizations such as libraries, senior centers and retirement centers.

For various fees, Candoo Tech provides technology training by phone or virtually, as-needed support from “tech concierges,” advice about what technology to buy, and help preparing devices for out-of-the-box use.

“You can give an older adult a device, access to the internet and amazing content, but if they don’t have someone showing them what to do, it’s going to sit there unused,” said Liz Hamburg, Candoo’s president and chief executive.

GetSetUp’s model relies on older adults to teach skills to their peers in small, interactive classes. It started in February 2020 with a focus on tech training, realizing that “fear of technology” was preventing older adults from exploring “a whole world of experiences online,” said Neil Dsouza, founder and chief executive.

For older adults who’ve never used digital devices, retired teachers serve as tech counselors over the phone. “Someone can call in [1-888-559-1614] and we’ll walk them through the whole process of downloading an app, usually Zoom, and taking our classes,” Dsouza said. GetSetUp is offering about 80 hours of virtual technology instruction each week.

For more information about tech training for older adults in your area, contact your local library, senior center, department on aging or Area Agency on Aging. Also, each state has a National Assistive Technology Act training center for older adults and people with disabilities. These centers let people borrow devices and offer advice about financial assistance. Some started collecting and distributing used smartphones, tablets and computers during the pandemic.

For information about a program in your area, go to https://www.at3center.net/. 

Judith Graham

Judith Graham writes a column on aging and health for KFF Health News, where she’s a contributing columnist. She also freelances for other publications. Earlier in her career, Judith contributed more than 80 pieces to the New York Times blog, The New Old Age. She was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for a series on defective pacemakers and was part of a Chicago Tribune team that won a Pulitzer in 2001.

Access to technology can make a huge difference to vulnerable elders isolated by COVID-19. Many don’t have access. Judith Graham explains why and explores creative solutions in this article written for Kaiser Health News (KHN). Graham’s piece was posted on the KHN website on July 24, 2020, and also ran on CNN. 

Family gatherings on Zoom and FaceTime. Online orders from grocery stores and pharmacies. Telehealth appointments with physicians.

These have been lifesavers for many older adults staying at home during the coronavirus pandemic. But an unprecedented shift to virtual interactions has a downside: large numbers of seniors are unable to participate.

Among them are older adults with dementia (14 percent of those 71 and older), hearing loss (nearly two-thirds of those 70 and older) and impaired vision (13.5 percent of those 65 and older), who can have a hard time using digital devices and programs designed without their needs in mind. (Think small icons, difficult-to-read typefaces, inadequate captioning, among the hurdles.)

Many older adults with limited financial resources also may not be able to afford devices or the associated internet service fees. (Half of seniors living alone and 23 percent of those in two-person households are unable to afford basic necessities.) Others are not adept at using technology and lack the assistance to learn.

During the pandemic, which has hit older adults especially hard, this divide between technology “haves” and “have-nots” has serious consequences.

Older adults in the “haves” group have more access to virtual social interactions and telehealth services, and more opportunities to secure essential supplies online. Meanwhile, the “have-nots” are at greater risk of social isolation, forgoing medical care and being without food or other necessary items.

A Medicare Advantage plan found that about a third of its most vulnerable members couldn’t manage a telehealth appointment because they didn’t have the technology.

Dr. Charlotte Yeh, chief medical officer for AARP Services, observed difficulties associated with technology this year when trying to remotely teach her 92-year-old father how to use an iPhone. She lives in Boston; her father lives in Pittsburgh.

Yeh’s mother had always handled communication for the couple, but she was in a nursing home after being hospitalized for pneumonia. Because of the pandemic, the home had closed to visitors. To talk to her and other family members, Yeh’s father had to resort to technology.

But various impairments got in the way: Yeh’s father is blind in one eye, with severe hearing loss and a cochlear implant, and he had trouble hearing conversations over the iPhone. And it was more difficult than Yeh expected to find an easy-to-use iPhone app that accurately translates speech into captions.

Often, family members would try to arrange Zoom meetings. For these, Yeh’s father used a computer but still had problems because he could not read the very small captions on Zoom. A tech-savvy granddaughter solved that problem by connecting a tablet with a separate transcription program.

When Yeh’s mother, who was 90, came home in early April, physicians treating her for metastatic lung cancer wanted to arrange telehealth visits. But this could not occur via cell phone (the screen was too small) or her computer (too hard to move it around). Physicians could examine lesions around the older woman’s mouth only when a tablet was held at just the right angle, with a phone’s flashlight aimed at it for extra light.

“It was like a three-ring circus,” Yeh said. Her family had the resources needed to solve these problems; many do not, she noted. Yeh’s mother passed away in July; her father is now living alone, making him more dependent on technology than ever.

When SCAN Health Plan, a Medicare Advantage plan with 215,000 members in California, surveyed its most vulnerable members after the pandemic hit, it discovered that about one-third did not have access to the technology needed for a telehealth appointment. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services had expanded the use of telehealth in March.

Other barriers also stood in the way of serving SCAN’s members remotely. Many people needed translation services, which are difficult to arrange for telehealth visits. “We realized language barriers are a big thing,” said Eve Gelb, SCAN’s senior vice president of health care services.

One alternative is a tablet already loaded with apps designed for adults 75 and older.

Nearly 40 percent of the plan’s members have vision issues that interfere with their ability to use digital devices; 28 percent have a clinically significant hearing impairment.

“We need to target interventions to help these people,” Gelb said. SCAN is considering sending community health workers into the homes of vulnerable members to help them conduct telehealth visits. Also, it may give members easy-to-use devices, with essential functions already set up, to keep at home, Gelb said.

Landmark Health serves a highly vulnerable group of 42,000 people in 14 states, bringing services into patients’ homes. Its average patient is nearly 80 years old, with eight medical conditions. After the first few weeks of the pandemic, Landmark halted in-person visits to homes because personal protective equipment, or PPE, was in short supply.

Instead, Landmark tried to deliver care remotely. It soon discovered that fewer than 25 percent of patients had appropriate technology and knew how to use it, according to Nick Loporcaro, the chief executive officer. “Telehealth is not the panacea, especially for this population,” he said.

Landmark plans to experiment with what he calls “facilitated telehealth”: nonmedical staff members bringing devices to patients’ homes and managing telehealth visits. (It now has enough PPE to make this possible.) And it too is looking at technology that it can give to members.

One alternative gaining attention is GrandPad, a tablet loaded with senior-friendly apps designed for adults 75 and older. In July, the National PACE Association, whose members run programs providing comprehensive services to frail seniors who live at home, announced a partnership with GrandPad to encourage adoption of this technology.

“Everyone is scrambling to move to this new remote-care model and looking for options,” said Scott Lien, the company’s co-founder and chief executive officer.

Nursing homes, assisted living centers and senior communities need to install communitywide Wi-Fi services.

PACE Southeast Michigan purchased 125 GrandPads for highly vulnerable members after closing five centers in March where seniors receive services. The devices have been “remarkably successful” in facilitating video-streamed social and telehealth interactions and allowing nurses and social workers to address emerging needs, said Roger Anderson, senior director of operational support and innovation.

Another alternative is technology from iN2L (an acronym for It’s Never Too Late), a company that specializes in serving people with dementia. In Florida, under a new program sponsored by the state’s Department of Elder Affairs, iN2L tablets loaded with dementia-specific content have been distributed to 300 nursing homes and assisted living centers.

The goal is to help seniors with cognitive impairment connect virtually with friends and family and engage in online activities that ease social isolation, said Sam Fazio, senior director of quality care and psychosocial research at the Alzheimer’s Association, a partner in the effort. But because of budget constraints, only two tablets are being sent to each long term care community.

Families report it can be difficult to schedule adequate time with loved ones when only a few devices are available. This happened to Maitely Weismann’s 77-year-old mother after she moved into a short-staffed, Los Angeles, memory-care facility in March. After seeing how hard it was to connect, Weismann, who lives in Los Angeles, gave her mother an iPad and hired an aide to ensure that mother and daughter were able to talk each night.

Without the aide’s assistance, Weismann’s mother would end up accidentally pausing the video or turning off the device. “She probably wanted to reach out and touch me, and when she touched the screen it would go blank and she’d panic,” Weismann said.

What’s needed going forward? Laurie Orlov, founder of the blog Aging in Place Technology Watch, said nursing homes, assisted living centers and senior communities need to install communitywide Wi-Fi services—something that many lack.

“We need to enable Zoom get-togethers. We need the ability to put voice technology in individual rooms, so people can access Amazon Alexa or Google products,” she said. “We need more group activities that enable multiple residents to communicate with each other virtually. And we need vendors to bundle connectivity, devices, training and service in packages designed for older adults.”

Judith Graham

Judith Graham writes a column on aging and health for KFF Health News, where she’s a contributing columnist. She also freelances for other publications. Earlier in her career, Judith contributed more than 80 pieces to the New York Times blog, The New Old Age. She was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for a series on defective pacemakers and was part of a Chicago Tribune team that won a Pulitzer in 2001.

You can see that your parents are having difficulties, perhaps even running risks they shouldn’t, but they’re quite sure they can manage. What can—and should—you do? Writing for Kaiser Health News (KHN), journalist Judith Graham consults some experts for advice on a problem many families confront. Her article was posted on the KHN website on Dec. 19, 2019.

David Solie’s 89-year-old mother, Carol, was unyielding. “No, I will not move,” she told her son every time he suggested that she leave her home and relocate to a senior-living residence.

And it didn’t stop there. Although Carol suffered from coronary artery disease, severe osteoporosis, spinal compression fractures and unsteady balance, she didn’t want assistance. When Solie brought in aides to help after a bad fall and subsequent surgery, his mother fired them in a matter of days.

“In her mind, she considered it a disgrace to have anybody in her home,” Solie said. “This was her domain for over 50 years, a place where she did everything by herself and in her own way.”

Conflicts of this sort often threaten relationships between aging parents and their adult children just when understanding and support are needed the most. Instead of working together to solve problems, families find themselves feuding and riven by feelings of resentment and distress.

Solie got so worked up, he considered going to court and asking for a conservatorship—a legal arrangement that would have given him control over his mother’s affairs. (The situation was complicated because Solie’s brother, who has Down syndrome, lived at the family home.) But Solie’s lawyer advised that this course of action would destroy his relationship with his mother.

Ask your parents how they’d prefer to solve problems and what their priorities are. 

Today, Solie, a health care consultant and writer with a well-regarded blog about aging, sounds the same theme when he consults with adult children caring for parents. Make preserving trust and keeping your relationship intact—not winning arguments—a priority, he suggests. What your parents most need is confidence that you’ll listen to them, take their concerns seriously and stay by their side no matter what happens, he says.

How adult children communicate with parents can go a long way toward easing tensions, Solie says. Instead of telling your parents what to do, ask how they’d prefer to solve problems. Elicit their priorities and recognize their values when making suggestions. Give them choices whenever possible. Be attuned to their unexpressed needs and fears.

When Dr. Lee Lindquist, chief of geriatrics at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, asked 68 older adults in eight focus groups why they resisted help, the answers varied. They said they were afraid of losing their independence, becoming a burden on loved ones, being taken advantage of, and relinquishing control over their lives.

Asked what might make a difference, the older adults said they liked the idea of “interdependence”—acknowledging that people need one another from childhood to older age. And they found it helpful to think that “by accepting help, they were in turn helping the person providing the help,” according to Lindquist’s study, published last year in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

Unfortunately, no amount of patience, compassion or forbearance will work in some conflict-ridden circumstances. But here’s some of what experts have learned:

Be patient. Give your parents time to adjust. At first, Jane Wolf Frances’ 87-year-old mother, Lillian Wolf, wouldn’t consider moving with Jane’s father from New York City to the Los Angeles area, where Frances, her only child, lived.

Although Lillian had Alzheimer’s disease, and Frances had planned to give her one-story house to her parents, “I deferred to my mother’s fear that she was going to be losing something essential,” she said.

During three years of caregiving, Frances had learned to not rush her parents. She knew they had slowed down and needed time to process change.

So Frances waited until her parent’s home health aide called with concerns about their ability to live independently. After discussing the situation with their physician, Frances approached her mother again. A move to assisted living would be a fresh start, allowing the family to spend more time together, she said. After several conversations, her mother finally agreed.

Frances, a psychologist, is the author of a new book, Parenting Our Parents: Transforming the Challenge into a Journey of Love, and founder of www.parentingourparents.org. Stay calm when disagreements arise with your elderly parents and tamp down your emotional reactions, she tells families. Listen carefully to your parents’ concerns and let them know you’re trying to help them accomplish their goals, not impose your agenda.

“It’s often helpful to say to your parents ‘I’m doing this for you; I’d like you to do something for me,’” Frances said. “People who are good parents perk up on that one and will ask, ‘OK, what can I do for you?’ Then you can tell them, ‘You can let me help you more.’”

Let them know you’re on their side. Denise Brown was convinced her parents, Roger and Sally Loeffler, were making a terrible decision. In the previous year, Roger, 84, had been diagnosed with bladder and prostate cancer and undergone extensive surgery. Sally, 81, had suffered three internal bleeds and had one-third of her stomach removed.

Brown didn’t think they could live on their own anymore, and her parents had moved into a retirement community upon her recommendation. But then, at a family meeting, her mother stood up and said, “I’m not dying in this dump. I hate it here.” As Brown and her siblings turned to their father, he said, “I’ll do whatever your mom wants.”

When her parents decided to move to an apartment, Brown was confrontational. “I raised my voice and said, ‘This is not good, this is terrible,’” she said. “They were shocked, but they said ‘It doesn’t matter; this is what we’re going to do.’”

As Brown thought about her reaction, she realized she thought her parents would be safer and have a more “gentle” death in the retirement community. “Then it occurred to me—this wasn’t what my parents wanted. They valued their independence. It’s their decision about how the end of life plays out.”

It doesn’t work to try to communicate when your parents are tired or angry. 

Brown let her parents know she’d respect their wishes but would need to set limits. Her work—Brown is the founder of www.CareGiving.com—had to be a priority, and her parents would need to arrange other assistance if she couldn’t be available. (Brown’s two brothers and sister help out.) And they’d have to be willing to talk openly about how their choices were affecting her.

What doesn’t work: trying to communicate when any one of them is tired or angry. “We never get anywhere,” Brown said. “Everybody gets defensive and shuts down.”

What does work: “Asking them questions like how do you think we should try to solve this problem? It’s interesting to hear their answers, and it makes working together so much easier.”

Stop expecting your parents to be as they used to be. After her father’s death, Loi Eberle was distraught when her mother, Lucille Miller, became involved with a man she and her siblings didn’t like. With his encouragement, Miller invested in real estate and lost a great deal of money.

But nothing Eberle or her siblings said could convince her mother that this relationship was destructive.

Eberle struggled with resentment and anger as her mother’s needs escalated after a heart attack and a diagnosis of myasthenia gravis, a severe neurological disease. “Mom and I had this love/hate relationship all my life, and there was a huge need for healing in this relationship,” she said.

In 2012, Eberle moved Miller, then 89, from her longtime home in Minneapolis to a nursing home in northern Idaho, near where Eberle lives. Gradually, she realized that her mother “had transitioned to being someone else”—someone who was vulnerable and at her life’s end.

“I think for a long time I had this idea that I was going to help Mom come back to who she was, and I spent a lot of time trying to do that,” Eberle said. “I finally had to forgive myself for failure and understand that this is the life process.”

With this shift in perspective, emotional tension dissipated. “When I’d visit, my mother was always so happy to see me,” Eberle said. Miller died in March 2017 at age 94.

Letting go of unrealistic expectations can defuse conflicts. This is the final stage of your journey with your parents. Try to put angst to one side and help make this time meaningful for them and for you. Most of all, your parents want to feel emotionally connected and accepted, even in a diminished state.

Judith Graham

Judith Graham writes a column on aging and health for KFF Health News, where she’s a contributing columnist. She also freelances for other publications. Earlier in her career, Judith contributed more than 80 pieces to the New York Times blog, The New Old Age. She was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for a series on defective pacemakers and was part of a Chicago Tribune team that won a Pulitzer in 2001.

In this article, journalist Judith Graham, a contributing columnist for Kaiser Health News (KHN), writes about the Bureau of Sages, a unique advisory board of elders, many of whom are ill, disabled or have early-stage dementia. Researchers consult them to find out what they need and ask about the best ways to involve older people in research, how to communicate with them effectively, and more. Graham’s article was posted on the KHN website on April 25, 2019.

CHICAGO — Rachel O’Conor booted up her slides and began posing questions to six older adults sitting around a table: How should primary care physicians support patients and caregivers after a diagnosis of dementia? And what stands in the way of getting adequate support?

“Please speak louder and go slower,” suggested Susanne Smith, a 75-year-old with early-stage Alzheimer’s disease.

Smith belongs to the Bureau of Sages, a group of vulnerable seniors who advise researchers about what matters to older adults, how to involve them in research about aging and how to communicate with them effectively while doing so. It’s a groundbreaking program: traditionally, ill, disabled and cognitively challenged older adults have been excluded from research and assumed to be too compromised to offer useful insights.

“The recognition that this population has something meaningful to contribute—that’s really unique,” said Robyn Stone, a former adviser to the Sages and senior vice president of research at LeadingAge, a national organization of nonprofit providers that focus on aging.

Everyone who works with older adults would do well to pay attention.

Sages groups are housed at several locations. At the Lieberman Center for Health and Rehabilitation, a nursing home in Skokie, a Chicago suburb, nearly a dozen residents meet every two weeks to discuss academic studies, issues they encounter in their daily lives and potential research projects. A similarly sized group of frail, homebound seniors in Chicago’s northern suburbs gets together virtually, via the internet.

At Northwestern University’s downtown medical campus, seven adults with dementia gather every couple of months at the Mesulam Center for Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer’s Disease to offer feedback to researchers.

On this sunny day in mid-April, Jim Butler, 70, acknowledged it took him 18 months to accept a diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment and speak openly about it. Karen Finesilver, 68, who has Lewy body dementia, stressed the importance of bringing someone along to doctors’ appointments. “When I hear something that makes me nervous, I don’t retain it,” she explained. And Smith spoke of how important it is to feel heard by her physician: “One of the best things is when he actually listens to what I’m saying, because a lot of times doctors may know what’s going on but they do not listen.”

It’s the only time people here talk to you like you have a brain left.

—Sharon Koretsky, 73, on why she loves the meetings with researchers

O’Conor, an assistant professor at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine, had started the conversation by asking about problems that patients and caregivers face. After the discussion, she said she would focus more on “what helps people build on their strengths” because “the resilience and positivity of people really stood out today.”

The Bureau of Sages has received two rounds of funding totaling $500,000 from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), an organization that sponsors innovative projects that include patients in setting research priorities, designing research studies and evaluating their impact.

Unlike occasional surveys or focus groups, a standing group like the Sages can provide “valuable ongoing context about individuals’ lives” that sharpens research and makes it more relevant, said Kristin Carman, PCORI’s director of public and patient engagement.

At the Lieberman nursing home, on another April afternoon, two researchers—a physician and a biomechanical engineer—presented a project they’re working on to nine seniors, most in wheelchairs. Their prototype device would help people with compromised mobility stand up from a sitting position, a task that requires a surprising amount of coordination and strength.

“Would I be able to use this [device] if I can’t straighten my leg out all the way?” asked Sharon Koretsky, 73, who has diabetes and severe osteoarthritis and can no longer stand on her own. “If your muscles are atrophied, would this help improve your condition?” wondered Fern Netzsky, 76, who has had multiple sclerosis for 35 years and can no longer stand or walk.

Both women use what’s known as a “sit-to-stand lift”—a clunky device that helps people transfer from a bed to a chair or from a chair to a toilet seat and that requires two aides to maneuver it. Another commonly used device is a Hoyer lift, which uses a sling to help people rise.

“I hate the Hoyer: they pull it between your legs and you lay there like a big sack of potatoes with your butt hanging out,” Koretsky said. Anything that someone could strap on themselves and that could help people get up more easily with only one aide’s help would be a “wonderful idea,” she added.

One group of Sages wants researchers to investigate better training for certified nursing assistants (CNAs).

As other Lieberman residents chimed in, it became clear they wanted help with walking, not just with standing. They wanted to be able to use the device outdoors, as well as inside the facility. And safety was essential. “I would be willing to try this if I was assured I would not fall and if there was enough protection around me,” Netzsky said.

The researchers, who asked not to be identified because they are working on this project outside of their full-time jobs, said they found many of the comments helpful. Older adults are often assumed to be resistant to using technology but this group seemed quite open to technology that improves their quality of life, the physician observed.

After the meeting, Nancy Weinberg, 96, another participant, described a communication gap between researchers and nursing home residents when the Bureau of Sages began. “They were speaking ‘researchese,’ and I didn’t have any idea what they were talking about. Now they understand we don’t want to hear jargon, and they speak our language.”

With characteristic bluntness, Koretsky said she loved the Sages’ meetings, observing, “It’s the only time people here talk to you like you have a brain left.”

The Lieberman Sages are now trying to persuade researchers at Northwestern to investigate the shortage of certified nursing assistants (CNAs) and the need to better train CNAs—problems faced by nursing homes across the nation. Amy Eisenstein, director of the Leonard Schanfield Research Institute at CJE SeniorLife in Chicago and the project’s principal investigator, is working to expand the program to other locations, including Miami University in Oxford, OH, and the University of Massachusetts, Boston. CJE SeniorLife, sponsored by Chicago’s Council for Jewish Elderly, provides a variety of services to seniors and is the Bureau of Sages’ original sponsor.

(Materials that can help any organization launch a Bureau of Sages are available at the Council for Jewish Elderly’s website under the “Resources” section.)

“I think that all research on aging needs to include the voices of older adults,” Eisenstein said. “They are experts about their lives, and we need to incorporate their perspectives to make research better.”

Judith Graham

Judith Graham writes a column on aging and health for KFF Health News, where she’s a contributing columnist. She also freelances for other publications. Earlier in her career, Judith contributed more than 80 pieces to the New York Times blog, The New Old Age. She was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for a series on defective pacemakers and was part of a Chicago Tribune team that won a Pulitzer in 2001.