TCU symposium focuses on healthy aging for baby boomers

Jennie Chin Hansen knows some people cringe when they turn 50 and see an invitation to join the AARP in their mailbox.

AARP, a nonprofit organization with 40 million members, represents people over the age of 50 and was founded in 1958. Today, 51 years later, topics and issues for those aging in American society are more important than ever as the baby boomer generation, those born between 1946 and 1964, continues to age.

Chin Hansen, a nurse by training, is the president of the AARP and is herself a baby boomer. She was the special guest at the sixth Hogstel Symposium, hosted by the Center for Healthy Aging at Texas Christian UniversityÂ’s Harris College of Nursing and Health Sciences and the JPS Health Network.

The April 14 symposium, which was precluded by a community presentation by Chin Hansen on April 13, was titled “Use It or Lose It: Partnerships in Healthy Aging.” Primarily for nurses, social workers and other professionals who work with the elderly population, the symposium featured ideas and practices about how best to keep this section of the population healthy and happy by giving them holistic support.

“We don’t have to be strictly a technician,” Chin Hansen said to the health care workers present.

One matter complicating appropriate health care is that the health care system is difficult to navigate. The first boomers will be turning 65 and eligible for Medicare in just two years, Chin Hansen said, and many more of them will be coping with multiple health conditions at once than in years past.

“There are many more people living with five-plus conditions,” she said, and this substantially increases health care spending.

Many of those conditions – like high blood pressure, diabetes, back problems, cancer and high cholesterol – appear in people who are still on the young side of the AARP membership. The age range, from about 50 until 64, is before someone is eligible for Medicare but probably still employed. If someone loses his or her job at 55, it’s hard to find appropriate health care for these conditions.

“People feel extremely vulnerable without health care right now because this is often the time when chronic conditions show up,” Chin Hansen said.

 Treating people with multiple conditions is not easy and there arenÂ’t enough providers who are skilled in assessing the interactions of various diseases and treatments. The AARP estimates there is only one geriatrician per 2,500 older adults, Chin Hansen said, and not enough nurses and other health care professionals are available to offer supportive services. Training professionals to consider what others can bring to the treatment of a patient is crucial to providing more efficient care and to avoid situations like overmedicating patients, she said.

The symposium featured two series of breakout sessions. In the morning, a session about fitness and fall prevention and a session about proactive end-of-life care coordination were offered. In the afternoon, safe use of medications and cross-cultural and spirituality concerns were discussed.

At the session about proactive end-of-life care, panelists emphasized the need for thinking about so-called “old age” before it arrives.

“You always think you’re going to live forever,” said Jane Oderberg, a licensed master social worker and program director at Cancer Care Services. “You don’t think that drunk driver coming over the hill is going to hit you and then it happens.”

Planning for medical catastrophes, like what kind of resuscitative measures should be taken and under what specific circumstances, isnÂ’t something people want to plan for in part because most people arenÂ’t regularly exposed to death, said Dr. Kendra Belfi, an internist who specializes in geriatrics.

“Our society in general has gone from the early 1900s when most people were [dying] at home and it was a normal part of life to see people die to today being compartmentalized,” she said.

Belfi and Steve Katten, an attorney who focuses on elder law and estate planning, both emphasized the need for legal

documents in place to protect a patientÂ’s control and choice. Katten said a person should make wishes explicit because the law is only concerned with that that person wants, not with what family and other people want. Being clear and having documents in place to spell out what should and should not be done will cut down on arguing and prolonged, unnecessary care.

“I highly doubt Terri Schiavo ever intended to be the topic of discussion on the floors of Congress,” Katten said.

Stephen Sprinkle, director of field education and supervised ministry at Brite Divinity School, where he is an associate professor of practical theology, encouraged health care workers to include a personÂ’s adviser in end of life decisions as well as other major health care matters. Having a trusted person nearby will help provide hope and ease worries, he said, and taking into account the spiritual side of a patient and his or her family will only help to treat the whole person and not just the illness.

“It is so essential that the care of the patient come from all of us,” Sprinkle said. “All of us need all of us.”