Over-50

U.S. Legal System - The Dementia Threat

To some, Houston, Texas First Court of Appeals Justice Laura Higley seemed fine.

As played out on the popular network television show "Boston Legal" seasoned members of the legal profession such as Denny Crane can conceal their cognitive decline. But, eventually the various forms of dementia take over. 

It had been Justice Higley's two sons who outed her condition. She resigned.

According to Texas Lawyer, her situation is not an aberration. In that state 17% of the lawyers are 65 years or older. In addition, more lawyers have no plan to retire. They enjoy the work. If they are on their second marriage there might be offspring to put through college. And they might have noticed that the retired become invisible. The end of a job usually means the end of a whole identity.

Overall in the general population, about one in six females and one in 10 males will suffer memory loss significant enough to impair their professional performance and ability to function in daily life. 

The bar association in TX is looking into this and it encourages members to have a confidential evaluation. Many other state bars are also aware of the high cost - on many levels - of allowing impaired members of the profession to continue to practice law. 

But, having a judge or lawyer give up the title and job tends not to be easy. And it could be politically dangerous. On another popular network television show "Blue Bloods," prosecutor Erin Reagan risks her career putting pressure on a judge, who is sliding into senility, to retire. The episode does have a happy ending.

With dementia becoming common in the legal sector, others could also get caught in that kind of scary situation. They might not land on their feet as had Reagan.

Smart global ghostwriting, with social networking know-know. Emergencies welcome. Complimentary consultation (pressure-free) janegenova374@gmail.com.

A Girl (at least in her peddle-power) & Her Trike

It was bravado. But, part of me believed it at the time I purchased the trike (adult tricycle) at Wersell Bike Shop, Toledo, Ohio. 

I had to believe that three-wheel contraption could really get me, an over-50, everyplace I wanted to go.

So, with great confidence I informed the salesperson Brett Gibson I was going to use the trike to peddle my way to the Toledo Museum of Art. That was about six weeks ago.

Here's my story. When I still had a car I had become a member of the Museum and got an emotional/spiritual lift weekly when I roamed the exhibits, nursed one affordable coffee in the cafe, and gazed out at the garden. Afternoons of heaven.

The car I had donated to Kars4Kids.

See, I couldn't shake the trauma of an accident in Michigan at the end of August 2019.

The sound of the crash and the look in my dog's eyes when the accident happened, they dominated my consciousness.

In addition, State Farm, although it was my first accident and no one was hurt, more than doubled my insurance. After that, I yanked my homeowner's insurance and placed it with another insurance company. It also covers the trike for the replacement value.

Peddle by peddle, I worked up to making it to the Museum. First it was the 40 minute bike ride to my support group meeting on Sylvania Avenue. Within a week I got that down to 30 minutes. Obviously, I was making progress. I also connected the dots on wearing layers. It was an experience of total cool having a backpack. 

Then last week there was the 90 minute peddling to the main shopping district and back. According to calorie calculators, that has lightened my calorie count for that afternoon by 805. On Facebook I asked my friends if I came across as thinner.

I made it my business to study city maps. Somehow I identified a shortcut from Lewis Avenue to Monroe Street. I took it, but didn't trust my directional instincts. 

For once, they were on the money. I arrived at the Museum parking lot. My member sticker was on the bike. That would allow me to park w/o the $8 fee.

Then, a wrench in the works.

"No bikes in the lot." That's what the attendant said.

My heart sank to the crusty envelope encasing planet earth.

Then, the attendant indicated there was a bike rack in front of the museum.

I backed out my trike (manually) and headed there.

There was a new exhibit on light and shadow. Because I was a member I didn't have to pony up the $12 bucks for a ticket.

Then I studied Andrew Wyeth's "The Hunter."

It reinforced for me the importance of angle in creative projects. Wyeth approached the subject from on high in a Sycamore tree. The bark was peeling off. Since it was fall there were few leaves. That renewed my determination to go for out of the box angles in my ghostwriting, even if clients seemed to want (the issue is always: do they really want) platitudes. 

"The Hunter" stuck with me. I needed to think more about Wyeth's technique.

So, I took the long long way home. One stop was at an apartment complex closer to the action of downtown. Should I move?

The issue became: Maybe I needed as much peddling distance between me and what my soul craved. During the six weeks of triking the clinical depression I had struggled with since age 11 had gone into remission. 

Reflection: Harvard Medical School might do a global experiment on triking and putting a dent in the worldwide epidemic of depression. Instead of giving the world a Coca-Cola, give 'em trikes. 

Smart global ghostwriting, with social networking know-know. Emergencies welcome. Complimentary consultation (pressure-free) janegenova374@gmail.com.

One More Argument Against Retiring (especially early)

FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) is controversial.

The most common problem brought up is the tendency to run out of money. After all, those ducking out of the workforce earlier than 66 can wind up living beyond 100. 

But, now there is another reason why employees and the self-employed might not do a FIRE.

That's the recent study in China by Plamen Nikolov of Binghampton University in New York. Of the Chinese retirees and the non-retired analyzed, the research team found that the former did 20% worse on memory tests.

They conclude that is a result of the combination of not having the intellectual stimulation of work and experiencing less social interaction. Here are more details from the Daily Mail.

Yes, there's a hunch that not retiring can hold off dementia. Staying put in working requires remembering a million little (and big) things. 

Also, remaining employed prevents the tendency for the aging to become invisible, that is pushed into social irrelevance.

This is capitalism. Identity is associated with productivity. When not employed or self-employed the identity slips away, usually quickly.

It should be no surprise that so many superplayers such as David Boies in law and film-maker/actor Clint Eastwood are still out there hustling. They seem smart enough to recognize the perils of hanging it up. Now, it's confirmed, at least in China, that the fallout could include the slide into dementia.

Smart global ghostwriting, with social networking know-know. Emergencies welcome. Complimentary consultation (pressure-free) janegenova374@gmail.com.

No Fool Like an Old Fool?

Steve Jobs wannabe Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes is still in black.

Only at the pre-trial court hearing it wasn't the signature black turtleneck.

It was a basic black dress and black blazer. And, at age 35, she's still attractive.

Some conjecture that it had been her youthful blonde good looks which lured big establishment names such as Henry Kissinger to the Theranos board of directors. At one point superlawyer David Boies had represented her.

Her trial on 11 counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud will begin on July 28, 2020, in San Jose, California. Here is a summary of those counts by the Department of Justice. And, here is a copy of the actual indictment. 

The contention is that she and the startup's number-two Sunny Balwani deliberately misled investors, regulators, and the public about a technology which didn't exist. Balwani, who had also been her lover, was in court but arrived separately. In a television interview he argued that Theranos represented a business failure, not a fraud. If convicted, both face decades in prison.

But meanwhile, she did win one in court. She requested that the Food and Drug Administration speed up the process of turning over documents to her legal team. It claims that would require 6 months. No way, ruled federal judge Edward Davila. He gave the regulatory agency 75 days. Here are more details from the media.

By the time of the trial, most of the tech world could be in the reputational toilet. Regulators, media, the stock market, consumers, and the public globally could have turned on it. An indication of how bad it could it get is playing out in Europe. New York University marketing professor and internet expert Scott Galloway has been predicting just that. 

My hunch is that it will be difficult for both sides - prosecution and defense - to find objective jury members in the San Jose area. The defense might request a change of venue, which could delay the trial. Delays help defendants. 

In the tabloid media this saga could go down as "The Blonde and The Old White Men." On "SNL," there can be a film noir rendition of a board meeting. 

Not getting results from your marketing communications? Complimentary consultation – janegenova374@gmail.com.

 

Preventing Dementia (even if we carry that awful gene) - The 5 Steps

Our mind is our number-one asset in figuring out how we will keep working, into our 70s, 80s, and beyond.

Therefore we should be plenty motivated to protect that asset from the onset of dementia. 

The way to do that could be to embrace a 5-step wellness program. And stick with it.

A study conducted at the University of Exeter found that a healthy lifestyle can reduce the risk of dementia 32%. That's even among those with a gene for it. Here is general coverage in MarketWatch. And, here is a detailed description of the research in ScienceDaily.

Co-lead author Dr. El?bieta Ku?ma found 5 healthy habits could bypass what might have been genetic destiny. They are:

•  Diet low in sugar and salt
•  Avoiding artificial sweetners
•  Regular exercise
•  No tobacco smoking
•  Moderation in alcohol consumption. 

Along with those 5 steps, you can read, free download here, my book on landing, holding, and moving on to better work, no matter what your age Download Outwitting ageism.

Staying in the workforce or continuing to operate our own businesses mandates fresh mindsets.

Not getting results from your marketing communications? Complimentary consultation – janegenova374@gmail.com.

Baby Boomers - Making That Gigantic Shift from Post-War Wild Optimism to 21st-Century Pessimism

" … pessimism has an image problem." - David Olusoga, The Guardian, July 14, 2019. Here is the thought piece.

The unique problem for us Baby Boomers in arranging some kind of financial security as we age is this: The post-war optimism we embraced.

The odds are that pessimism about what-if scenarios would yield the results we need to not become homeless by age 85. Pessimism tends to cover more bases. 

After the carnage of World War II, those in America in charge of memes made it their business to introduce a wildly positive mindset. On the plus side, that might have helped create the economic tide which lifted all boats. 

In our overcrowded classrooms, swim lesson at the Y, and Sunday School lessons, we were told all was possible. Just keep our nose clean, go to college, get married, and (for females) don't get pregnant before marriage. 

There was no undertow of the M. Scott Peck's notion that life is difficult. It took his publishing his book "The Road Less Traveled" to make that dark idea sticky. 

Life, of course, began to block the sunshine. Popular film "The Graduate" captured how hard it was to transition from what could be called The Program for Baby Boomers to making a place for ourselves after our formal education in an economic system that was sharp-elbowed - and unfair.

Relationships, it turned out, required lots of work. It wasn't what had been positioned and packaged on 1950s series "Father Knows Best."

Disappointment made us America's First Therapy Generation.

But, early conditioning doesn't erase easily. Inside there is still our inner optimist. Trust the system. And all will turn out well.

What we should trust is what we had learned in the required science course in college. That was to apply the scientific method to problem-solving. Approach whatever as an experiment to rule out some solutions and confirm others which were effective. 

That means not buying into supposed expert advice or following the example of celebrities and neighbors.

Many initiatives as we age will fail. But if we approach them as experiments we can navigate life as it is more smoothly and with less trauma.

For example, on expert advice I relocated from aged-biased expensive New York Metro area to southwestern Arizona. The latter had a higher median age and lower cost of living. Had I framed that as try-it-out, I wouldn't have struggled so hard to make it work. Only after 27 months I moved out of AZ and on to Plan B. 

My determination to operate my two boutique for at least six more years is yet another experiment. What I have as a kind of control group are those who have retired.

In itself, retirement is a try-it-out.

According to the Federal Reserve, that plan hasn't panned out for one-third of retirees. They have bounced back into the workforce.

It's not only a matter of money. Retirees found once their professional identity was over they became invisible. 

Obviously, those considering retiring should set that up as a experiment. Their control group are those of us who remain out here hustling. Here, free to click open, is my book on how to land, hold, and move on to better work, at any age Download Outwitting ageism.

Not getting results from your marketing communications? Complimentary consultation – janegenova374@gmail.com.

 

The Voodoo of Voice

As an aging professional you program your Alexa to say It's age bias, it's not you. And you go on to continue to search for work. 

That kind of voice messaging is exactly why Alexa is growing so rapidly. “Voice establishes a powerful emotional connection, even more than facial gestures,” explains Shari Nelson, founder of memvio. “And, it stays imprinted forever. Voice resonates in our unconscious.”

Research, such by the Greater Good Science Center, confirms that therapeutic voodoo. How it happens is beginning to be scientifically sorted out. For example, we already know that the region of the brain where the ability to recognize voices is housed is the superior temporal gyrus (STG).

By 2021, there will be more voice-activated assistants throughout the world than human beings, forecasts Ovum. It took three decades for mobile phones to reach that level.

Call this a movement? Maybe. Alexa does represent the return to an oral culture.

Marketers, as usual, pounced on this trend. They noticed the popularity of podcasting among all generations. Because the voice medium is so engaging podcasting advertising often generates the most response for the lowest cost.

More employers, such as Unilever, are tossing traditional vetting procedures such as requesting the resume and cover letter. Instead, essentially, they are telling applicants: Talk to us. That happens at the front end through digital technology. At the point closer to hiring, there will be the in-person talk-to-us encounter.

Then, there is Nelson's story. It was after her mother died that Nelson got it: She missed hearing her mother’s voice. That’s an understatement. The reality was and is that she needed her mother’s voice.

She asked herself why she hadn’t recorded all those unique moments as a kind of family oral history.

For instance, what about their conversation on her wedding day and when her mother let the family know she was leaving the earth full of peace? There were days when Nelson and her eight siblings needed that voice, with all its idiosyncratic nuances and Irish American intonations. Also, there have been so many times when she wished her own five children could hear the wisdom from a very different time. Those regrets were the seeds for memvio.

The mission for memvio became this: preserving memories. One of the mediums for that has been audio. Call it “storing voices.” Others are video, photographic, and text. Usually a project brings together all of them. A designer parachutes in. Some folks think of the process as “scrapbooking.” Here are samples.

Whatever or whoever has a voice can create emotional spells.

Exactly the right tone and content for all your communications. Complimentary consultation janegenova374@gmail.com.

Becoming Invisible, Then Isolating

Since 2006, the rate of suicide in the U.S. has increased 2% each year.

In addition, suicide attempts are at about 1.4 million annually.

Those are just some of the statistics the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released today from its recent study. Here are more details from Bloomberg.

A sign of these suicidal times, talking about thoughts of offing oneself is no longer taboo. And it has become commonplace.

In fact, last night a Millennial neighbor and I chatted up in front of our building about our bout of suicidal ideation earlier in the week. The woman next door who overheard us joined in. My quip was that when a date asked me my purpose in life, I blurted out: Trying my best to stay alive. 

Yeah, we are a nation in lousy emotional shape.

As the Bloomberg article points out, the 60-year run of optimism about treatments for mental illness - ranging from medication to take therapy - was magical thinking. A reason for that is also something Bloomberg notes:

" ... psychological stressors can activate a genetic predisposition, so life circumstances matter a lot. And the U.S. is home to some particularly challenging ones ..."

WORK SUCKS

At the top of the list is the disenchantment with work. Since Puritan times the work ethic has been the unofficial religion in America. That belief system is being battered on all fronts.

Some don't have enough work.

Others work at what pays peanuts.

Those who have lots of well-paid work such as lawyers, like Gabe MacConaill, are committing suicide. Or they are self-destructing in other ways be those drugs or embezzling client funds and getting caught.

A reason FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) has caught fire is that too many are treated so badly by employers, clients, and customers while working. The dream is to find satisfaction elsewhere.

FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS

The pain is palpable. And, as fellow human beings, we feel it.

So many decent human beings are suffering and it's needless.

The most obvious instance of that is homelessness. Some cities look like third-world countries.

But more pervasive is the extreme loneliness. Gone is the ability to even have a conversation. The Diane Sawyer two-hour television special on screen time pointed the finger for this at digital technology. In addition, the aging become invisible. Then they self-isolate.

RATS NO LONGER STAY IN THE BASEMENT

In Manhattan there used to be the old saying: If the rats stay in the basement, you know things are under control. It's when the rats climb the stairs and merrily join the diners in the restaurant that you know the social system is collapsing. 

The dark aspects of society - corruption, narcissism, violence, and bullying - have taken over. We watch an inspiring film such as "Breakthrough" and are incapable of feeling hope.

It's overdue that the key institutions in society such as the mental health system, education, government, and the private sector look at what Bloomberg labeled "life circumstances." Those are the levers to push to reduce suicide.

Meanwhile, it is possible to get through the day.

Talking to one trusted acquaintance can release the despair.

There are caring human beings at Samaritans. That free hotline (212-673-3000) operates 24/7.

Go the animal shelter and adopt a companion, even if that means relocating to a pet-friendly apartment.

Do one decent human act. That can be as small a gesture as holding the door open for a mother carrying a child. 

Full Disclosure: Several members of my family committed suicide. 

Exactly the right tone and content for all your communications. Complimentary consultation janegenova374@gmail.com.

Stay Healthy

In Ohio, a medical doctor looking like the earnest boy next door - William Husel - is arrested. He is charged with 25 counts of murder for allegedly administering fatal doses of fentanyl. 

Much further east, in New England, Boston Magazine publishes a scathing expose. The subhead reads:

"Sexual misconduct, sloppy - sometimes catastrophic - mistakes, and a medical board that's been known to look the other way. Local physicians keep getting away with bad medicine, but you may never know who they are until it's too late."

The author of the article Michael Damiano depicts a profession in which there is little accountability. What is typical is that medical doctors who are disciplined at one hospital simply hop to another. Or, if the situation is that serious they leave the state and get set up in medical practice in another.

This in not unique to Massachusetts. Nationwide as few as 10% of medical mistakes are reported. In Massachusetts, the state medical board received in one year 211 complaints. Only 11 medical doctors were disciplined. 

According to data from the National Practitioner Data Bank, 200 medical doctors in Massachusetts had been in the loop for at least 5 malpractice incidents. None of them had lost their license to practice medicine.

Reflection: Now, when neighbors say they have great trust in their medical doctor, we will consider them downright naive. Yes, do that signature smirk of teenagers.

Trust may never be restored.

One solution is to pull out all stops to remain healthy. 

If that fails, consult with a local shaman.

In southwestern Arizona, a faith healer eliminated the crippling pain in my left hand and wrist.

A group of faith healers prayed over me for 3 sessions. That was for the clinical depression the insurance companies and I had paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars to treat. That group of shamans didn't promise total relief. For the rest they trained me in deep meditation.

Exactly the right tone and content for all your communications. Complimentary consultation janegenova374@gmail.com.

 

 

 

 

 

Preventing Memory Loss: Exercise

That person coming towards us - we can't remember her name.

The title of our favorite film - we should be able to recall it but can't.

The appointment we missed because we didn't remember it.

Those kinds of memory losses scare us. 

The good news is that research has proved that intense exercise can boost the neural processes associated with memory in the elderly who are healthy.

Long has it been known that exercise does enhance cognitive ability.

A more recent study by Junyeon Won, et al. found that another benefit is improvement of memory. Here is the summary of the study published April 25, 2109 in the Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society.

The research focused on those 55 to 85. Their health was good.

The control group did nothing.

The ones being tested rode a stationary bike for 30 minutes. The latter then performed better than those in the control group on memory testing. 

So, yes, exercise. 

Exactly the right tone and content for all your communications. Complimentary consultation janegenova374@gmail.com.