The United States’ population of centenarians — currently the largest in the world — has nearly doubled in the past two decades to around 72,000 and is projected to double again by 2020, perhaps even increase seven-fold, according to reports by the Census Bureau.
Read more about the centenarian boom here.
Posted in Aging, Longevity, Older Adults
Here is a list of news clips from WFMY’s recent coverage of aging related issues. Some of the clips were recorded on February 28th when Senior Resources of Guilford staff were taking calls at the WFMY studio.
The videos can not be downloaded, but we thought you might enjoy these links.
Toughest Conversation you’ll have with your parents
When it’s Time for Mom & Dad to Stop Driving
The One Mistake Most Families Make
Get Help from Your Local Senior Services Agency
Dealing with Caregiver Emotions
Resources for You and Your Aging Parent
Posted in Aging, Caregiver, Community, Greensboro, Guilford, High point, North Carolina, Older Adults
If you’re looking for a job and worried about potential employers passing you over because of your age, here are a few tips for constructing your resume.
1. Always include an email address in your contact details. If you haven’t already, create a separate email address for job searching, rather than using your personal email – especially if your personal email address is something unprofessional-sounding like “mee-maw (at) aol.com” or “golf24/7 (at) hotmail.com”. (Gmail seems to be the web-based free email service that has the most up-to-date and professional image, as opposed to aol, hotmail, and yahoo, which have been around forever.) By the way, if you have a fax number, it’s better to leave that off. People are not using fax much anymore.
2. Get yourself a LinkedIn profile (www.linkedin.com) and include a link to it on your resume. Demonstrating competent use of this professional online networking service (which is free by the way) and presenting yourself well in your profile will give you an edge over even some younger candidates. It’s also a good way to learn about employment opportunities, get and share job searching tips and leads, as well as networking. Do NOT include Facebook or other more personal networking/social media links.
3. In the summary at the top of a resume, don’t make your cumulative years of experience the main focus. Instead, put the focus on the relevant industry, function, or field. For example, instead of saying, “Over 30 years of professional experience” say something like, “Ten years’ experience in oil and gas”. Completely avoid the euphemistic phrase “seasoned professional”.
4. Dedicate more space on the resume to your recent work experience, say the last 10 years. For someone with a 10+ year career, a two-page resume is common and the last 10 years, as a rule of thumb, should probably take up the first page. For a one-page resume, it should take up at least half of the page.
5. Summarize and consolidate your earlier work experience. Don’t leave it off, because transparency is crucial, but make it brief. You could even put it in a section titled “Early Career” or “Additional Experience”. An example of summarizing is to include four sales-related jobs in the same company in a statement that you “held progressively more responsible sales jobs in XYZ Company between 1985 and 1992.” If you find that your early career experience is actually more relevant to the job you’re applying for than the recent experience, seek advice from a job coach. You may be able to refer to that experience in the summary or cover letter, and/or insert a section on the first page for “Relevant Experience”, but a job coach could give you better advice for your particular situation. (Goodwill and the Employment Security Commission, among other agencies, offer resume advice services – call 211 to get a list of resources for job seekers).
6. Don’t hide graduation dates. Some may advise you to omit the dates you graduated from high school or college, but that generally draws more negative attention than including them does. The employer might think it’s an oversight, reflecting poor attention to detail; or they might assume you’re even older than you are! Either way, the omission could work against you. Make your education section subtle and brief, and put it toward the end of the resume, but be transparent.
7. List any hobbies that imply an “active lifestyle”. The general rule for resumes is only to include hobbies if they are relevant to the job; but for the older worker, including hobbies that suggest that you are very healthy and active may help reduce any age bias and give you better chance of getting an interview. Don’t lie, of course, but hobbies like running, skiing, or coaching kids’ sports give a more “vibrant” image than some of the stereotypical (but still perfectly valid and enjoyable) hobbies of golf, needlepoint, and gardening.
8. In the Skills section, include all current and relevant technical skills that are pertinent to the job – for example, proficiency in Microsoft Excel. Leave off any outdated software programs like WordPerfect, and do not list “the Internet” or email as areas of technological skill. (These days, that’s like saying that you know how to use a telephone!)
9. Don’t use certain resume phrases that you may have been taught years ago. Writing “References available upon request” is outdated now. Everyone understands that they can ask you for references. Others may not even ask but will Google your name instead and see what they can find out. (Be sure to Google yourself, by the way, to see what will come up.) Other dated resume phrases include “out of the box thinker,” “duties included,” and “managed day-to-day operations”.
10. Use an updated resume format, such as putting the dates of employment at the far right margin and avoiding the Courier font which evokes the old typewriter days. Commonly used fonts that are professional-looking and more updated include Arial, Arial Narrow, Times New Roman, and Tahoma.
Bonus tips, for when you get a phone or face-to-face interview: breaking small-talk habits.
a) Hide your shock at how young the interviewer is. Do not compare their age to that of your children, nor ever use such phrases as, “before you were born” or “in my day”. Drawing attention to age differences is probably not something you intend to do, especially in a job interview, but it’s often an automatic response. Not only does it make you seem older, it may also be perceived as implying “reverse age bias” on your part!
b) Stop yourself from making any self-deprecating jokes about how non-technical you are. It’s also a habit for many of us who had to learn to use computers as adults, and it may seem like a good way to break the ice, but no matter how humorous it won’t help you get any job today.
This article adapted from “Ten Resume Tips for Older Workers”
Posted in Employment, Older Adults, Seniors
Editor’s Note: This weeks posts are brought to you by guest contributor Rick Hall of the Guilford County Department of Social Services – Adult Services Unit.
One of the most important factors to senior adults is their ability to care for themselves. It is generally best for these adults to develop supports (e.g. – family, friends, and professionals) who/which can help them with activities they cannot perform independently in their home. This is, often, referred to as “aging in place.” Increasingly, more adults are facing the reality that in-home services can no longer provide their essential level of care and safety. For these seniors or their caregivers, it is time to begin the daunting task of finding the best Assisted Living facility for that individual. There is no facility that is “right for everyone,” and the choices can sometimes be confusing.
However, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NC-DHHS) has developed a tool that is designed to help those who are searching for the “right place.” It is known as the Adult Care Star Rating System. Essentially, it is a way that citizens can approximate the quality of Adult Care Homes and Family Care Homes based upon their compliance with the regulations established according to NC statutes. While it is not recommended that the Star Rating System be the only resource used to base the choice for an adult’s care upon, it is useful, when pared with other activities like consulting the adult’s primary care physician and visiting the prospective facility. For more on this topic, please refer to the helpful information provided by the DHHS at their website.
Posted in Aging, Guilford, Long Term Care, Older Adults
As we start a new year, people of all ages are making resolutions to stay fit, stay healthy, eat right and stay young. Sometimes as seniors we can start to give up on staying young, but then comes along some friends who remind us that age is in the mind and that if we take care of ourselves, there is nothing we can’t do.
So is the lesson that we learned last night from Bev (age 83) and Hap (age 68) of Los Angeles, California, contestants on Paula Abdul’s new dance competition Live to Dance.
Watch these two youngsters cut a rug and dance their way into 2011.
What are some of the ways you plan to stay young in 2011? Share them with us in the comments!
Posted in Arts and Aging, Creative aging, Exercise, Humor, Older Adults, Seniors
PBS’ show FRONTLINE will be airing a thought-provoking program on end of life decisions entitled “Facing Death” on Tuesday, November 23rd at 9:00 pm. From their press release:
How far would you go to sustain the life of someone you love, or your own? When the moment comes, and you’re confronted with the prospect of “pulling the plug,” do you know how you’ll respond?
In Facing Death, FRONTLINE gains extraordinary access to The Mount Sinai Medical Center, one of New York’s biggest hospitals, to take a closer measure of today’s complicated end-of-life decisions. In this intimate, groundbreaking film, doctors, patients and families speak with remarkable candor about the increasingly difficult choices people are making at the end of life: when to remove a breathing tube in the ICU; when to continue treatment for patients with aggressive blood cancers; when to perform a surgery; and when to call for hospice.
To find out more about this program, or to view it in its entirety, go to PBS.org Then tell us what you thought or share your experiences in our comments.
Posted in Aging, Medical, Older Adults
She is a 90-year-old widow with mild Alzheimer’s disease, and her son is begging her, for safety’s sake, to give up something she considers essential to her independence and sense of control.
“You can’t take it away from me,” she told him recently. “It’s all I’ve got.”
Eliandric
This may sound like a classic confrontation with an elderly mother who won’t give up her car. But it’s in fact about a loaded .38-caliber handgun that she keeps wrapped in a scarf in her top dresser drawer in a Southern California retirement community.
She says she needs it for protection. Her son is afraid she will get angry or confused and shoot someone — possibly him.
Full Article: The New York Times
Dr. Malaz A. Boustani describes delirium among elderly patients as “more dangerous than a fall.” Delirium can also contribute to death by leading to further complications, such as pneumonia or blood clots, according to the Times.
Source: Delirium affects more elderly, results in more nursing home admissions
In the news across the US, more accounts of wandering seniors afflicted with Dementia are surfacing. Partly because of the increase in the senior population, and because the news media is paying more attention. Hopefully, the media spotlight will help establish safe measures to keep wandering seniors from leaving their homes and the risks they face. In some cases, wandering seniors have never been found.
The Silver Alert program can help locate seniors who have gone missing when family members enroll at risk seniors in the program. For seniors who live alone without any loved ones to look after them, the situation seems grim, except in communities where, as part of their many duties, police check on isolated seniors and contact appropriate social service agencies when the police see seniors who become incapable of taking care of themselves or begin to wander.
Maybe one day more programs like the police checks will become the norm saving seniors stricken with Dementia from the hazards of wandering, or get the seniors help before they wander off.
Senior Friendly Guilford 