I have followed a half dozen other aging in place websites for the last two years to find the answers for our own situation. Before I go any further I want to present some of the merits of each of them. These sites all recognize this trend or demographic push for the 65 plus crowd to age in place. For the most part they are sponsored by product/service placement. Each website has something to offer in terms of keeping one’s perspective open to the realities of trying to age in place.
Aging in place.com Patrick Roden, RN CAPS This website has changed several times and in its latest mode is trying to consolidate the knowledge of industry leaders. Ok, so the old lady is not on a ladder but sitting on the floor?
Earlier versions had short but enjoyable blogs with down to earth topics like the Golden Girl network that were helpful and insightful. The website has since changed again and the blog area is kind of swallowed up by all the other things topics offered. Challenging Aging.org or Disrupting Aging by Dr Bill Thomas MD, a gerontologist, author and lecturer. The site has many well written blogs with more of an academic aspect to them. I had the pleasure of going to Dr Thomas’s early leg of his Disrupt Aging Tour in Spring 2015. It was an experience that took me back to the seventies and some Gestalt Workshops. That is, making sense of what is happening to you and going with the flow. It was a memorable evening as Dr Thomas explained away our problems with memory and other aspects of growing older with grace. Dr Thomas is also having some real impact by working for change in the stale bureaucratic aspect of nursing homes.
After I plowed through the sociology of the first part of Dr Thomas’s book , Second Wind , I was very grateful to find his delineation of older folks as deniers, realists and the enthusiastic elder. I am trying to become the later. More on that later.
Aging in place Technology Watch by Laurie M Orlov. Love her rants! Some of the best articles have been within this website that is specially dedicated the technology fix for aging. She has a very good grasp of the whole picture from the discussion on the Rot in Place/Washington Post article to the reality of yes they are building these communities but we are no signing up. The site has massive amounts of information on the staggering efforts to reinvent the future for the elderly with smart gadgets.
Retirement- living.com gets the award for best and simplest organization of the most different topics. I am not sure how it is funded but it is heavily banner-ed with ads. Once you go here these ads will be on your Facebook page.
Aging in place.org national organization . Interesting, one of their topics for the December 2015 conference in Atlanta meeting is “Boomer Sensibility and overcoming denial of aging” …love to be a fly on the wall for that one. It comes back to they do not understand us beyond the marketing bonanza we are supposed to be.
