{"id":5546,"date":"2019-05-15T07:36:45","date_gmt":"2019-05-15T11:36:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.silvercentury.org\/?p=5546"},"modified":"2019-05-17T06:47:40","modified_gmt":"2019-05-17T10:47:40","slug":"elder-orphans-need-fallback-plans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/2019\/05\/elder-orphans-need-fallback-plans\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Elder Orphans\u2019 Need Fallback Plans"},"content":{"rendered":"

Writing for <\/span><\/i>Kaiser Health News<\/span><\/i><\/a> (KHN), journalist Judith Graham reports on the problems of older people who have no one to turn to if they need help: no spouse, no children. She also describes the solutions some of them are working out for themselves. Her article was posted on the KHN website on October 4, 2018.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

It was a memorable place to have an \u201caha\u201d moment about aging.<\/span><\/p>\n

Peter Sperry had taken his 82-year-old father, who\u2019d had a stroke and used a wheelchair, to Disney World. Just after they\u2019d made their way through the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, nature called. Sperry took his father to the bathroom where, with difficulty, he changed the older man\u2019s diaper.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt came to me then: there isn\u2019t going to be anyone to do this for me when I\u2019m his age, and I needed to plan ahead,\u201d said Sperry, now 61, recalling the experience several years ago.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sperry never married, has no children and lives alone.<\/span><\/p>\n

Like other \u201celder orphans\u201d (older people without a spouse or children on whom they can depend) and \u201csolo agers\u201d (older adults without children, living alone), he\u2019s expecting to move through later life without the safety net of a spouse, a son or a daughter who will step up to provide practical, physical and emotional support over time.<\/span><\/p>\n

What strikes me is how many of these elder orphans are woefully unprepared for aging.<\/b><\/p>\n

\u2014Maria Carney, MD<\/b><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

About 22 percent of older adults in the United States fall into this category or are at risk of doing so in the future, according to a <\/span>2016 study<\/a>.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an often overlooked, poorly understood group that needs more attention from the medical community,\u201d said Dr. Maria Carney, the study\u2019s lead author and chief of the division of geriatrics and palliative medicine at Northwell Health in New York. It\u2019s also an especially vulnerable group, according to a <\/span>recently released survey<\/span><\/a> of 500 people who belong to the <\/span>Elder Orphan Facebook Group<\/a>,<\/span> with 8,500 members.<\/span><\/p>\n

Notably, 70 percent of survey respondents said they hadn\u2019t identified a caregiver who would help if they became ill or disabled, while 35 percent said they didn\u2019t have \u201cfriends or family to help them cope with life\u2019s challenges.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat strikes me is how many of these elder orphans are woefully unprepared for aging,\u201d said Carney, who reviewed the survey at my request.<\/span><\/p>\n

Financial insecurity and health concerns are common among the survey respondents: a non-random sample consisting mostly of women in their 60s and 70s, most of them divorced or widowed and college educated.<\/span><\/p>\n

One-quarter of the group said they feared losing their housing; 23 percent reported not having enough money to meet basic needs at least once over the past year; 31 percent said they weren\u2019t secure about their financial future.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the survey, 40 percent of people admitted to depression; 37 percent, to anxiety. More than half (52 percent) confessed to being lonely.<\/span><\/p>\n

Carol Marak, 67, who runs the Facebook group, understands members\u2019 insecurities better than ever since suffering an accident several weeks ago. She cut her finger badly on a meat grinder while making chicken salad for dinner guests. Divorced and childless, Marak lives alone in an apartment tower in Dallas. She walked down the hall and asked neighbors\u2014a married couple\u2014to take her to the emergency room.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI freaked out\u2014and this wasn\u2019t even that big of a deal,\u201d Marak said. \u201cImagine people like me who break a hip and have a long period of disability and recovery,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat are they supposed to do?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

After getting to know each other virtually on the Elder Orphan Facebook Group, elder orphans have begun meeting in person in several cities. <\/b><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sperry has thought a lot about who could be his caregiver down that road in a circumstance like that. No one fits the bill.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not like I don\u2019t have family or friends. It\u2019s just that the people who you can count on have to be specific types of family and friends,\u201d he said. \u201cYour sister or brother, they may be willing to help but not able to if they\u2019re old themselves. Your nieces and nephews, they may be able, but they probably are not going to be willing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The solution Sperry thinks might work: moving to a continuing care retirement community, with different levels of care, when he begins to become less independent. That\u2019s an expensive proposition\u2014entry fees range from about $100,000 to $400,000 and monthly fees from about $2,000 to $4,000.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sperry, a longtime government employee, can afford it, but many people aging alone can\u2019t.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sperry also has a short-term plan: he wants to retire next year and relocate from Woodbridge, VA, to Greenville, SC\u2014 a popular retirement haven\u2014in a home with design features to help him age in place. Those plans could be upended, however, if his widowed mother in Pennsylvania requires extra care.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the meantime, Sperry is resolved to be pragmatic. \u201cDo I look at my situation and say, \u2018Gee, there\u2019s not going to be anyone there for me\u2019 and start feeling sorry for myself? Or do I say, \u2018Gee, I\u2019d better figure out how I\u2019m going to take care of myself\u2019? I\u2019m not going with pity\u2014I don\u2019t think that would be very pleasant,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Planning for challenges that can arise with advancing age is essential for people who go it alone, advised Sara Zeff Geber, a retirement coach and author of <\/span>Essential Retirement Planning for Solo Agers: A Retirement and Aging Roadmap for Single and Childless<\/span><\/i> Adults (2018).<\/span> A good way to start is to think about things that adult children do for older parents and consider how you\u2019re going to do all of that yourself or with outside assistance, she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

In her book, Geber lists the responsibilities that adult children frequently take on: they serve as caregivers, help older parents figure out where to live, provide emotional and practical support, assist with financial issues such as managing money and agree to serve as health care or legal decision-makers when a parent becomes incapacitated. Also, older parents often rely on adult children for regular social contact and a sense of connectedness.<\/span><\/p>\n

In New York, Wendl Kornfeld, 69, began running year-long workshops for small groups of solo agers four years ago. Though married, she and her 80-year-old husband consider themselves future solo agers living together. \u201cWe figured out a long time ago one of us was going to survive the other,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

At those gatherings, Kornfeld asked people to jettison denial about aging and imagine the absolute worst things that might happen to them, physically and socially. Then people talked about how they might prepare for those eventualities.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole purpose of these get-togethers was to be fearless, face issues head on and not keep our heads in the sand,\u201d Kornfeld said. \u201cThen we can plan for what might happen, stop worrying and start enjoying the best years of our lives.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Kornfeld took her program to New York City\u2019s Temple Emanu-El three years ago and is working with several synagogues and churches interested in launching similar initiatives. Meanwhile, elder orphans have begun meeting in person in other cities, including Chicago, Dallas, Portland, OR, San Diego and Seattle, after getting to know each other virtually on the Elder Orphan Facebook Group.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kornfeld applauds that development. \u201cSo many solo agers identify as being introverted or shy or impatient with other people. They have a million reasons why they don\u2019t go out,\u201d she said. \u201cI tell people, this may be hard for you, but you\u2019ve got to leave the house because that\u2019s where the world is.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

KHN\u2019s coverage related to aging and improving care of older adults is supported in part by <\/span><\/i>The John A. Hartford Foundation<\/span><\/i><\/a>.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was a memorable place to have an \u201caha\u201d moment about aging.<\/span><\/p>\n

Peter Sperry had taken his 82-year-old father, who\u2019d had a stroke and used a wheelchair, to Disney World.<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more \u2018Elder Orphans\u2019 Need Fallback Plans<\/span> ›<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":5547,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":null,"_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":null,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,4,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-getting-older","category-issues-in-aging","category-supports"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":"","source_text":"","source_url":""},"wps_subtitle":"With no spouse or adult children to help them, they\u2019re aging without a safety net","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5546"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5546\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5550,"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5546\/revisions\/5550"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}