The Official Blog of Episcopal Retirement Services

This spring, Parish Health Ministry and TriHealth presented the annual Refresh Your Soul conference on healthy aging, positive aging, dementia and caregiving. The overwhelmingly positive energy of the crowd at the Cintas Center was fed by the engaging speakers to deliver a personally and professionally tremendous experience.

Tickets to the event, which was co-sponsored by the Alzheimer's Association of Greater Cincinnati in partnership with Xavier University, sold out in record time ahead of this year's conference.

Alzheimer's and dementia care are increasingly in demand here in the Cincinnati area and nationwide. That's because an estimated 5.4 million Americans are living with Alzheimer's dementia. By 2050, that number is expected to increase to 14 million.

To help families impacted by dementia diagnoses, Episcopal Retirement Services and other retirement care providers around the country are investing heavily in memory care — residential and outpatient services optimized to support dementia patients’ cognitive function, as well as their daily living needs.

Today, let's discuss some of the changes we're making to accommodate the growing population of dementia patients and look ahead at changes you may see in the future.

Mary Carol Sowar is the coordinator for Deupree Meals On Wheels Route 8. She's been a volunteer route coordinator with Episcopal Retirement Services' (ERS) meal delivery safety net service for 15 years.

For her, volunteering isn't a duty, or simply a service that she provides. It's both a calling and an affirmation of the goodness that can exist in the world.

"My most memorable Meals On Wheels delivery was my very first day on Route 8," she recounted.

We've all heard the negative stereotypes about seniors.

"Older people are grumpy."

"Seniors don't know how to use computers."

"They drive too slow."

"They're cute when they're so confused."

Older people are often written off as curmudgeons and grumps. They're lampooned in popular media as infantile, senile and weak.

And those negative perceptions have been, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), unfortunately widespread — especially in higher-income nations.

Elders who have been barraged by such attitudes suffer from lower perceptions of self-worth, which in turn translate to negative effects on their physical health. They're less resilient from illness or injury. Their average lifespans are 7.5 years shorter than seniors who have a positive self-image.  

For seniors, there are four pillars of healthy aging: physical health, emotional health, spiritual health and financial health.

There's an increasing amount of focus on that last one, because many Baby Boomers and Gen X-ers are woefully underprepared for the cost of retirement. But there hasn't been perhaps enough focus on retirement planning to shore up the remaining three pillars of positive aging.

And that's the crux of retirement consultant Kay Van Norman's work. A well-known speaker, wellness consultant and senior care expert, she is the founder and president of Brilliant Aging, a consulting firm designed to help people age with purpose and vitality.

We all want to feel loved by the significant people in our lives, and aging doesn't diminish that need. If anything, it might make that desire more urgent.

And, truth be told, time can be an enemy to strong relationships, in that the longer a relationship goes on, the more likely complacency, or even jealousies, can develop — es

pecially if two people don't understand that what makes one feel loved isn't necessarily what makes the other feel loved.

Technology and seniors. Two words that a lot of people might not immediately pair. But that's changing.

There are a host of in-home assistive technologies, apps, mobile devices and even virtual reality (VR) experiences that are making healthy aging easier than ever before.

On March 12, you'll likely have the opportunity to see many of these technologies on display, at Parish Health Ministry's annual Refresh Your Soul conference on positive aging.

One of Episcopal Retirement Services' most important long-term goals is to help Cincinnati and the surrounding Tristate area become one of the most age-friendly regions in the nation. That's not something we can do all by ourselves.

We need help from the business community. We need help from local governments. And we need help from people like you.

As it turns out,it’s never too late to change. And aging people do continue learning throughout their lifetimes.

Why? It's all due to neuroplasticity, according to brain and cognition researchers. But just what is neuroplasticity? Let's examine that today.