When was the last time you walked into a restaurant hoping for a relaxing dinner only to feel like you were in the middle of a rock concert, and a bad one at that?  You're not alone.  Noise pollution is a real health hazard, especially for older adults.  Yes, I'm in the AARP club myself, but don't consider myself "old" (and not sure when that starts)  but I've noticed how noise has affected me as I've aged.

I wonder if "retirement" will be one of those words that get's shelved as such a "twenty-tens" thing.  Why the buzz about nixing retirement?

The increasing diversity of the U.S. and other nations offers opportunities and challenges for senior care  care providers, health care systems, and policy makers to create and deliver services to culturally diverse patients and to train and increasingly culturally diverse workforce. Cultural competence refers to an ability to interact effectively with people of different cultures. Cultural competence comprises four components: (a) awareness of one's own cultural worldview, (b) attitude towards cultural differences, (c) knowledge of different cultural practices and worldviews, and (d) cross-cultural skills.   Developing cultural competence through training can result  in a better ability to understand, communicate with, and effectively interact with people across cultures and can lead to a 15% decrease in miscommunication.  In senior care, this communications training can significantly improve outcomes, especially in caring for those with dementias, chronic illness, pain and at end-of-life.

(Society for Neuroscience) The discovery that the human brain can produce new cells in adulthood offers just one example of how adaptable the brain is throughout life. With this knowledge, researchers are investigating how normal aging as well as neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s disease affect that adaptability, and how we can maintain healthy brain function as our brains age.  So what is neuroplasticity?

Lawrence Peter "Yogi" Berra was an American professional baseball catcher, manager, and coach who played 19 seasons in Major League Baseball.  One of his famous quotes "The Future Ain't What it Used to Be" couldn't be more appropriate as we look at the paradigm shifts taking place in our aging world.