Have you ever been part of an organ recital? You know, when more than two people over the age of 60 get together, part of the conversation sometimes turns to what’s wrong with different parts of their bodies or brains or feelings. Some ask, “don’t we have anything better to talk about?” Sometimes the answer to that question is “no.”
Recently, I was comparing notes with one of my neighbors about our mutual falls around the house and yard. We’ve both been slipping a bit more often. Then they brought up memory problems – can’t think of the word we want, don’t remember the item we needed at the grocery store or what’s the name of that movie? These may not be dreaded “problems” or the start of dementia; they might just be completely normal “still-being-alive” realities. But it would be nice to know.
My neighbor asked their primary-care doctor for a way to assess their memory, or a way to get some kind of memory baseline to compare future assessments – to see how memory things are actually going. The doc suggested a neuro-psych evaluation and gave them a referral and a phone number to call to make an appointment.
My neighbor called. It was the wrong office, but they eventually got a different phone number to call. The second office took my neighbor’s information, said they had no appointments for a neuro-psych evaluation available at this time, put them on a waiting list, and assured they’d be contacted as soon as one opens up.
Neighbor asks, “How long?” Person says they cannot predict. Neighbor asks, “Why can’t you predict how long I’ll have to wait for an appointment?” Person says the waiting list is too long and last year they were predicting six months to a year, but it turned out to be longer than a year’s wait, so now they don’t predict at all.
Hold on, longer than a year to get a basic memory assessment? More of us are having questions about our memories or some other health concerns. Every day in the U.S. more than 10,000 people turn 60. Is our health-care system keeping up?
And it’s not just health care. Housing. Transportation. Education. As our population shifts dramatically, are the basic ways our lives and communities and cultures are organized able to keep up? We’ve added more longevity to our species in the past 125 years than all previous civilization.
Our systems seem unable to address the realities of this new phase. Yes, the need to effectively deliver basic services is important and sometimes we meet a moment when thinking outside the box is necessary.
Much of our system seems to have become performative – trying to maintain appearances rather than accomplish fundamental shifts in order to meet the needs of all our people.
Maybe we’re asking the wrong question.
Not how do we organize or support all these longer lives.
Rather, how do we design lives worth living longer?