Age Wave Study

I was recently reading an article about Dr. Ken Dychtwald, who has a 35 year history as a visionary and original thinker regarding lifestyle, marketing, health-care and workforce implications of the “age wave”.  He is a psychologist, gerontologist, documentary film maker, entrepreneur and best selling author of 16 books on aging related issues.  He has dedicated his life to battling ageist stereotypes while promoting a new and vital image of maturity.  I’m sharing some of what he calls “facing the boomer tsunami”.

“Our whole world is sculpted around youth; so in the coming decades, we face an enormous change. Aging is the new frontier.  The mounting population of people over 55-years old during the next 10 years is unprecedented. There is nothing about it that we are prepared for," says Dychtwald. "We can't rely on the past and how we treated seniors. In the past, people didn't age; they died. They died of infectious diseases, not their bodies giving out because of age."

Dychtwald says, “It is time to reset the markers of aging. Life expectancy today is 80 for women, about 74 for men; so using 65 as the marker of old age, as in the past, does not make sense. Two new life stages -- "Middle Essence" from 50-65 years of age and "Late Adulthood" for those over 65 -- matches today's reality”

Dychtwald also suggests "flexible life scheduling" as a new model for aging. Instead of facing decades of retirement without work, elders could cycle between periods of work, volunteerism and leisure. "There will be people who work because they have to and those who work because they wish to," he says "And there will be people who take up 'encore careers' and engage in lifelong learning."

Creating a new image for people of advanced years is also critical, Dychtwald says. Instead of seeing elders as non-productive, "We should view older people as contributors of their talent, experience and abilities. We should create a new social model where older people can be useful. Older people have more free time than any other age group and the most life experience, so why don't we use them?"

One last area of focus in the article was geriatric medical care. Fostering healthy aging by accelerating medical research is imperative, according to Dr. Dychtwald. Presently, only 57 cents per capita is spent on medical research in this country while over $4 per capita is spent on Medicare and over $6 on defense. "We don't take spending on medical research as seriously as we should." He also asserted that too few medical professionals receive training in geriatrics. 

Some critical course corrections could substantially improve the way seniors age in the coming decades, says Dr. Dychtwald.  I think we can all learn from Dr. Dychtwald’s wisdom.