How to age well

Working as a professional in healthcare, often alongside a patient facing a drastic change in their quality of life, provides one with many valuable life lessons.

For starters, one should regularly take pause to ask what gives your life meaning. How can I maintain my voice and independence as long as possible?  Am I putting off what matters to me “until later when I have the time”?  Make the time now to be conscious of what matters so you are deliberate in your choices moving forward.  Here are a few specific questions to ask yourself:

• What do you want your life to look like as you age?
• Who do you want surrounding you? 
• Do you want to remain in your home (“age in place”) and pay for home renovation to assure your safety at home?   Or do you want to choose a supported living setting where you can live with all your needs met?
• Do you want to travel and where do you want to go?
• What activities do you want to access to maintain your quality of life? eg  belonging to clubs, volunteering,  attending musical events?  Having a pet?  Take an art class?
• What would you like to do now that you could not while you were working full time?
• What are your retirement dream/s?

Controlling your destiny requires Proactive Planning (as opposed to reactive responding!!). A proactive planner is generally a person who gets up each day with a purpose, gives to others, goes outside to breathe and move their body every day.  These qualities also make them more resilient to the aging process.  In general,

• Proactive planners consider their personal choices, anticipates their possible medical and psychosocial-emotional needs, their living options and the associated financial costs of “aging well”. 
• Proactive planners generally take the time to sort through their life’s accumulations knowing they will feel less burdened by their “stuff”.  They can pivot if a life or health event occurs because of this sorting.
• Proactive planners think about their legacy and make a plan.
• Proactive planners ask how they want to live but also consider how the want to die.  They take the time to complete their legal documents including Advanced Directives and a POLST form.  They carefully select a durable Power of Attorney and a health care representative. 
• Proactive planners consider how they will fund their vision of a quality life and make plans for the losses that occur with aging. 
• Proactive planners are people who think about the impact on their aging on the important people in their life.   
• Proactive planners know that in order to minimize their cognitive, psychological, and physical decline, they need people. They regularly engage with others, preferably of different ages and viewpoints. 
• Proactive planners who are “solo agers” consider who will support or advocate them when they cannot.  This role may fall to a health care manager who you select for just that reason.

Controlling your own destiny also requires you to form your TEAM of people.  Select them carefully and share your vision of what aging well means to you.  Ideally, your team should include a wealth manager, an elder or estate attorney, a health care manager, your durable power of attorney/health care representative, your primary care physician and perhaps a financial planner to help with day-to-day bills/spending.  Each member of your team should know who is on your team, should be given permission (A release of Information form) to talk with one another on your behalf and should know your wishes for aging well.

Perhaps the least understood role on your team is the health care manager (also known as geriatric care manager, Aging Life Care Professional ®).  A care manager is a healthcare professional who is the expert on aging, knows you, anticipates your decrements in aging and works to monitor and advocate for your care with your wishes at the forefront.  They have the healthcare background to communicate to all your team on your health care needs, the associated costs and the possible resources given your previously expressed vision on living and dying. 

Recently, I met with a retired teacher who was given a diagnosis of dementia. I asked her, what are you missing right now in your life?  She said without hesitation, “I need more laughter and music”.  She thought some more then said, “I need healthy food that I don’t have to prepare and children.  I want more children in my life.” 

So, ask yourself now, what do YOU need in your life to age well?  What gives your life meaning, value and quality?  You may not be able to go fishing anymore but perhaps you can look out your window and watch people fish.  Follow those images up with proactive planning and don’t forget to surround yourself with a strong team!