WITH THE SILVER TSUNAMI COMES SEA CHANGE. Get ready for a wave of cultural transformations (and a boatload of related clichés) as 78 million boomers, society’s new and largest-ever cohort of older adults, begin to exert their heft. Anticipate looking back 20 years from now, and being impressed and nostalgic about the following paradigm shifts (first cliché alert).
Multiple generations of families will cohabitate. What is different, is households will become more collaborative ventures — with families caring for one another (younger for old, and older for younger), sharing expenses, carpooling, dividing chores and, by the best of intentions, making the multi-age living experience more productive than annoying.
New homes and renovations will routinely incorporate livable designs and features to accommodate those who desire to grow older in their own homes for as long as possible. Livable design will enhance homes’ resale value as well.
Use of Skype and other online video communications will replace many actual family visits. Daily online video connections will also do much to alleviate anxiety about not making regular trips to visit infirmed parents and grandparents.
Alzheimer’s disease will be largely preventable — removing an extraordinary burden from dementia sufferers and informal caregivers. Memory care providers will modify services and collaborate with assisted living communities to offer hybrid, multi-level models and options for residents with dementia.
Use of music, art, humor and other therapiesproven to uniquely engage the brain creativity will be standard practice in caring for individuals with dementia.
Walking devices will definitely become simpler and more attractive. In fact, all assistive technologies will be way cooler and de-stigmatized. Watch out for more three-wheel bicycles with baskets, too.
Increased demand for surgeries and devices to improve eyesight and hearing will prompt the frenetic pace of progressive solutions, and more affordable corrective procedures.
Healthy fast food chains will dominate the market — to the point “healthy” is no longer a differentiator.
First Florida, then other states, will designate the right lanes of highways as “accommodation lanes” for more cautious drivers, with speed limits reduced by 15 miles per hour.
Longevity and patience of older adults will force policymakers to commit to more long-term, substantive solutions with less focus solely on politically motivated immediate gratification.
Boomers will show appreciation for their “longevity dividend” (cliché alert) through generativity — the principle of one generation looking out for another. Environmental protection and resource conservation will once again become a top concern.
Along this same line of thought, the “compression of morbidity” (prolonging active living and delaying disability for older adults” — another cliché alert) will inspire legions of volunteers, mentors and experience counselors.
Retirement age will gradually advance to early seventies. To compensate for this inevitability, employers will create flexible workforces and hours to accommodate and respect the standardized practice of “transfer of experience” from veteran to fresh employees.
Centenarians will have to celebrate their 110th birthday to become newsworthy.
“Anti-aging” nostrums and advertisements will be perceived as ageist. (Florida will attempt to make it unlawful to sell or promote “anti-aging” anything.)
Engaged couples, both with hyphenated last names, will not appreciate their Boomer parents’ conceit.
And, successful aging services providers will offer more affordable services and care to give consumers more aging-in-place (final cliché alert) options focused on “your home, our experience.”
