Month: January 2025
What is your role at Aging Wisdom?
Director of Learning Innovation
What made you want to work in the field of aging? …
The foundation of Aging Wisdom’s Creative Engagement program is person-centered care, which is built with core values of purpose, respect, and exquisite listening1.
If you are a caregiver, a great start to person-centered care is centering yourself first. You’ve probably heard that caregivers need to take care of themselves to care well for their loved one. And it is true! By clearing your head before focusing on the person in your care and an activity, you are better equipped to meet them where they are and show greater patience. You can do this with a brief walk, a brisk dance to a favorite song, or intentional breathing. …
Over the Christmas holiday, the mom of one of my good friends gave $10,000 to a phone scammer. Earlier that month, I visited a Rotary meeting and one of their members shared that he had just been scammed by a call he thought was his bank. Last week, I heard from a prospective client that her sister had just given her entire savings away to an internet scammer.
What all three of these people have in common is that they are all in their 70’s, vibrant, active, and engaged in their lives. We typically think of victims of scams as being “vulnerable” and isolated. Yet scammers have gotten so skilled, they are forcing us to re-think who is vulnerable to being scammed. These days, we are all at risk.
Internet and phone scams are on the rise and will only continue to increase over time as scammers continue to refine their skill and gain continued success. No one is immune and scammers target all ages. However, “the people losing money are disproportionately sixty and older, with those eighty and older losing most of all,” states M.T. Connolly, attorney, author, and leading national expert on elder justice (Connolly, The Measure of Our Age, 106). …
Taking care of your financial future means more than just meeting with an investment advisor. What if the unexpected happens? For example, you get into an accident: How will you make sure your bills are paid and your assets protected? That’s where a “financial power of attorney” comes in.
A financial power of attorney is a legal document that you prepare to authorize someone to handle financial transactions on your behalf. This person is called your “agent” or “proxy,” though sometimes they are also referred to as your “power of attorney.” …