Tech Advice for Living to 100

And enjoying life when you get there

Last week was interesting if you want to think about living to 100. Evercare offered up its 2009 Evercare 100@100 Survey, which included survey results from college seniors. Dr. Judith Rich was published in the Huffington Post with the question, "Would You Want to Live to Be 100?" Both were built on surveys that compared the lives of centenarians (who had a 400-to-1 chance of surviving this long) to the lives of today's young people. In fact, according to the Foundation for Health in Aging, if you were born in 1980, chances are now 87 to 1 that you will live to be 100.

Should the old get out of the way to make more room on the planet? Dr. Rich observed that by 2030, 84% of those 65+ will have completed high school and 24% will have a bachelor's degree, compared with 15% with a college degree today. She noted that tomorrow's centenarians will be very comfortable with smart phones, Internet, and whatever else is around to enable them to access any information resource—and will be very demanding health care consumers. She worried that the planet cannot accommodate all of what she terms geezerdom and perhaps it would make sense for the old to voluntarily “get out of the way” to make room for everyone else.

Evercare's “healthy and articulate” 100-year-olds are engaged in life now. Who would have thought that half of centenarians are familiar with Nintendo's Wii Fit, 21% go online, 10% use email weekly, 5% watch TV, 4% download music, 3% use Twitter, and 2% would want an iPod if stranded on a desert island. Half are walking and hiking, more than half watch quiz shows, and 77% read to stimulate their minds. Both centenarians and college seniors talk to friends and family to manage stress. In a somewhat worrisome finding for the future, 63% of 100-year-olds said they “do something to help others” as a secondary stress reliever, whereas 78% of college seniors report that they instead resort to “me time” to manage stress.

The Judith Rich column includes advice for extending your lifespan. She quotes a laundry list of widely publicized advice on how to lengthen your life (e.g., laughing for 15 minutes a day, not smoking, having a positive outlook), but the list doesn't include staying connected to community, doing something to help others, staying on top of current news and world events, or using a computer to stay connected to family. Let’s remember that the Evercare interviewees are already 100 years old—and this is what a surprising number of them do. Maybe if we want to live to 100, we should emulate them. This being a tech blog, here's my twist:

• Own a computer. Some vendors who make proprietary (non-PC) products still trot out the tired old line that 65+ customers are baffled by computers—that's why their product isn't built on a PC. It's especially ironic to me that telehealth vendors send technically knowledgeable people into the homes of people aged 65+ to install monitoring units and will train them on the use of those products, but the PC is just too overwhelming a platform. Enough already! Ignoring the communication needs of your “patients” by giving them single-purpose devices is, politely put, insensitive. Telehealth nurses tell me that patients appreciate monitoring because it shows that someone cares. Imagine their enthusiasm if someone showed them how to use a touch screen for email, sent them some email, and showed them how to join an online community for PatientsLikeMe?
• Stay informed about news and new ideas. Despite my fondness for them, we probably won't be reading paper newspapers too much longer, as they’re too hard to distribute, too expensive to buy, and too tough to get rid of when you're done reading. But even if you're still buying them, you can still set automatic email feeds from newspaper companies, receive Google Alerts for topics that interest you, and keep up on what's what in the world of trends and ideas.
• Get exercise, both physical and mental. It doesn't really matter what you do as long as you propel yourself out and about, get your heart going, and give your bones enough stress to keep them from thinning. If where you live means you must use Wii Fit, so be it. And give your brain a workout while you're at it—anything that involves stimulation, including training your brain to keep your driving skills or learning something. See stay informed.
• Buy smart phones and keep them charged. No point in getting lost on our way to age 100. Might as well get a BlackBerry or iPhone that gives you portable email access, but where you can also be guided with directions, find a restaurant or gas station, chat with your grandchildren, and even use the phone to call 911 in an emergency. They're useless when the battery runs out, so manage a charging lifestyle habit early (required for the computer too).
• Find like-minded communities. The “lifespan” advice in Dr. Rich's column said that going to church regularly adds three years to life expectancy. If we broaden that advice to suggest finding like-minded people, whether in person, online, or on the phone, engagement with others is the key. If we are like 50% of those over 65 today, we will have two chronic diseases, so it’s even more important to find others who have figured out how best to manage them.
• Consider online medical services. As we near 100, there will be no reason to feel trapped in the house, unable to access medical advice. We can subscribe to online services (phone, email, virtual visits) from companies like TelaDoc, American Well, or LiveNurse on a Jitterbug phone.

My thoughts: Being 100 in this scenario overcomes some of the physical isolation that can result from physical frailty (and losing your nearby friends and family). To me, that looks like a better deal than Dr. Rich's idea of checking out in order to free up space.

By Laurie Orlov
Aging in Place Technology Watch Blog

[Originally posted August 21, 2009, at Laurie's Aging in Place Technology Watch Web site.]