a2a - the art 2 aging – Details, episodes & analysis

Baby boomers have grown up with technology. We’ve seen enormous change over the past seven decades. It’s staggering what has transpired since the days of telephone “party” lines in homes, rotary dial phones,  two or three TV channels via an outside antenna – the list goes on.

So, it’s always odd to hear someone who is NOT a baby boomer make the assumption that older people are clueless about technology. We’re not.

But what can baffle us is the complexity of technology today. Which baffles many who are much younger, too.

It is difficult to stay on top of authenticator apps, IPTV apps (and how to configure them), two or three step ID security systems, modems, ethernet, etc. The technology is always changing and tricky to master.

Ezra Schwartz is a UX developer with more than 30 years experience designing interfaces that are clear and simple. His major complaint with technology – the industry in which he makes his living – is that apps and software platforms have become so complex that they are leaving many older people on the sidelines. He’s our guest this week on The Art 2 Aging and he explains what’s wrong and how to fix it.

Correction: Ezra Schwartz is a UX designer; he is not a UX developer. Our apologies to Ezra!

A company called Rest Less has released the results of a survey it did on self employed individuals in the U.K.

Rest Less has a simple mission: help those in their 50s and older to find jobs. What their survey discovered is that a record number of individuals over 60 have become self-employed. This represents nearly a quarter of all of those in the U.K. who work for themselves.

It would be a real stretch to say that all those self-employed over 60 are dying to work for themselves. More likely, they are forced to because they can’t find a job with a company. And that’s likely because age discrimination, more commonly known as ageism, is keeping them on the sidelines.

This week, a conversation with Janine Vanderburg, a veteran consultant who has taken on the task of battling ageism in the workplace, trying to tear down the prejudice, stereotypes and discrimination at work that does such damage to those over 50 and also to the companies that reject their applications.

Tiny electrical currents, known as microcurrents, which can generate rapid healing within the body, allowed an NFL Hall of Famer to play in the Super Bowl only six weeks after breaking his leg and tearing his Achilles tendon. Terrell Owens was that player.

Microcurrent healing was in wide use in the late 19th century. And while it worked,  it was never carefully studied or documented.

With the birth of the pharmaceutical age in the 1920s, what we now call frequency medicine faded from sight.

But in the mid 1990s, those tiny electrical currents shot back into prominence through the work of a chiropractic doctor named Carolyn McMakin. And she was responsible for Terrell Owens being able to play an impossible and spectacular game in the 2005 Super Bowl.

Today, Dr. McMakin is the undisputed global expert in Frequency Specific Microcurrent technology or FSM for short. Her treatment protocols are now standard with many NFL teams, as well as NHL and NBA teams. Why? Because it WORKS.

She is our guest this week on The Art 2 Aging.

Here’s a shocking fact: 98% of  dementia sufferers are being cared for at home. That’s shocking because it means that the caregiver is likely a family member, often a spouse or adult child.

Dementia victims suffer greatly and so do their caregivers, especially family members.

That’s why what Allyson Schrier is doing is so amazing. Allyson’s husband was diagnosed with a form of dementia when he was only 47. He never worked after that and Allyson became his caregiver.

She knew nothing about dementia, how it manifests, how it impacts the sufferer or how it was going to impact her and her kids.

But Allyson was not someone to throw up her hands and quit. She took the bunch of lemons that life had handed her and turned them into lemonade.

How she did that is the subject of our episode this week on The Art 2 Aging.

This week features a captivating story of a man named Tom Meschery.

If you’re a fan of the NBA, then you’ll likely remember Tom.

The Mad Russian. Number 14 for the Philadelphia and Golden State Warriors and the Seattle Supersonics. Teammate of Wilt Chamberlain.

When it comes to life stories, Tom has an amazing one. It starts with overcoming adversity as a child, rising to become a star in the NBA, staggering under the weight of a terminal illness at 65, finally meeting the love of his life and now writing mystery novels that sell well at the age of 85.

It could be a story  sprung from the mind of a Hollywood screenwriter. But it isn’t. Because it’s true.

Tom was born Tomislav Mescheryiakov. His parents were Russian; his father an officer in the White Russian Army.

At the outset of the Russian Revolution, the family fled to Manchuria. But when the Japanese invaded China, Tom, his mother and sister spent the war in a Japanese internment camp before being allowed to emigrate to the United States.

Click the podcast link above to listen to this fascinating story.

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Dr. Warrick Bishop

If you know  anyone who has seen a cardiologist, it was probably because their general practitioner was alerted to a potential problem and referred them to a heart specialist.

That’s often the pattern, particularly among older adults. In fact, those over the age of 65 are more prone to heart problems as the heart muscle begins to wear out.

Trouble arises when we take the heart for granted long enough that symptoms occur in the first place.

But what if there was a way to minimize potential heart problems or avoid them altogether, regardless of age?

Dr. Warrick Bishop believes that can be the case. Warrick is an Australian cardiologist who  has written a number of best-selling books on heart health. More than that, though,  Warrick is a doc with a difference.

He’s a preventative cardiologist. His primary aim and his sole approach is to prevent heart attacks from happening in the first place. And his website is where you can find his books, courses and membership to the Healthy Heart Network. Knowledge is power!

To listen to our interview with Dr. Bishop, click the link at the top of the page, subscribe for free, and enjoy the episode.

There comes a point in the lives of many adult children when they are faced with the challenge of changing roles with their parents.

The child becomes the parent and the parent becomes the child who needs their grown offspring to help them as they get older.

Laura Tamblyn-Watts, the CEO of CanAge, an advocacy organization for seniors in Canada, has written an important book to help adult children deal with challenges they’ve never faced before.  We talked with her recently

There are people in this world who refuse to accept the idea that they have limitations placed on them.

Especially those people who are what the rest of us would consider “old”. And we applaud them.

Fred Woolman is one such person. And you’ve got to hear his story to really appreciate that he doesn’t give a damn what the rest of the world might think he “should” be.

Click the link to listen to the interview.

How do we stay positive about our lives as we get older? Can we stay positive or is it too late for us?

It’s a tough assignment made tougher by the fact that the majority of us have spent a lifetime trying to control the events we experience, attempting to bend life to our will.

As we get older, though, the years of hitting our heads against brick walls adds up and our optimism in life slides or goes into an outright tailspin.

What’s the use of trying anymore?

Well, it depends on how you’re trying.

Dr. Paula Petry, PhD knows firsthand how useless head-banging is. She also knows firsthand how beneficial it is to let go of trying to control outcomes.

The story of how she got there is remarkable. A daughter born with spina bifida. All the doctors telling her that Alexandra would die shortly after birth. Saying “no” and taking her baby home to look after her for 12 arduous years, fighting for the best care, the best specialists, and the best social programs for all developmentally challenged kids in her home state of Florida. In the process, losing her marriage, suffering financial hardship – the pile of pain and disappointment kept growing.

But, at some point shortly after her daughter transitioned at age 12, Paula began to awaken to new ways of experiencing life and she hasn’t looked back.

Today, at the age of 71, Paula is an energy practitioner, educator, speaker and author whose message you will hear loud and clear in this episode of The Art 2 Aging Podcast.

In this short trailer episode, we lay out our content strategy for the weekly episodes in the future. We have lined up experts from the medical profession, including cardiologists, integrative medicine practitioners and even energy healers. Our scope is broad, informative and thought-provoking.