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Future
Seniors Will Need Varied Care, Senators Told WASHINGTON - As the first of an estimated 77 million "baby boomers" turn 60 in just two years, the U.S. needs to find better and more cost-effective ways to address the needs of an aging population very different from its parents, witnesses told a U.S. Senate hearing Tuesday. Senior centers of the future "could have health clubs and Starbucks," Health and Human Services official Josefina Carbonell told the Senate Special Committee on Aging. "We must update and re-energize old programs and comprehensively develop new ones that can better empower and serve older Americans in their communities and in settings that work best for them," she said. An initial change being proposed by the Bush administration is a $1.75 billion, five-year program that would encourage states to move people who need long-term care services out of institutions and back into the community. Such a program, Carbonell said, "truly reflects the needs and preferences of older Americans." One such program, called "Cash and Counseling," is already being tested in several states, said Dr. Kevin Mahoney of the Boston College School of Social Work. Under the program, seniors and younger adults with disabilities are given a cash allowance instead of services delivered by an agency under contract to a state. A 75-year-old Arkansas resident named Janice Maddox "pays her adult granddaughter to spend at least two hours a day, seven days a week, attending to (her) needs," Mahoney testified. "Her allowance is also used to pay her grandson $10 a week to do odd jobs." Mahoney said Maddox's daughter in Chicago says her mother is doing better since family members took over her care. According to Mahoney, the daughter said "she doesn't get nearly as many allergic reactions or bed sores now, and I think that's because when it's your own you're looking after, you pay more attention." Mahoney said that was a common theme in the assessment of the Arkansas program. "Consumers were much more satisfied with the timing and reliability of their care, less likely to feel neglected or rudely treated by paid caregivers, and more satisfied with the way paid caregivers performed their tasks," he told the committee. Committee chairman Larry Craig, R-Idaho, said he is already seeing a change in the way seniors in his state are approaching their later years. While most senior centers in Idaho have a quilting room, he said, "seniors now want computer rooms, too." Copyright
© 2002 Global Action on Aging |
