The news seemed like a death sentence: In 1998, Anne Dunlap, a pretty young woman in Delaware, suffered a traumatic brain injury in a car crash, severely impairing her daily functioning. Even with physical therapy, she struggled to juggle multiple basic tasks at one time. Walking while talking, for instance, had to be slowly relearned during 16 years of lessons at a clinic.
At least, that is, until Cole Galloway, a professor in the physical therapy department at the University of Delaware in Newark and the inventor of the Go Baby Go cars for disabled children, talked with Dunlap about what she wanted. “I was in a room with Anne and a bunch of other therapists,” Galloway tells NationSwell on a recent afternoon as he strolled the campus. “Someone asked her, ‘Hey, Anne, what would you like to do?’ She said immediately — she’s a very fashion-oriented kid — ‘Oh, I want to be in sales. I want to work at a mall.’”
Everybody in the room had heard this answer before and moved on, as it was just another routine blank to fill in. But Dunlap’s wish caused Galloway to wonder: Could physical therapy based in real-world actions — not exercises in an antiseptic rehab clinic — improve recovery time? To test his theory, he invented a harness system that could be rigged up on the ceiling of a small kiosk, giving Dunlap enough support to be fully mobile. Within a matter of weeks, the Go Baby Go Cafe opened. Dunlap’s new physical therapy regiment involved scooping ice cream, making coffee and taking cash at the pop-up store’s register.
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“We’ve spent hundreds of millions on rehabilitative robotics, but very few, if any, have ever jumped out of the lab and into the community. That’s how difficult it is to design rehab technology for the real world from within the traditional lab,” he declares. “We have to look at things that have never been considered: aesthetics or performance in the real world. We should be going to Starbucks and asking, ‘What do you need to work here?’ then build a design to allow someone to serve a latte while standing, work on their arm or hand function. That’s the new engineering feat: to build laboratory-grade change in the real world.”
At the Go Baby Go coffee stand, the aroma of freshly ground espresso beans hovers in the air as employees hand out single and double scoops of vanilla, butter pecan and black raspberry ice cream. The only thing setting it apart from java bars at other college campuses? Its harness system, which looks like a four-poster canopy and is built with aluminum and steel bars. Following Galloway’s past success with low-tech materials (purchased from Toys ’R ’Us), he aimed for a model that could be cheaply reproduced.
“We’re working really hard to build stuff that’s simple,” Galloway says. “We prototype lightly so we can get it into the community and make it commercially available.”
An added feature of this system, like Go Baby Go’s cars, is its full-range mobility. Rather than limiting a person’s movement to one straight line, Dunlap is free to go in any direction within the enclosed 50-square-foot space, held up by the bars overhead. And the whole setup is portable, meaning it can be taken down from the science building’s lobby and reassembled anywhere.
“It’s very easy to move around in. It doesn’t feel like there’s any kind of drag, and the harness feels light when I’m moving,” Dunlap tells the Newark (Del.) Post. “I feel comfortable and liberated because I’m secure and protected, and I don’t have to worry about falling.”
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Galloway, who got his start in physical therapy because he “loves movement” of all kinds — from the simple stuff like walking and sitting to ballet and gymnastics, hopes the harness system will have applications for people from all walks of life. Beyond physical therapy, the support system can assist anyone that needs extra support or balance, particularly children with developmental disabilities and the elderly. Serving as an interim device between relying on a walker and being confined to a wheelchair, the harnesses could be set up in school playgrounds, food trucks, family living rooms and workplaces.
Studies of Go Baby Go’s effectiveness are currently being funded by the National Institute of Health, the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Education. Yet Galloway describes himself as a “pretty reluctant researcher.” While his lab prefers to see his prototypes out in public, they know a device works when they hear both positive feedback from the people who need it and receive solid data from his lab.
“We see no reason to wait for years of research to tell you that [with this device] a person who can’t stand or walk on their own has the potential to actually work in a cafe,” Galloway says, “Especially when your grandma would say today, ‘That’s gonna work.'”
Dunlap will tell you the same thing. She’s confident in her progress, so much so that she recently went down to her favorite coffee shop — not for a latte, but to drop off a job application.
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Tag: elderly
The Number of Farmers Is Dropping. So How Will the U.S. Continue to Feed the World?
According to last year’s report on agriculture from the U.S. Census, the American farmer is aging. The percentage of farmers and ranchers over the age of 75 grew by 15.1 percent between 2007 and 2012, while the number of farmers and ranchers under the age of 54 decreased by 16.1 percent during the same time period.
Several programs are trying to entice veterans into the agricultural field, while the AgrAbility Project, which helps older and disabled farmers gain various forms of assistance, is helping existing farmers to plant, shepherd and harvest longer.
In Colorado, the program enables Dean Wierth to tend to his herd of goats in Park County, despite his declining balance and vision. Using an electric cart, he is able to feed and tend to the livestock living on the 40 acres he owns, plus the additional 40 acres he leases.
“It’s been a godsend. My balance was just about gone,” he tells the Denver Post about the AgrAbility program.
For 16 years, Goodwill Industries and Colorado State University have run the AgrAbility program in Colorado, helping 538 farming and ranching families during that time. Recently, the federal government kicked in $720,000 to fund the program for four more years.
Wierth, a disabled Vietnam veteran himself, is now pitching in to start a facility that will teach veterans how to farm and ranch. South Park Heritage Association and the Wounded Warrior USA Outreach Program are currently raising funds to purchase land for the program.
Robert Fetsch, co-director of the Colorado AgrAbility Project says, “Most farmers and ranchers don’t retire; they just keep on keeping on as long as they can. Our best course for now is to help them stay active and working, so they can continue to thrive, remain independent and be loyal taxpayers in their communities.”
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One Small Town in Maine Is Trying Something Radical to Keep Its Population From Decreasing
The problem facing some Maine towns: declining enrollments and budget crunches in public schools.
As a result, some local schools have been forced to close, and the community must send their kids elsewhere for their education. The town of St. Francis, for example, was about to lose its local elementary school because only 32 kids were enrolled. Closing the facility would save the district $170,000, but result in hour-long bus trips to Fort Kent, 16 miles away.
But the residents have come up with an innovative idea that could save their elementary school: give the building to the town. Part of the structure would continue to serve as classroom space for pre-kindergarten through fifth grade students, and the other part would be converted into much-needed housing for town seniors, whose rent would contribute to running the school.
Although there is much to be worked out before the plan can go ahead, both sides involved agree that it’s a good idea. The school district superintendent Tim Doak tells the Bangor Daily News, “The more we talked about it, the more it looked like a win-win for everyone. It would help keep elderly residents in the community, it keeps the kids at school and it could provide jobs.”
Local representative John Martin has introduced legislation to allow this transfer to happen. At a recent school board meeting, he said, “There is currently nothing in the law that gives [St. Francis] the ability to do what they want to do: generate income from elderly housing [and] put them in the position to apply for grants.”
Doak is hopeful that this solution could help other struggling small-town schools in Maine. “I do think this idea for St. Francis can work,” he says. “We just need to move carefully, [and] this could be a model for the rest of the state.”
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How to Bridge the Digital Divide
While many claim that devices are causing people to interact less, here’s a great example of technology bringing people together.
Once a week, 16-year-old Mikinly Sullivan travels to the Frasier Meadows retirement home in Boulder, Colo., to visit her friend, 89-year-old Kevin Bunnell. The two were connected through Cyber Seniors, a program that pairs high school volunteers with elderly individuals that need help navigating new-fangled technology.
The program wants to ensure that seniors are learning to use computers — not just letting the young people figure things out for them — so as a rule, the elder person’s fingers must be on the keyboard the whole time, while the teenager coaches them through maneuvers.
Bunnell is a poet, and Sullivan has been helping him organize the many poems he’s written over his lifetime. “I love listening to the stories from when he was young,” Sullivan says to PBS News Hour. In exchange, Bunnell wrote a poem in honor of the Cyber Seniors program.
Another senior benefitting from the program is Bruce Mackenzie. “I’m taking a class at the university called Hip-Hop 101,” he says, “And I didn’t know how to listen to the rap songs that are on hip-hop. And Ryan [a teen participant] showed me how to go to YouTube, which I never knew anything about. So I go to YouTube now and I can listen to all these rap songs for my class.”
While the program’s ultimate mission is to help seniors get online, Jack Williamson, who runs Cyber Seniors, says that it “helps build relationships between young people and seniors, which is rare in this culture today.”
As one student volunteer tells PBS News Hour, “I’m learning a lot from them and they’re learning from me. I have actually found through this that I think I like older people more than I like younger people.”
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When the Poor and Elderly Can’t Afford to Feed Their Pets, This Nonprofit Comes to the Rescue
As an owner of dogs, finches, cockatiels, guinea pigs, mice, tropical fish, a duck, a rabbit and more through the years, it’s obvious that Marianne Iaquinto of Wyndmoor, Penn. has always been a pet lover.
When her beloved Shih Tzu, Sam, was dying in 2012, Iaquinto decided to let her grief fuel a vital service: Helping the poor and elderly keep their pets instead of turning them over to shelters when they can’t afford them. So she started the nonprofit Sam’s Hope.
To date, Sam’s Hope has collected and distributed more than 44,000 pounds of pet food to the needy.
In particular, Iaquinto is moved by the plight of impoverished elderly people who aren’t able to pay for their pet’s upkeep and are forced to put them in a shelter.
“The elderly, sometimes all they have in life is their pet, their only reason to get up in the morning,” Iaquinto tells Len Lear of Chestnut Hill Local. “In this case, they don’t surrender their pets; they sacrifice their own health and well-being, sharing their food and forgoing medication to provide for the pet.”
The Doris Day Animal Foundation has recognized Sam’s Hope for its work, providing funding to the organization to start a new service: Meals for the Pets of the Homebound and Elderly. Just as their owners are given monthly meal deliveries, the pets receive food, too.
Besides distributing about 4,000 pounds of pet food and cat litter each month to both pet food pantries and directly to pet owners, Sam’s Hope assists in a variety of ways — including veterinary care for pets whose owners can’t afford it. Volunteers for the nonprofit once also captured and relocated a bunch of feral cats after their owner died and helped a sick pet owner find homes for eight of his cats.
Iaquinto plans to start two voucher programs: One giving the poor the ability to have their pets spayed and neutered, and the other, which will enable people to adopt older shelter pets who often are left behind in favor of puppies and kittens.
In 2013, Iaquinto left her job as the vice-president of McGruff Safe Kids’ Total ID System and now volunteers 50 to 60 hours a week with Sam’s Hope. “How do I do it? Well, I have found that there are things in life that are more important than money. I am happier than I have ever been before. Money doesn’t buy that,” she says.
Guaranteed the pet owners and their furry friends that have received assistance from Sam’s Hope are happier than ever, too.
Correction: A previous version of this article stated that Sam’s Hope operated out of a local restaurant. NationSwell apologizes for the error.
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Why Is This 92-Year-Old World War II Veteran Kicking Field Goals?
Elderly veterans are working up a sweat as they kick field goals and ski under obstacles at the Ben Atchley State Veterans Home in Knoxville, Tenn., but they’re not having to hit the field or the slopes to do so.
These vets are competing in virtual sports — but the health benefits they receive are real.
Therapists are hooking up veterans to a virtual gaming system that involves their entire bodies in sports-themed movements. When Lori Tucker of ABC 6 visited the nursing home, 92-year-old World War II Army veteran Richard Gallaher scored all of the field goals he attempted.
“It’s a wonderful game because you get all the exercise you can do and it helps you with your balance and thinking and analyzing,” says Gallaher.
Each veteran plays a different game that build specific physical skills they need to work on, and it’s a little more exciting than the average therapy session, with onlookers cheering as the vets score.
Functional Pathways designed the gaming system, which president and CEO Dan Knorr describes as “almost like a Nintendo on steroids.” The veterans home is the first place they’ve introduced the therapeutic gaming system, but the company plans to roll it out at 140 facilities soon.
Greg Channell, one of the Veterans Home’s physical and occupational therapists, tells Tucker, “It’s fun to give back to someone whose given so much to us, and I think that’s a big part of being here.”
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This Army Vet Has Driven 165,000 Miles to Help His Fellow Soldiers Receive Medical Care
Prowers County, Colo. sits in the rural southeast corner of the state on the Kansas border, more than four hours away from Denver. Its remote locale makes it difficult for the elderly and disabled veterans who live there to get to their far-flung medical appointments.
Luckily, these American heroes can count on champion volunteer driver Cliff Boxley, who doesn’t hesitate to set out at 4 a.m. — sometimes up to four days a week — to bring them to their doctors’ appointments in Denver, Pueblo, La Junta and Colorado Springs.
Boxley himself served in the Army from 1972 to 1980 and has kept close to his fellow vets, in part through his serving of four terms on the Board of Governors for the First Cavalry Division Association.
In 2007, he started driving veterans in Prowers County to their medical appointments and has since racked up more than 6,000 volunteer hours — driving a total 165,000 miles in that time.
“I started driving because I got a call from Carol Grauberger one day. She was the person who started this service in Prowers County for the veterans. That was seven years and over 150,000 miles ago,” he tells Russ Baldwin of The Prowers Journal.
For all those hours on the road, Boxley was honored with the 2014 AARP Andrus Award for Colorado, which is given to outstanding volunteers making a difference in the lives of seniors from each state.
“Rural veterans tend to be short-changed when it comes to VA healthcare, with few advocates for them in this region. In the military, we always took care of each other, so this is my way of doing that,” Boxley tells Baldwin.
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Study: The Aging of the Population Will Have Unexpected Economic, Environmental and Health Benefits
As we all know, America’s population is getting older and older. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, by 2030 there will be 72.1 million people over age 65 in this country — more than double what there was in 2000.
Normally, following statistics such as this are comments about what this rapid increase in elderly people will do to the healthcare system and the labor market, but a new study published in the PLOS ONE journal suggests that it might also enhance innovation and produce other positive benefits.
The “The Advantages of Demographic Change after the Wave: Fewer and Older, but Healthier, Greener, and More Productive?” study, led by researcher Fanny Kluge of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, finds a number of silver linings to the approaching demographic cloud.
For instance, the researchers speculate that the fact that these older people will drive less and consume fewer goods will lead to a decrease in CO2 emissions. “The expected reduction in the levels of carbon emissions due to population decline could be even greater if more environmentally-friendly technologies are adopted,” they write.
They observe that the overall educational attainment level of the population is increasing, which could lead to productivity gains that may offset the loss of workers. They write, “The higher educational attainment at the population level can be advantageous for economic growth.”
In an analysis of the research published in the Washington Post, Dominic Basulto writes that with more of the population enjoying greater free time, there could be a surge in innovators, inventors and entrepreneurs. In other words, we might have to change our image of college-age entrepreneurs working so furiously at startups that they can’t even properly eat to that of a more seasoned entrepreneur, launching a business at age 65 and staying active and financially secure in retirement.
“Life expectancy is increasing almost universally,” the researchers note, “and the health status of the older population is improving.” These are both good reasons to cheer up and look forward to America’s grayer future.
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When Food Is Left Unharvested, This Organization Gleans It and Feeds the Hungry
Dotting the Maine countryside are small plots growing more fruits and vegetables than the farmers who work the land could ever pick. But despite this bountifulness, some of the state’s residents forgo buying produce because of tight budgets.
This is where Hannah Semler, the coordinator of the gleaning initiative for the nonprofit Healthy Acadia, steps in. Semler leads a team of volunteers to pick whatever is left after farmers have harvested as much as they can.
In Blue Hill, Amanda Provencher and Paul Schultz of King Hill Farm welcome her regularly to their fields. “We just don’t have time to pick everything we grow, so we’d just till it right back into the soil or feed it to the animals, but it’s still totally good food,” Schultz tells Seth Freed Wessler of NBC News. “Hannah is identifying a resource that we have that otherwise we just would not be utilized because there are not enough hours in the day.”
At King Hill Farm and 18 other Maine farms, Semler and the volunteers for Healthy Acadia glean 30,000 pounds of food a year that would otherwise go to waste. They deliver it to food pantries for the needy and to the Magic Food Bus (sponsored by Healthy Peninsula), which delivers produce to schools and housing complexes for elderly people.
According to Wessler, about 40 percent of American crops are never harvested. Meanwhile, 15 percent of Americans are food insecure (i.e. they don’t have enough healthy food).
Rick Traub, the president of Tree of Life, a Maine food pantry that distributes food that Semler collects, tells Wessler, “Poverty here is everywhere. I go to the grocery store and the person who cashes me out, I see her the next day at the pantry. The problem of hunger in the U.S. has very little to do with a scarcity of food. There’s far more food available around here than people to eat it. The problem is really about access.”
With a team of volunteers using their time and muscle to harvest good produce that otherwise would go to waste, access to nutritious food is expanding in Maine. Let’s hope this practice spreads to other states, too.
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If You’re a Caregiver, Having a Flexible Work Schedule Can Make All the Difference
It’s next to impossible to find a parent who believes that there are enough hours in the day.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 69.9 percent of American mothers with children under 18 work outside the home or telecommute, and according to the Pew Research Institute, 15 percent of adults in their 40s and 50s are financially supporting both an elderly parent and a child. These numbers indicate that many people are forced to juggle the inevitable tug-of-war between work and family demands.
A new study by researchers from several universities and institutions, “Changing Work and Work-Family Conflict,” sought to determine whether flexible work schedules can help ease this crunch.
The researchers randomly assigned information technology employees of an unnamed Fortune 500 company to two groups. The first group had a standard work schedule, whereas members of the second were allowed to set their own schedules — including the number of hours in a day in which they worked in an office and the number of hours that they worked from home. Researchers trained employee supervisors to demonstrate an understanding for the demands of the workers’ personal lives, and the supervisors led several meetings about the new, flexible schedules.
Those in the modified-schedule group reported modest but statistically significant decreases in work-family conflicts and improvements in having enough time for their life outside of work. The benefits were the strongest among workers who were members of “the sandwich generation,” those caring for both kids and elderly parents.
Researchers found that the employees in both groups worked a similar number of hours — no one was slacking at home or letting work completely overtake family life since the boundary between work and home had been erased. But the employees in the flexible-work group on average did increase the number of hours they spent working at home from 10.2 hours a week to 19.6 hours a week.
The authors conclude, “We provide the first experimental evidence that workplace interventions can reduce work-family conflict among employees and change work resources, specifically increasing employees’ control over the time and timing of their work and the support they receive from supervisors for their family and personal lives.”
Since there’s no way to add extra hours to the day, employers looking to keep their workers happy and less stressed should open their minds to flexible schedules.
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