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BOOMERSS p r i n g 2 0 1 4

2 Boomers 2014

Boomers 2014 3

Find love after divorcethrough online datingservices, senior centers Page 4

Experts see a rise in seniorbullying ........................ Page 6

Over 50 struggle in today’sjob market ..................... Page 9

How investing changes asretirement nears ........ Page 11

Baby boomers retiring to boatsin Mexico ................... Page 12

Many turning to hip and kneereplacement ............... Page 15

Predictive blood test couldhelp identify those at risk forAlzheimer’s ................ Page 18

Funeral and casket outletshead to the mall ......... Page 21

Articles and advertisements are the property of Sauk Valley Media, P.O. Box 498, Sterling, IL 61081, 815-625-3600. No portion of this publication may be reproduced without the written consent of the publisher. Ad content is not the responsibility of Sauk Valley Media. The information in this guide is believed to be accurate; however, Sauk Valley Media cannot and does not guarantee its accuracy. Sauk Valley Media cannot and will not be held liable for the quality or performance of goods and services provided by advertisers listed in any portion of this magazine.

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4 Boomers 2014

Finding love after divorceOnline dating sites, senior centers can help

BY CASSANDRA ZIMMERMANSpecial to Boomers

D ivorce is a hard reality for any-one, regardless of their age, location, and economic status.

But, for boomers, the reasons behind divorcing one’s spouse are different from those of other ages, even in the Sauk Val-ley.

According to the Bureau of Labor Sta-tistics, “Eighty-seven percent of baby boomers born in the years 1957 through 1964 had married at least once by the time they reached age 46. Of those who had married, 45 percent had experienced at least one divorce.”

While the divorce rate of baby boomers in the United States varies by age, gen-der, employment status and educational attainment, the rate increased dramati-cally from 1990 to 2010, and continues to rise.

A study done between 1990 and 2010 by Susan Brown and I-Fen Lin titled “The Gray Divorce Revolution,” showed that as the number of people over the age 50 increased, the divorce rate doubled during this time period, stating, “600,000 persons over age 50 got divorced in 2010 compared to about 200,000 in 1990.”

Psychologists theorize that several fac-

tors have influenced the divorce rates of baby boomers.

One theory is that the shift in gender roles in the last half of the 20th century affected couples’ ability to adhere to tra-ditional gender roles in marriage, creat-ing conflict.

Another theory is that the stigma of divorce decreased, making the option of divorce less damaging to one’s reputa-tion.

In the Sauk Valley, there are options for those who have divorced, whether they are looking for new love or just hoping to increase their social circle.

Those looking for love may find online dating sites a viable option whether they are looking for a partner nearby or across the country.

Popular sites such as eharmony.com and match.com match clients based on a variety of topics, including age.

Boomers looking for love in the Sauk Valley area can also create a search radi-us, which limits the geographical area

that the site will search for companions.For those who are older, eHarmony’s

senior dating website allows them to find love through matching and talking to others in the senior dating forum.

However, maintaining a social life is one of the most important aspects of post-divorce life.

While many may find that old friends and family are enough, others can choose to participate in the local activi-ties.

The Lee County Council on Aging provides educational and recreational opportunities for those who want to broaden their social circle. Members can enjoy activities such as fitness classes, interest clubs, and special events.

The council is having its annual Senior Spring Prom from 6 p.m. to midnight April 5 at the Post House Ballroom. The popular event allows attendees to dress up, create new memories, and is open to those 21 and older.

However, the most important part fol-lowing divorce is to make sure to take care of your body, emotionally and phys-ically. Many people experience health issues following divorce, making person-al care especially important for boomers who may face increasing health issues as they get older.

To attend local activitiesThe Lee County Council On Aging is at

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6 Boomers 2014

Bullying knows no age limit

BY GLENN E. RICEMCT News Service

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Schoolyard thugs who prey on weaker or vul-nerable classmates may grow up, but they don’t go away – even when their hair turns gray, experts say.

An increasing number of senior citizens are being victimized by other seniors, they say. The bul-lying varies but includes bossing others around, verbal putdowns, spreading rumors and sometimes physical violence.

According to one estimate, 10 to 20 percent of residents of senior facilities and those who regularly visit senior centers have endured some form of bullying.

“Bullying is about power, and that drive for power doesn’t dimin-ish with age,” said SuEllen Fried, a Prairie Village, Kan., resident who formed BullySafeUSA and has written four books on bullying. “People who are seeking power are always trying to find vulnerable people that will succumb to their terrors and intimidation.”

Just as attention to bullying online and at work has grown in recent years, more people across the United States are talking about seniors who bully other seniors.

A woman who lives in a Massa-chusetts retirement residence last year told a newspaper there that she and others endured racial slurs and Latino residents were ordered to speak English. Other residents complained about abusive lan-guage, disruptions at tenant meet-ings and physical threats, The Sun Chronicle reported.

“We all hear about the bullies in the schoolyard, and the workplace

bully, yet what do we think hap-pens to those people when they grow old?” said Robin P. Bonifas, an assistant professor at Arizona State University who studies senior bullying. “Bullying is not just something that is exclusive to chil-dren, but it seems to be a lifelong occurrence.”

Last year, a resident of a Kansas City, Mo., senior housing facility tried to overdose on prescription pills after another resident pre-vented her from spending time with a sibling who also lived in the facility, a social worker said.

It left one sister thinking she had become a burden to her sister. Staff intervened after the suicide attempt and provided the sister with therapy. Her sibling told workers she did not intend to neglect her sister but didn’t know how to respond to the bully.

The sisters declined to elaborate out of fear that the bully, who still lives in their building, would retali-ate.

“Just like we have heard about teenage girls committing suicide because of bullying and cyberbully-ing, this is still happening to people, because the same folks who are very vulnerable to being targets, they are still very vulnerable,” said Deb Babbitt, a Kansas City social worker who has given more than a dozen presentations on senior bullying in the past last year.

Seniors who bully typically have experienced loss, experts say. They may have recently moved into an assisted living facility or senior apartment building.

MCT News Service illustration

Experts see rise in cases among seniors

BULLYING CONTINUED ON 8�

A widow or widower requires special considerations when planning for her or his future. Generally most surviving spouses arewomen and the focus here will be on widows, though widowers may find value in the information as well.

When a husband dies, the widow dives head first into dealing with the murky waters of probate, tax, legal and financial issues. Inmany marriages, the husband had taken the lead in tax and financial issues and so, for the widow, understanding these new and confusingchallenges can be quite daunting.

In the midst of all the chaos, where can the widow go to get help? Let’s take a step back and look at the process of learning how toswim. People typically hire certified, trained instructors to teach them how to swim. Why would anyone do any different in this situation withhis or her financial future?

When learning to swim, a person doesn’t just dive into the water and hope for the best; he or she starts at the beginning level, learns,grows and progresses to the next level. By breaking it down into three levels, the same concept can be applied to handling the finances afterthe death of a spouse.Level One - Partner

In the early stages of grief, a widow may make poor decisions out of fear or confusion; to help avoid this, she should partner withan advisor that utilizes a discovery process to gather the information necessary to determine her immediate needs and what needs can beprioritized until later. She should consider working with a financial advisor that is a Certified Financial Planner or Certified Public Accountantto help give her proper guidance.Level Two - Prioritize

“Perhaps the best advice is what NOT to do right away. Don’t make any hasty major financial decisions, such as changing investments,moving, changing jobs, or retiring early, unless it’s absolutely necessary. Defer all but the most essential financial decisions.” (1)

It may feel overwhelming and confusing for the widow, but realistically there are only a few items that need to be handled right aftera spouse’s death. A financial advisor can help establish financial priorities and deadlines that should be focused on first, such as gatheringall pertinent documents.

The widow should take small “strokes” at first to help understand the overall big picture and to move to the next level of makinglong term planning decisions.Level Three - Plan

After the widow has regained some focus in her life, she shouldassess planning from a risk management, estate, tax and investmentperspective. A financial advisor could provide a financial assessmentand identify other issues to address, such as overall diversification of thewidow’s assets, investment risks and strategies, and tax efficiencies.

Remember—best practice is to focus on what needs to be donefirst and to take one level at a time. Don’t dive into murky financial watershead first; instead, find the right advisor to help keep your financialsituation afloat.

1. Financial Planning Association, 2007 “Coping with Death & Injury: FinancialConsideration in a Time of Need”. Retrieved from http://www.fpanet.org/docs/assets/B243F0D1-1D09-67A1-7A224F6AB7FC2DB0/2-16-07deathinjury.pdf

Hewins Financial Advisors, LLC and Wipfli Hewins Investment Advisors, LLC(together referred to as “Hewins”) are investment advisers registered with the Securitiesand Exchange Commission under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940. The viewsexpressed by the author are the author’s alone and do not necessarily represent theviews of Hewins or its affiliates. The information contained in any third-party resourcecited herein, including but not limited to other blogs, websites or articles, is not ownedor controlled by Hewins, and Hewins does not guarantee the accuracy or reliability ofany information that may be found in such resources. Links to any third-party resourceare provided as a courtesy for reference only and are not intended to be, and do notact as, an endorsement by Hewins of third party or any of its content or use of itscontent. The standard information provided in this article is for general educationalpurposes only and should not be construed as, or used as a substitute for, financial,investment, or other professional advice. If you have questions regarding your financialsituation you should consult your financial planner, investment advisor, attorney orother professional. Hewins is a proud affiliate of Wipfli LLP. A copy of Hewins’ currentADV Part 2A discussing Hewins’ investment advisory and financial planning servicesand fees is available for review upon request or at www.adviserinfo.sec.gov.ancial,investment, or other professionaladvice. If you have questions regarding your financialsituation youshould consult your financial planner, investment advisor, attorneyor otherprofessional. Hewins is a proud affiliate of Wipfli LLP. Acopy of Hewins’ current ADVPart 2A discussing Hewins’ investmentadvisory and financial planning services andfees is available forreview upon request or at www.adviserinfo.sec.gov.

Diving in Head First By Lisa Berlage, CFP® |Consultant

8 Boomers 2014

“So now you (the senior) need help with bathing. You need help putting your shoes on or managing your medi-cine, or eating,” Bonifas said. “They are not as valued as much in the com-munity or workplace and maybe not as important in your family system as you used to be.”

That magnitude of loss creates a need to be in control of something.

“One thing they can control is bossing other people around,” Bonifas said.

Senior bullies, like other bullies, tend to have less empathy for others and have difficulty seeing how their behav-ior affects others. They have a low tolerance for differences and get easily annoyed by others, especially those they perceive as different. For men, their sexuality may be openly ques-tioned. For women, a bully may spread rumors about them being promiscu-ous.

“Bullying is bullying no matter what

the age, and it doesn’t go away when people get out of high school,” Babbitt said.

A worker at a Platte County, Mo., center has to remind seniors enjoy-ing a video bowling game to play fair. Sometimes the intense play will lead to insults, the worker said.

In another incident, an 84-year-old woman began using a wheelchair after a stroke that left her partially paralyzed and with slurred speech. She returned to her senior apartment building after rehabilitation.

The resident bully soon set her sights on the stroke victim. The bully fre-quently complained her wheelchair was too wide for the hallways, that she didn’t take care of herself and smelled, said people who were familiar with the matter.

The stoke victim belonged in a nurs-ing home, said the bully, who once threatened to report her to welfare authorities. Shunned by her neighbors and afraid of the bully, the stroke vic-tim became depressed and later moved to a nursing home, where she died.

Victims often experience anxiety and depression, which can lead to increased blood pressure, fatigue, increased isolation, feelings of rejec-tion and reduced self-esteem, Babbit said.

“This population is already vulner-able, so emotional stresses like this are really big deals to them,” she said. “If they feel they cannot walk out of their apartments without being picked on by the mean girls in the community room, then they are going to start to isolate even more and not reach out.”

It is important for seniors to know there is help, experts said.

Marlene Katz of Leawood, Kan., frequently visits nursing homes and retirement facilities to teach seniors how to stand up to bullies. The ses-sions include role-playing and story-telling.

“What I hope to accomplish is to help people transform whatever pain seniors might have engrained within themselves or have against another senior, (and) turn that pain and aggres-sion into kindness,” Katz said.

BULLYINGCONTINUED FROM 6

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‘Turn that pain ... into kindness’

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Boomers 2014 9

Working against time

Over 50 struggling in today’s job market

BY ADAM BELZMCT News Service

A s hard as he tried, Michael Duffy couldn’t find a job to

match the one he’d lost.For two decades, he earned

six figures selling equipment to factories. But at 62, he kept getting turned away, one job interview after another.

So last fall he started work-ing at Starbucks.

He wears a green apron, wipes tables, mans a cash reg-ister that he’s gradually learn-ing to use and banters with people who order an espresso breve or a Caramel Brulee Latte. He has natural rapport with customers, especially older ones; enjoys winning people over; and likes taking care of them.

But he makes less in a day than he did in a half-hour at the peak of his sales career.

“The pay isn’t what we would all hope,” Duffy, of Eden Prai-rie, Minn., said the day he started. “But it’s something to do and it’s great benefits and we’ll see where it goes.”

It has never been easy to get older, need a good full-time job and not have one. But that’s the predicament now for more Americans than ever, and the challenge has gotten steeper in the prolonged recovery. Mil-lions of workers in their 50s and 60s are drifting into the peril-ous intersection of unemploy-ment, underemployment and retirement.

“The situation is worse today than it has been in past recov-eries,” said Sara Rix, a senior strategist at the AARP Public Policy Institute. “These men and women have little time to recover, and working later in life may be the only way some can make it.”

MCT News ServiceMike Duffy, 62, leans in to hear a customer’s order at a new Starbucks, Jan. 29, in Edina, Minn. Duffy lost his sales job in 2007.

’’‘‘The situation is worse today than it has been

in past recoveries.Sara Rix, senior strategist at AARP Public Policy Institute

STRUGGLING CONTINUED ON 10�

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10 Boomers 2014

More older workers end up in ‘bridge jobs’

The unemployment rate for work-ers over 55 was higher during the Great Recession than it had been for decades, though it has fallen to a still-high 4.5 per-cent. Older workers remain jobless on average for about a year, far longer than younger workers. Almost half of those over 55 who are unemployed have been so for 6 months or longer, a total of 761,000 people.

But unemployment is only part of the unwelcome picture. The number of work-ers over 55 who have dropped out of the labor force but say they still want a job is about 1.6 million, a 67 percent increase since 2007.

Fair or not, some employers question older applicants’ energy and enthusiasm, their technical knowledge, and their will-ingness to work with young people. A gen-eral bias against the long-term unemployed also is a disadvantage for older workers who have been jobless for months or years.

“If the economy were roaring ahead, it would be an easier sell,” said Kevin Cahill,

an economist at the Sloan Center on Aging and Work at Boston College.

For decades, older workers commonly moved into what Cahill calls “bridge jobs” between their careers and retirement. But today, those jobs are less desirable, so more older workers are ending up in “bridge jobs” they didn’t want.

“The difference, now, post-2008, is that a lot of these transitions are involuntary,” Cahill said. “It’s a huge shift, and it’s the impact of the Great Recession.”

In 1991, when Duffy was in his early 40s and looking for work, he interviewed for three jobs and got three offers.

It seemed easy, and one employer told him a secret that still rings in his ears: He was the perfect age – old enough to have

gravitas, young enough to carry the whiff of an up-and-comer.

Today, Duffy is the same guy with more experience – still youthful, physically fit, good with people. But after six years of intermittent employment, dozens of fruit-less job interviews and quiet self-assess-ments on drives back home, he earns $7.75 an hour working part-time at the coffee shop. He hasn’t given up, but he has learned that in a sluggish labor market, his job candidacy has lost its shine.

“It’s kind of like the baseball player who hits his late 30s,” he said, “and realizes he’s just not wanted anymore.”

The best-off Americans in retirement are the 36 percent who get income from a pen-sion. But the share of workers with a pen-sion has shrunk, and those who took early retirement in recent years often accepted a deal for a lesser pension.

The problems of older workers are a mix of things they can control and things they can’t. Sixty-four percent say they’ve either seen or experienced age discrimination in the workplace, but they’re also up against a weak, changing job market and the well-established bias against hiring the long-term unemployed.

STRUGGLINGCONTINUED FROM 9

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Boomers 2014 11

Investing changes as retirement nears

BY JANET KIDD STEWARTMCT News Service

A fter stocks leaped forward in 2013, the hangover in the early going of 2014, not surprisingly,

took a toll on retirement savers’ risk tol-erance.

The Retirement Advisor Confidence Index, a monthly poll of wealth manag-ers, fell 4.2 points, to 52.5, in February, one of the steepest drops since Financial Planning magazine began tracking the measure.

Clients on the whole pulled money from stocks and bonds to put into cash accounts, and they cut back on retirement planning services and retirement-oriented investment products, according to the magazine. Still, readings in excess of 50 are considered expansionary.

Investors notoriously buy and sell at pre-cisely the wrong time. But when they get near or into retirement, something even more alarming seems to occur, according

to research in behavioral finance.The aging process can derail clients’ orig-

inal investment intentions, making their portfolios vulnerable to a counterintuitive mix of overconfidence and loss aversion, according to a new paper in the Retire-ment Management Journal.

“People change as they get older, and I wanted to investigate how aging changes the way people manage money and work with an adviser,” said Helen Simon, a financial adviser who also teaches classes on investments and risk management at Florida International University.

Simon will receive an award from the Retirement Income Industry Association, a trade group of financial service and annu-ity providers, for a paper she wrote for the journal on how better to cater to the spe-cific needs of clients in or near retirement.

On that front, she says, there is ample room for improvement.

Advisers and clients alike often fail to bring up key issues that will affect the cli-ents’ financial futures or focus too heavily on the wrong issues, she said.

Many retirees take lump-sum pension buyouts because they think they can man-

age the money to better returns than could be had with an annuity and out of fear of giving up control over the money to an insurance company, she said.

“Marketers play havoc with this behav-ioral flaw, encouraging retirees to take their lump sums and do it themselves; similar to the scenario of lottery winners, who overwhelmingly take the lump sum only to end up broke and often in debt,” Simon writes in her paper.

In an interview, she said she understands how paralyzing all the retirement investing choices can be.

“I’m 57 myself now, and all of my friends are going through this stage of life. I kept feeling that if I’m perplexed about all this, how do they feel?” she said.

“A girlfriend of mine had an adviser who for 15 years just kept saying she’d be OK. Well, she’s not.”

To be sure, there are plenty of concerns about annuities.

They are complex financial instruments with particularly low returns in the cur-rent interest rate environment and have a history of aggressive sales tactics and high fees.

Advisers and clients often fail to bring up key issues

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12 Boomers 2014

Doing what they wantBoomers savor retirement living on boats

BY ALFREDO CORCHADOMCT News Service

LA PAZ, Mexico – They’re nomads, sail-ing freely, crossing international waters, guided by one principle: Just float.

“Good thing is, we don’t have a sched-ule,” said Allyson Van Os of Dallas. “We just do the things we like to do, when we want to do them. That’s our schedule.”

Van Os, 62, is one of millions of baby boomers living part of their lives on boats, inspired by a lifestyle that she acknowledges is harder than it seems.

She and her husband, Ed, and two dogs, Dexter and Pequena, dock their 65-foot boat, the Virginia Reel, in the waters of La Paz in the Baja Peninsula, the same place where Spanish conquistador Her-nan Cortes first docked his boat in 1535. They are joined there by more than 100 other boat owners, part of a growing nautical tourism business in Mexico that isn’t without legal hassles, including tax agents, but that is a dream many boat

owners say is worth pursuing.With an estimated 80 million baby boom-

ers retiring in the coming years, Mexico looms large as an alternative place to live not just on land, but on sea. Recreational boating industry experts predict that the number of boomer boat owners will grow, although finding exact figures – anywhere from 10 million to 17 million, by some esti-mates – is difficult in part because of their nomadic existence.

Many of these retirees are living season-

ally or year-round on boats, lured by the simplicity of life and lower cost of living. They also are searching for tranquility, a place away from the fast pace and hectic life increasingly dominated, they say, by time pressures in an age of social media.

“You come here to check out on a life that’s not yours anymore,” said Leanne Lawrence, 61, originally from Texas and now commuting between La Paz and Ore-gon with her husband, Jack Jandreau. “You come here to reconnect with yourself and the nature around you, the sunsets, sunris-es and the welcoming people of Mexico.”

Hence La Paz, “The Peace,” a seaside town known for sports fishing, whales, seafood and, increasingly, Americans seeking to reinvent themselves, much the way author John Steinbeck did when he stayed here and was inspired to pen some of his classic books, including “The Pearl” and “Sea of Cortez.”

’’‘‘You come here to reconnect with yourself and the nature

around you, the sunsets, sunrises and the welcoming

people of Mexico.Leanne Lawrence

LIVING ON BOATS CONTINUED ON 14�

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Boomers 2014 13

MCT News ServiceAllyson van Os of Dallas walks on the dock with her dog, Pequena, Jan. 25. She and her husband, Ed, live on their boat in La Paz, Mexico, from October to June. She first visited La Paz as a young girl. “I knew then that I would want one day to live here,” she says.

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14 Boomers 2014

“The community is just right, feels right,” said Jandreau, 64, who with his wife has been sailing to La Paz for more than 20 years.

But the boat lifestyle is not for every-one, and challenges are many, cautioned Mark Nicholas, author of “The Essentials of Living Aboard a Boat.”

“The live-aboard lifestyle is easily sold as a romantic dream,” Nicholas said. “While that can be true, boats require work and experience.”

In November, Mexican tax agents dis-rupted the tranquil life for many, tem-porarily impounding more than 300 for-eign-owned sailboats and yachts across Mexican marinas. Most of the boats have since been released. The tax agents seemed to be going after tax cheats with-out fully understanding international laws, said Lawrence, who added that boat owners are not required to pay tax or duty if they have a 10-year temporary import permit, which costs about $50.

“There was a lot of confusion, but that’s been resolved,” she said. “Life is back to normal.”

Mexico’s Tax Service Administration, equivalent to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, declined a request for an inter-view, but an official said most of the ves-sels seized have been freed.

Still, Morey Glazer, a Dallas-based international tax consultant, said the incident serves as a warning for Ameri-cans.

“Mexican authorities can take and sell your assets, or just take your boat, your condo,” he said. “As more Americans move south of the border, they have to be on top of the tax laws because they can be confusing and sometimes messy.”

Nicholas has other practical advice. “Take time to understand a bit about the lifestyle, and if you haven’t already, spend time aboard a boat getting used to the sights, sounds, motion and smells. There are lots of pros, but also lots of cons, including limited space, moisture and so forth.”

Even so, for boat owners like van Os and her friends, sailing, living on a boat, sleeping on gentle ocean waves and building a community on a marina never gets old.

Van Os lives in La Paz between October and June and wishes her three grand-daughters in Dallas would visit. She insists that Americans are too consumed with concerns about security.

“I don’t even give that a thought,” said van Os. “Security has never been an issue for me. This has always been personal, about finding an inner peace.”

LIVING ON BOATSCONTINUED FROM 12

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Boomers 2014 15

‘Remarkable numbers’

BY MARILYNN MARCHIONEAP Chief Medical Writer

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mon: Five percent have replaced a knee and more than 2 percent, a hip.

“They are remarkable numbers,” said Dr. Daniel J. Berry, chairman of orthopedic sur-gery at the Mayo Clinic. Roughly 7 million people in the United States are living with a total hip or knee replacement.

He led the first major study to estimate how prevalent these procedures have become, using federal databases on surgeries and life expectancy trends. Results were reported March 11 at an American Academy of Ortho-paedic Surgeons conference in New Orleans.

Study shows 2 percent of Americans have new hips and knees

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More than 600,000 knees and about 400,000 hips are replaced in the U.S. each year. But until now, there haven’t been good numbers on how many peo-ple are living with new joints. The num-ber is expected to grow as the population ages, raising questions about cost, how long the new parts will last, and how best to replace the replacements as they wear out over time.

Why the boom?“People are aware that they’re a suc-

cess” and are less willing to put up with painful joints, Berry said.

The term “replacement” is a little misleading, said Dr. Joshua Jacobs, chairman of orthopedic surgery at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago and president of the ortho-pedic surgery association. What’s replaced is the surface of a joint after cartilage has worn away, leaving bone rubbing against bone and causing pain and less mobility.

In a replacement operation, the ends

of bones are removed or resurfaced and replaced with plastic, ceramic or metal materials.

Arthritis is the main reason for these operations, followed by obesity, which adds stress on knees and hips. Baby boomers are wearing out joints by playing sports and doing other activi-ties to avoid obesity. Knee replace-ment surgeries have more than tripled in the 45-to-64 age group over the past decade and nearly half of hip replace-ments now are in people under 65, federal numbers show.

“It’s not for anybody who has pain in the joint,” Berry warned. Surgery won’t help people with pain and stiff-ness from arthritis but whose joints are not damaged, said Berry, who gets royalties from certain hip and knee implants.

Surgery also is not for people who haven’t first tried exercise, medicines and weight loss, Jacobs said.

But for a growing number of people, it can mean a big improvement in quality of life. Mary Ann Tuft, 79, who owns an executive search firm, said her right knee was painful for a decade

before she had it replaced in 2005.“I live in downtown Chicago, take a

lot of walks along the beach. I could barely walk a block” by the time the operation was done, she said. “I’m very social, but I found going to cock-tail receptions where you had to stand a long time, I would just avoid them.”

After the operation, “I felt better pretty much right from the begin-ning,” she said. “You don’t even know you have it in there, which is amaz-ing.”

Cynthia Brabbit, a dental hygien-ist from Winona, Minn., had hip replacement in 2007 when she was 52. She developed hip problems in her 20s that distorted her gait and even caused one leg to grow longer than the other.

“I was running marathons, doing half marathons, playing tennis,” but the problem grew so bad she couldn’t even walk more than half a mile, she said.

“Now I can walk an hour a day,” and is training for a 100-mile bike ride this summer, she said. “What a world of difference.”

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18 Boomers 2014

Researchers seek simple testHelping identify those at risk for Alzheimer’s

BY SUSAN SCHROCKMCT News Service

ARLINGTON, Texas – Twice in 6 months, Bobbie Wilburn walked home from the grocery store because her car had been stolen.

It hadn’t. She just couldn’t remember where she parked.

Those incidents and others in an escalat-ing series of memory lapses and question-able judgment calls led the family to take away Wilburn’s car keys, disconnect her oven and stove, and eventually decide that she could no longer live alone safely, said her daughter, Barrie Page Hill of Arlington, Texas. Wilburn, 79, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease about 6 years ago, now lives with Hill’s family and requires constant care.

“It was excruciating for us. I’ve always seen my mom as the lady who could do anything,” Hill said. “It’s a horrible, hor-rible disease. I hate what it’s done to my mom. I hate what it’s done to my family.”

MCT News ServiceBarrie Page Hill (left) applies makeup to her mother, Bobbie Wilburn, 79, March 15, in Arlington, Texas. Wilburn has Alzheimer’s disease and now lives with Hill.

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Though Wilburn has coherent days, Hill called the disease a “time bomb” ticking away in her mother’s brain.

“This is a long-term illness that she will have for the rest of her life. It would be tremendous if they could find a cure for this,” Hill said.

There is no known cure. But research-ers, including those at the University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort Worth, are developing blood tests designed to help doctors more quickly detect Alzheimer’s disease, dementia and mild cognitive impairment such as Parkinson’s disease. Advance detection helps patients begin taking better care of themselves, researchers say, and such breakthroughs will boost efforts to devel-op medications to delay or even reverse the effects of Alzheimer’s.

“In the Alzheimer’s world, we don’t detect the disease until it’s pretty advanced. If someone is clinically diagnos-able with Alzheimer’s, it has been going on for years,” said Sid O’Bryant, interim direc-tor of the Institute for Aging and Alzheim-er’s Disease Research at the health science center. “We need to be able to detect it earlier and earlier so we can create new ways to prevent the disease itself and do early treatment so we can be most effective in treating our patients.”

An estimated half-million Americans

each year are affected by Alzheimer’s, a degenerative brain disease, which researchers believe is surpassed only by heart disease and cancer as the lead-ing cause of death in the United States, according to a study published.

“It robs patients of their memories. I find that particularly disturbing,” said O’Bryant, whose grandmother died with Alzheimer’s. “Our memories are intimately linked to who we are. It slowly erodes away the person himself. … Toward the end of the disease, it’s not the same person. That takes a huge toll on families.”

Alzheimer’s research is decades behind cardiovascular and cancer research, and new medications haven’t hit the market in years, some neurologists say, partly because of the difficulty in diagnosing patents and enrolling them in clinical trials early enough to test the effective-ness of new medications and treatments, researchers say.

“It’s been a decade since we’ve had a new medication come available so we can treat the disease. It’s very frustrating,” said Dr. Kevin Conner, neurologist and medical director at Texas Health Arlington Memo-rial’s Stroke Center.

New blood tests may change all that one day.

In a study published in Nature Medicine, researchers made international headlines

after unveiling a first-of-its-kind blood test they say can predict with 90 percent accu-racy whether a healthy person will develop Alzheimer’s within 2 to 3 years. The test is based on whether the person has lowered levels of particular fatty lipids.

In the Rochester Aging Study, launched in 2007, the researchers collected blood samples from more than 500 healthy people older than 70. Five years later, they further examined the samples from the people who had developed Alzheimer’s or other mild cognitive problems and found that 10 specific lipids were at lower levels than normal, possibly an early signal that the disease has begun breaking down brain cells, according an article about the study on the University of Rochester Medi-cal Center website.

“The ability to identify individuals who are at risk of developing Alzheimer’s before the clinical manifestation of cognitive impairment has long been a holy grail of the neuromedicine community,” said Dr. Mark Mapstone, a neuropsychologist at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, and lead author of the study. “Current efforts to develop a treatment for this disease are coming up short because they are probably being used too late. Biomarkers that can allow us to intervene early in the course of the dis-ease could be a game-changer.”

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APShoppers walk past the Forest Lawn funeral home kiosk at the Glendale Galleria mall in Glendale, Calif.

Something that could catch on?Funeral and casket outlets heading to the mall

JOHN ROGERSThe Associated Press

LOS ANGELES – We eat there, buy our clothes there and some people suspect teenagers may actually live there. So perhaps it was just a matter of time until funeral homes began moving into the local shopping mall.

Over the past 2 years, Forest Lawn has been quietly putting movable kiosks in several of the malls that dot Southern California’s suburbs.

The move, by one of the funeral indus-try’s best known operators, expands on a marketing innovation that appears to have begun at the dawn of the decade when a company called Til We Meet Again began opening casket stores around the country.

“We try to reach our audience where they are at and the mall is a great way to

do that,” said Ben Sussman, spokesman for Forest Lawn, whose cemeteries count among their permanent residents such notables as Walt Disney, Elizabeth Taylor and Michael Jackson.

“And it’s also, perhaps, a way to reach people who might be a little leery about coming directly into one of our parks,” Sussman said.

As to why folks would be leery about that, industry officials acknowledge the answer is obvious: Who really wants to enter a funeral home even one day before they have to?

“Funeral planning is something every-body knows they must do, but at the same time it’s something nobody wants to do,” said Robert Fells, executive direc-tor of the International Cemetery, Cre-mation and Funeral Association.

“Nobody gets up on a Saturday morn-

ing and says, ‘Gee, it’s a nice day. I won-der if I can go out and get myself a burial plot,’” Fells said.

But if they’re strolling past a funeral outlet at the mall, where they’re sur-rounded by happy, lively people and maybe clutching a bag of Mrs. Field’s cookies, the thought is that they’ll feel differently.

“When they’re going to the mall, people are not going out of need,” said Nathan Smith, co-founder and CEO of Til We Meet Again, which has outlets in malls in Arizona, Louisiana, Kansas, Indiana and Texas.

So if they do happen to see a place ped-dling coffins or urns while they’re pricing T-shirts and hoodies, Smith said, it will look far less intimidating.

FUNERAL OUTLETS CONTINUED ON 23�

22 Boomers 2014

APMark Sanchez and his wife, Lea’ Anne Sanchez, look at a Dodgers theme cremation urn at the Forest Lawn funeral home stand at the Glendale Galleria mall in Glendale, Calif. Forest Lawn, famous as the final resting place for everyone from Al Jolson to Michael Jackson, has begun staffing outlets at shopping malls, reasoning that planning for death, either for a loved one or yourself, might not be quite as intimidating for some people if it takes place in a lively, happy place like a mall rather than the more somber confines of a cremation home.

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Boomers 2014 23

Forest Lawn’s effort began modestly, with just one kiosk (one of those mov-able things that usually is used to sell stuff like calendars or ties) in a mall in the Los Angeles suburb of Eagle Rock.

When no one was creeped out, the program expanded to about a half-dozen malls. Now Forest Lawn period-ically shuffles them from one mall to another to reach the largest audience.

Unlike the people at other such sta-tions, who can seem like carnival barkers as they walk right up to you and hawk discount calling plans or free yogurt samples, Forest Lawn’s operators are more discreet.

At the entrance to a Macy’s depart-ment in the LA suburb of Arcadia last year, operators were quick to smile and hand out brochures when approached. But they kept their dis-tance until people came to them.

It was the same at a mall in Glendale last week, where people stopped to

examine cremation urns ranging from one with a subdued design of leaves to another that brightly featured the logo for the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team.

Also on display was a recruiting poster for potential future Forest Lawn employees, complete with a picture of the great Dodgers pitcher Fernando Valenzuela, who urged them to con-sider “joining a winning team.”

Still, not everyone is thrilled with the idea. “You’re in a shopping mall and you’re walking along and there’s a funeral place?” retired high school teacher Stan Slome said incredulously. “That sounds too deadly.”

After thinking it over, however, he acknowledged it’s something that could catch on.

At age 86, Slome said, he gets his share of mail from funeral operators inviting him to seminars at local res-taurants, where he can have a meal on them while he hears a pitch on why he should use their services when he exits this mortal coil.

He doesn’t care for that either, he

said, but he figures somebody is attending those seminars.

If the mall effort catches on, said Jessica Koth of the National Funeral Directors Association, credit the aging baby boom generation at least in part. Historically, people have not wanted to talk, or even think, about their demise.

But baby boomers, the oldest of whom are pushing 70, are differ-ent. Many are beginning to press for so-called green funerals that don’t require the use of coffins or burial vaults, Koth said. Others want custom-made coffins or urns that say some-thing about who they were.

That often means something that represents a favorite car or sports team, said Smith of Til We Meet Again. He pointed out he even got a request once for a coffin built to resemble a portable toilet – from a guy whose company made portable toilets.

With that mindset, could going to the mall and planning the whole deal just steps away from the Merry-Go-Round really be that unusual?

Credit the baby boom generationFUNERAL OUTLETS

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