On Saturday, September 11th, San Francisco State University is hosting a fabulous event – Creativity: The Arts and Your Gray Matter.

Engage As You Age is one of the events sponsors. Come by our booth and meet our founder Ben Lewis as well as one of our activity specialists.

Octogenarian Jimmy Cobb will perform live at the event! He’s one of the great jazz drummers (think Max Roach, Art Blakey, etc…) and has played with Miles Davis, John Coltrane, West Montgomery and many other of the greats. Below is the schedule for the event:

• 12:30–1:15pm: Registration
• 1:15pm: Building a Better Brain. Overview: New Science, New Insights
• 1:30–3pm: Jazz it Up! Octogenarian drummer Jimmy Cobb and saxophonist Andrew Speight with SF State’s Generations Jazz Band lead an interactive demonstration peppered with music, using jazz to explore creative engagement and communication. Cobb and Speight have adapted this special workshop for OLLI, from creativity trainings they performed for NASA and The Economist.
• 3–3:30pm: Networking break with refreshments
• 3:30–5pm: Creativity and the Aging Brain. What brain science tells us about creativity and how to cultivate creativity as we age. Led by Kurt Daw, dean of the College of Creative Arts. Panel includes Susan Stauter, artistic director, San Francisco Unified School District, and Harry R. Moody, director of academic affairs, AARP.
• 5–6pm (optional) Reception. Learn more about creative opportunities and networks.

Contact Engage As You Age or SFSU for more details on this unique event.

Bay Area Summit, A Quarterly Newsletter for Midlife and Older Adults recently wrote an article on Engage As You Age. The article, “Engaging While Aging: What’s Good for the Brain is Good for the Soul,” describes our services that many residents of assisted living and continuing care retirement homes have benefited from. It also captures the many instances of seniors that age in place who have benefited from our social visits and companionship. The article also does an excellent job differentiating what we do from homecare and caregiving services in San Francisco. It highlights the added social stimulation for seniors that our services provide. Thank you John Doxey for such a great article!

She stands two inches shy of five feet and didn’t begin acting professionally until she was 93. Mae Laborde isn’t looking to move into an assisted living facility or seeking homecare. Chances are that she is on the phone trying to track down her agent.

At the age of 93, Mae Laborde became a professional actress. She’s appeared in commercials for Sears, JP Morgan and Lexus and even appeared in The Heartbreak Kid with Ben Stiller. She’s also regularly been cast on Mad TV and had a small part in the film Pineapple Express.

Mae’s agent, Sherrie Spillane, says that Mae “has got this way about her that’s so endearing that everybody falls in love with her. She’s got a cute little face, and she’s very funny.”

In the past she had worked as a department store clerk and a bookkeeper. While she may be cast as an “older person” she regularly attends casting calls for the “40+ group.”

Mae has won an award on Hulu.com and says that she still gets residual checks from a Lexus commercial. She drove until she was 97 and swears she had a clean driving record. According to Mae she decided to stop driving and didn’t have to have a “take the car keys away from mom” discussion with her kids.

You don’t have to be a professional actor or actress to act. Engage As You Age has held several Shakespeare and theater classes at assisted living and retirement homes in the San Francisco Bay Area. We’re also able to come to your home and provide your homecare worker or caregiver a break and act out scenes from your favorite play with you! Contact us today if you’d like to learn more about our home visits for elders and seniors in the San Francisco Bay Area. While Mae might be the oldest professional actress, you can certainly become the world’s oldest working actor or the world’s oldest working actress.

Many studies have found that a person’s social environment can impact his or her health. In fact, numerous studies have found that lonely people suffer a higher rate of mortality than people who are not socially isolated.

Researchers from UCLA took things a step further in a 2007 study in which they examined the biological impact that social isolation can have on the human body. The study was published in a 2007 issue of Genome Biology and found a distinct pattern in immune cells of people that are perpetually lonely.

Steve Cole, one of the researchers in the study, says that “What this study shows is that the biological impact of social isolation reaches down into some of our most basic internal processes the activity of our genes.” The differences in immune cell patterns between those seniors that were socially engaged and those that were not was found to be independent of other risk factors such as health status, age, weight, etc…

What does this mean for seniors and their families? First and foremost it points to the benefits of proactively planning ways to keep homebound seniors engaged with friends, family and people that they genuinely enjoy spending time with. While homecare and caregivers are a great start, seniors can often feel socially isolated even with people around them. Elders need more than homecare, what they need are people that can engage them in meaningful conversation and activities. Engage As You Age works with families to ensure that their parents or partners are engaged and having fun in-between visits from family and friends.

Click here for more studies on socialization and click here for some ideas on activities for seniors that are homebound.

Ivy Bean has passed away at the age of 104. Most likely the oldest regular user (if not user) of Facebook, Ivy Bean kept her (at last count) 4,949 friends up to speed with her life.

On August, 15, 2008 an article described Ivy as being “the world’s oldest facebook user.” At that time she had 9 friends. In less than two years she found a way to touch an additional 4,940 people’s lives on a daily basis.

Born in Bradford, England in 1905, Ivy worked as a mill worker from the age of 14 until she was 73.

Ivy heard about Facebook.com from some caregivers at the assisted living facility that she moved into when she was 101. Within a year she was online and updated her account on a regular basis.

Ivy embraced the social networking website and was quickly embraced by a growing number of online friends and followers.

Below is an interview of Ivy in 2008. It isn’t what you think. She’s using a web camera, has a headset and is using Skype (or an online video program) to talk to Olly Mann on tv!

Ivy is a great example of how a senior can benefit from computer lessons and connect with friends and family online. What is clear from Ivy’s facebook posts is that she had local family that would regularly come and see her and engage her in activities and conversation.

Many of the 1.1 million seniors in the San Francisco Bay Area do not have family nearby that can regularly visit them. In fact, 9 out of 10 of these seniors want to remain in their homes making it less likely that they’ll receive computer lessons to get them online to connect with other people online like Ivy did.

Dr. Walter Watson, a 100-year-old gynecologist continues to see patients on a daily basis and still serves as chairman of his department at University Hospital in Augusta, Georgia! At an age when many people hire a caregiver or companion for physical assistance around the house, Dr. Watson continues to make his rounds! He certainly isn’t looking into homecare anytime soon.

CBS evening news recently profiled the centenarian doctor on its Assignment America series. During the program, Watson said that he has delivered between 15,000 and 18,000 babies during his career. Believe it or not that is nearly 10% of all of Augusta, Georgia’s total population! Locally, these children are known as “Watson Babies” and often span 3 generations in local families.

Watson stopped delivering babies in 1995 (after 51 years of doing it!) but continues to drive a few blocks to work each day! That “when do you take the car keys away from your parents” conversation probably won’t happen for a long time between Watson and his kids.

We’re wondering if Dr. Watson is the oldest doctor in America? Please contact us or post a comment if you happen to know who the oldest living doctor is.

Below is the Assignment America profile of Dr. Watson:

Heard of the Make a Wish Foundation? Chances are you have.

Heard of An Elderly Wish Foundation? Chances are you haven’t. If you’re a resident of Contra Costa County you should learn about this amazing organization. They’re similar to the Make a Wish Foundation but grant last wishes for terminally ill seniors that live in Contra Costa County.

A geriatric care manager in Contra Costa County told me about An Elderly Wish Foundation in the summer of 2009. What they do moved me to contact them and learn more. Before I knew it I was having coffee in Lafayette with Mary Champman, the Executive Director of An Elderly Wish. She greeted me with a bag of peaches from her backyard and some amazing first-hand accounts of the myriad of wishes that they’ve granted seniors.

Their office is in a former jail cell (no joke) and their heart is in the right place. I’ve recently joined the board and am planning on helping them launch a new website and also spread the word about what they do.

The Contra Costa Times recently gave this great organization some much-needed press coverage, chronicling a last wish that they granted to an El Sobrante woman who wanted to go on a vacation with her son to Montana to see fossil excavation sites.

Contact An Elderly Wish Foundation today at 925-978-1883. Donate your time, your skills and spread the word about the amazing work that they do. There a unique San Francisco Bay Area organization and a an amazing resource for families in Contra Costa County.

Have you ever thought of becoming an escapist or stuntman? Could you imagine doing that in your 80s? Or even 90s? Ronald Cunningham, better known as “The Great Omani,” continued to engaged in great escapes and amazing stunts until he was 90!

Born on July 10, 1915 in England, Cunningham’s life was changed forever in the 1940s when he happened upon The Secrets of Houdini at a second-hand bookstore. Before he knew it he was trying underwater escapes and learning the inns and outs of magic.

He soon became known for jumping through flames into broken glass and also padlocking himself to a pier as the tied rose (and always finding an amazing way to escape).

At the age of 62 he marked the Queen’s Silver Jubilee by doing a handstand on the edge of a cliff while holding the British Union Flag between his feet!

He regularly performed at the Bedford Tavern in Brighton, England where he was known to use fire, broken glass and handcuffs to keep the crowd at the edge of their seats.

Here’s an amazing video of The Great Omani’s last stunt at the age of 90:

While we don’t practice stunts with seniors (for obvious reasons), Engage As You Age does encourage people to continue engaging in activities that they love.  It’s amazing to see The Great Omani in action. Can you imagine providing him with homecare or caregiving services?!? You don’t have to set yourself on fire to work with Engage As You Age. Perhaps you’d like to learn a new language, speak one that you thought you’ve forgotten, get up and running on a computer or talk history with a scholar. We can make all of that happen and more. If you are a senior citizen living in San Francisco, Marin, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo or Santa Clara counties we can find a way to engage you or your loved one and provide your family with a caregiver respite.

The Great Omani died on October 15, 2007. He was 92 and his last request was for a trapdoor in the hearse at his funeral!

It took nearly 80 years but Elsie McLean finally shot her first hole in one at the age of 102. Golfing since she was in her 20s, Elsie, made the amazing shot on a par 3, 96-yard hole in Chico, California.”For an old lady, I still hit the ball pretty good” said McLean after she made the shot.

“Well everybody wants a hole in one, and I said ‘Why can’t I have a hole in one?’ I came within inches once,” McLean added.

Believe it or not, Elsie was not the first centenarian to shoot  hole in one. 101-year old Harold Stilson achieved the feat on May 16, 2001 in Boca Raton, Florida. It should be noted that Stilson’s hole in one at the age of 101 was the sixth that he’s ever shot! McLean’s record-breaking shot was the first hole in one that she’s ever had. ESPN.com has a Page 2 Q&A with Stilson about his shot. It is definitely worth a read.

McLean’s amazing shot took place in 2007 and landed her appearances on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and also The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

Below is a local Chico, CA news feature on Elsie. It’ll give you a good a chance to see how much energy she’s got. She certainly isn’t in need of homecare or any other senior services in the San Francisco Bay Area. The PGA Senior Golf Tour might be in need of her though!

The Belvedere-Tiburon Library in Marin County will host a senior week from Tuesday, July 13th through Friday, July 16th. This will be a great event for Marin County residents that are interested in learning about homecare, caregiving, aging in place, Alzheimer’s disease in Marin, dementia and anything else related to being an elder or having parents that are seniors.

Engage As You Age’s Ben Lewis will appear on several panels during the Marin County library’s senior week event. He’ll lead the keynote panel called “Senior Care 101″ which will address everything from how to screen and vet a homecare agency in Tiburon (and any other San Francisco Bay Area communities) to what local resources can help point you in the right direction (no matter your financial situation). This is a great panel if you’ve got an aging parent and are wondering about what is out there to help you. Learn how to save money and stress by asking the right questions in a largely unregulated industry.

Lewis will also lead a workshop on “Aging In Place Technologies” on Wednesday, July 14th. Contact Engage As You Age to learn more about Lewis’ panels or go to the Tiburon-Belvedere Library website to learn more about the event.

Also go to the Marin IJ for more details as well.