By Kay Kaylor
PREVIEW Columnist
I advocate for residents in skilled nursing and assisted living residences as the regional long-term care ombudsman. I also am a Senior Medicare Patrol and State Health Insurance Assistance Program counselor, all as an employee of San Juan Basin Area Agency on Aging (SJBAAA). The many aging and care concerns will be addressed here.
A nonprofit website associated with the Public Broadcasting System (PBS), Next Avenue (nextavenue.org), offers a variety of articles on aging. Produced by the Twin Cities PBS, it connects more than 70 million readers to journalists from throughout the country.
“Our mission is to meet the needs and unleash the potential of older Americans through the power of media,” the About Us page states.
The Next Avenue dropdown menu offers topic such as Health, including Alternative Medicines and Treatments; Money and Policy, such as Estate Planning; Work and Purpose, including Starting a Business; Living, with Special Coverage titled Telling Our Stories; and Caregiving, ranging from Housing and Assisted Living to End of Life.
A Dec. 31, 2020, article by Chris Farrell, titled “Understanding the Social Security Rules for Widows and Widowers,” also describes how President-elect Joe Biden “wants to enlarge” and “clear up confusion” about the complex benefits. One of the website’s highlighted 2020 stories is “The Blindside Wipeout of Grief,” by Jackson Rainer, also known as a “Sudden Temporary Upsurge of Grief.” The author describes the feeling that hit him while shopping in a Walmart: “The sense of agony was stunningly electric. I felt attacked. I could neither think nor talk.”
A third example is a current article by Nancy Collamer, “You’re Hired! (But for Much Less).” An interviewee happens to be a man from Colorado who took one-third of his former pay and mentions “Age Place Friendly Workplace Initiative, a Colorado-based group promoting age-friendly and intergenerational workplaces.” The author gives three tips from workplace experts on pay for job applicants.
SJBAAA offers resources for people age 60 and older or on Medicare; see sjbaaa.org. For further information, please call or text 403-2165 or send an email to kkaylor@sjbaaa.org.
