Nebraska AARP Webinar on Brain Health

I registered for an AARP Nebraska Webinar with a local researcher: Janelle Beadle, PhD, Director of the Aging Brain and Emotion Lab at the University of Nebraska-Omaha, talking about brain health on Tuesday, July 28 from 10 to 11 a.m. CT.

The Eudaimonia (Flourishing) Project for Us Elderly

In the Shakespeare tragedy King Lear, the title character says "O, reason not the need!" (Anthony Hopkins (Lear) and Florence Puge (Cordelia) in the 2018 BBC/Amazon production)

My work with what I call the Eudaimonia (U-DYE-moan-EE-a) Project, which I have created, has the purpose of addressing aging not simply a matter of care taking and managing disease, but also to emphasis the need to support this population in leading a flourishing life.

"Eudaimonia" is a central concept of Aristotelian ethics, and is roughly translated as good spirit. It's full meaning is about living a life and purpose and growth through your lifespan. Of course, this is applicable for all age groups who are able to make decisions about their lives, but I feel it's particularly important when considering our poor attitudes towards how we portray the elderly in the myriad of conditions and challenges they must face.

In this time of whirlwind activism, those concerned are citing the longstanding problems of taking care of the elderly, but miss the need to help them engender a sense of purpose.

I’m a devotee of Positive Psychology based on the work of humanistic psychologists, notably Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, and Erich Fromm. Below is a interesting illustration of Maslow's hierarchy of needs pyramid displayed as a function of personal development over a lifespan.

Omaha Community Action for the Elderly

This week, Julie Masters Ph.D., head of the Gerontology Program at UNO posted an article to the local newspaper, the Omaha World-Herald, about the community efforts to help the elderly during this Covid-19 pandemic.

I submitted a letter to the editor with an encouraging response:

It’s inspiring to read the Midland Voices piece by Julie Masters about the Omaha community’s effort to support the elderly during this Covid-19 pandemic. This outbreak serves to highlight the longstanding problems associated with not only elder care, but how society regards the elderly.

In “Elderhood,” a book by geriatrician Louise Aronson M.D., a finalist for this year’s Pulitzer Prize, she mentions the negative connotation associated with the term “old age,” and how its use harms our perception of the elderly. “At the very least, we are losing an opportunity to look at the final third of life with the same concern, curiosity, creativity, and rigor as we view the first two-thirds.”

Cicero is quoted: “ Old age will only be respected if it fights for itself, maintains its rights...and asserts control over its own to its last breath.”

We’re now thrown into a whirlwind of activism, looking for ethical answers for problems long ignored, with a determined sense of hope.

And, indeed activism should be the approach now as we look for solutions. My Eudaimonia Project is meant to create that vision.