AOK wants to know, how youths and elders can productively profit from one another.
Reporter: Professor Fried, are you afraid of aging, of diseases and of isolation?
Fried: Of course, and I don’t know a single soul that doesn’t act the same way.
Reporter: Why do we feel uncomfortable about aging?
Fried: I’m definitely no expert when it comes to this, and therefore, I can only answer this question as an individual. I think, we need to emphasize the roles that seniors play in this aging society. The middle-aged generations are not ready for their lives to end as they retire. They still want to engage with the society. How we feel upon thinking about aging relies heavily on that whether we could provide those chances and how we seize them.
Reporter: Are we prepared for an aging society?
Fried: I think that we’re very unprepared. We aren’t fully aware of the advantages and consequences of an aging society, and therefore, we aren’t prepared. We should see the pros of the older generation for the whole society, but many of which we still don’t have any knowledge of. Seniors have a load of life experience, from which we could all learn. For that, we need to have ways to bring those experiences out.
Reporter: In your study, you used clinical and population-based strategies to deal with the frailty and disability of old people. What strategies are those?
Fried: One’s health is absolutely enormously important. That contains staying active - both physically and mentally -, maintaining social contact and take part in things that give one’s life meaning, therefore you have a reason to get up every day. These are crucial for well-being and also for avoiding frailty and disability. Though these approaches haven’t been scientificly proven, a remarkable amount of data points to them. Population and community based strategies are effective, because they can be done by one on their own.
Reporter: Can you name an actual example?
Fried: For instance, we have developed a program called “Experience Corps”. It’s supposed to influence the health and performance of those in retirement positively. For this reason, we created this program for old grown-ups to support children in public primary schools on their academic development. The program has been running since 1996. In the program, 60 and up-year-olds do at least 15 hours a week of voluntary work in public schools. They mostly work on improving reading and writing abilities, but also math. Volunteers help children with teachers’ supervision and also outside of classrooms in the form of one-to-one support. The program is a real win-win model. We already see major effects on the reading and writing abilities the children demonstrate. And, we also see improvements in the senior volunteers’ physical, mental and social activities.
Reporter: If we began to opt for a healthy lifestyle, we could avoid frailty and disability?
Fried: We think that’s the case, but proof is yet to be found. At least the better health conditions shown in the senior population today compared to those 20 to 30 years ago and the longer life expectations prove a point.
Reporter: What are the consequences of frailty and disability among old people?
Fried: We’re still working on that. Chronic diseases, for instance, affects the ability to unrestrictedly participate in daily life. Frail people have a lower stress tolerance, that affects how they handle temperature fluctuations, illnesses, car accidents and such. It also takes away the ability to interact with the surroundings. So stepping up steps can be a problem. But there are chances that these consequences could be minimized if we paid more attention to them.
Reporter: Another problem is isolation. Seniors seem to be less attached to the society.
Fried: That’s a serious problem. I’ve worked as a geriatrician for many years and I’ve seen many old patients that suffer from isolation and therefore couldn’t find the meaning of their lives. That’s an important topic which we have to see from different perspectives if we want to build a senior-friendly society.