by Ken Dychtwald
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| List Price: | $24.95 |
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| Lowest New Price: | $6.68 |
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Product Description
The bestselling author of Age Wave reveals how the aging of the baby-boom generation will forever reshape our homes, families and businesses--and how we can be ready.
In the past, few people had a chance to "age." Throughout 99 percent of human history, the average life expectancy was less than eighteen years. Today, however, we are witnessing an unprecedented generational shift. In America, the largest generation in history--the baby boomers--is fast approaching its senior years, in which the elderly will routinely live well beyond their eighties and nineties. While this is an exciting new stage, it begs uncomfortable questions:
-- With advances in longevity, at what age should people be considered "old" and therefore eligible for "old age" entitlements?
-- How can we adjust work, retirement, education, marriage, and family relations to accommodate tens of millions of us living to eighty--or one hundred?
-- What will we do when millions of Americans outlive the money set aside in their pensions and retirement plans?
-- How can we transform our health-care system to be ready for the coming onslaught of Alzheimer's and other degenerative diseases?
-- What useful and productive roles can we create for elderly boomers, so that the age wave they are producing creates rich opportunities rather than crushing problems?
In this breakthrough book, Dychtwald explains how individuals, businesses, and governments can best prepare for the challenges of a new era in which the priorities will be set based on the needs and desires of the elderly. He surveys how we each must make individual decisions right now to "age proof" our families and ourselves.
Amazon.com Review
"Old simply isn't what it used to be," writes gerontologist Ken Dychtwald, bestselling author of Age Wave. In the 20th century, the number of Americans ages 65 and older increased from 3 million to 33 million. This number is likely to double by 2035! After 30 years in the field of aging, Dychtwald is convinced that "'Age Power' will rule the 21st century" and that "dramatic anti-aging breakthroughs" in supernutrition, hormone replacement, gene therapy, bionics, and organ cloning will be discovered in the near future. This all sounds like wonderful news, except that Dychtwald fears that "we are woefully unprepared" for the aging of the boomers. He sounds a wake-up call to "the five social train wrecks we need to prevent." For example, society will face epidemics of chronic diseases such as Alzheimer's (14 million Americans will have it by the mid-21st century). Tens of millions will live their long, last years in poverty. And living longer will be worthless if the elderly spend their last decades doing little more than watching television--40 million retirees average 43 hours a week of TV now! Age Power describes the aging-related dangers ahead of us and solutions (both social and personal) for preventing them. "Tips to age-proof your life" at the end of many chapters help you put the points into action. "Many of the painful, punishing challenges of old age could be prevented if informed choices were made earlier in life," says Dychtwald, and although this serious book is not easy reading, it will help you make much more informed choices. --Joan Price
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Average Customer Review:
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
 "The future is coming and it is older than you think", 2005-09-20
This is an extremely interesting and important book. It seeks to identify the major social trend of the human future, and indicate ways it can be shaped for the benefit of us all.
The dramatic rise in the average length of life which took place in the twentieth century is according to Ken Dychtwald going to continue in the future. The great cohort of the Baby Boomers, seventy- six million strong is moving into 'Old Age' and they will bring with them new demands and even a new definition of the condition of 'Old Age'.
As the author sees it we are moving toward a 'gerontocracy' where the older segments of the population will have more and more power, not only in the market- place, but in determining the values and priorities of society as a whole.
For Dychtwald the fact that more and more people will live longer and longer lives, and will be an increasingly large proportion of the population raises challenges for Humanity as a whole of a kind we have not faced before.
Will Old Age become as it is for so many now a story of chronic illness, increasing disability? Or will the new technologies and medicines that are emerging enable for most a transformation where not only the age of old age will be pushed backward, but where a new ' cyclic' kind of life- style will begin with people starting new careers, new lives, new worlds of interest in old age?
The questions are many and Dychtwald provides a text which is tremendously rich in information and suggestions.
He points to the fact that the United States is not now really preparing itself for this dramatic demographic change. And he indicates that nonetheless many prescient and active individuals are moving toward extending their lives in a healthier and better way.
There are many questions raised by the books arguments that I cannot begin to address in this review. One is the question of what happens to the human spirit , the human power of innovation, the whole feeling of hope in life when there is in effect a world of older generations only, with so little youth in it?
Other questions I have relate to the overall purpose and meaning of lives seemingly dedicated to their endless extension and pleasure. And here I should say Dychtwald is very aware of the necessity of creating futures in which people ' give' to others, find meaning in their lives through helping.
On the whole I am I think a bit less optimistic than the author of this work. Perhaps it is because I recently spent time , over a month, watching an elderly relative receiving the most advanced medical care , which did not prevent her suffering and decline.
I have no doubt that the future will have many more people who live longer and healthier lives. But it seems to me at this point anyway that it will also have many more people living in conditions of chronic pain and disability.
I too despite the 'vision' that is presented so competently here cannot in my heart cry out, "Brave new world that has so many old people in it."
8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
 Highly recommended, 2002-11-12
A very thoughtful book. Paints a vivid portrait of the major issues we will be facing this century. I highly recommend it for anyone seeking to understand what future demographics has in store for us, and how we should prepare for it.
5 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
Are you worried about your parents? Your own aging?, 2002-08-28
A book everyone would benefit from reading. It's a MUST read. Not only are the issues well presented with clear and insightful facts, but thoughtful answers are presented - solutions we can all begin to pursue. I didn't realize, as educated as I am, that I knew so little about this issue. Great wake up call!
13 of 40 people found the following review helpful:
 Socialism at it's core, 2002-01-15
After reading this book at the insistence of a college I have come to the conclusion that this is nothing more than another
attempt to force "lite" socialism down our throats with fear mongering. The good doctor is kind enough to scare people
into believing in his utopian remedies. What ever happened to individual responsibility? This work was so self serving and liberal in its content that I wish I could give it a quarter of a star.
11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
Military Preparedness in the Battle of Aging, 2000-11-01
This book maps out the terrain that 76 million people are now entering. The social implications are dealt with at length. The thought of living in poverty in one's 'Golden Years' should sound an alarm for boomers who are addicted to consumption and worse yet the 'Plastic Enabler'. I have purchased copies for my siblings whose devil may care attitudes of today presage a painful tommorrow. Definitive studies on the physical effects of aging are being done by companies like Geron Corp.whose "telomerase" technology could reveal a basis for aging and the slowing or reversal of its effects.
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