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Seniors will outnumber children in the future Continued from page 10 11 · Wednesday, June 23, 2010 OAKVILLE BEAVER · www.oakvillebeaver.com ness software and games on a regular basis. The technology has potential, especially for an aging population that is increasingly computer and Internet savvy, Roggeveen said. Older adults want to keep learning, and the advances in computer science can be incorporated into recreational activities -- things such as games nights -- to enhance brain function. "People want opportunities to do these sorts of things. They don't want to sit in a room and let their brains atrophy." Demands on long-term care in Ontario are mounting as the population ages, and as a more affluent and informed population demands better care and more services. Expectations of long-term care have steadily increased in recent decades, said Dominic Ventresca, director of seniors services for Niagara, who oversees eight municipally run homes. Residents who grew up during the Depression were content with "a bed and a meal," and an occasional visit from a doctor or nurse, Ventresca said. Ontarians now expect care that is above that base level, Ventresca and others said, with a greater selection of meals and activities, and more timely service -- not just having nursing or personal support available, but having it delivered in a timely way, such as more frequent changing of diapers and other incontinence products. The Eden Alternative, an international longterm care organization, set out to transform the traditional hospital-based settings of care homes into flourishing human habitats. Its philosophy and beliefs have taken hold around the world, including in Canada, said Kathleen Burnett, the group's international coordinator. "Eden is a continuous-improvement process," said Burnett. "It's part of a culture-change movement in long-term care." Eden Alternative used to be based on incorporating plants, animals and children into longterm care environments. But the movement has evolved beyond that. "We want to pull away from the medical model ... the hospital model of care," she said. "The primary focus currently of everything that goes on in long-term care is based on illness, injury, diagnosis. The drivers are basically the nursing department." In contrast, in the human habitat of Eden, she said, the individual drives the home environment. "People don't go to an Eden home to die, they go "To their families and the people who love them, they are their history, their parents. These people are loved, and their people who love them want to see them respected, not in pain, having joy." Pat Morden, chief executive, Shalom Village, Hamilton Canadian Red Cross there to live," she said. "And that is a complete turnaround from what we are currently seeing in Ontario." In an Eden Alternative home, "the elders make most of the decisions," Burnett said. "It's about the team working together to benefit all members in that household." Morden and others believe long-term care res- Who speaks for the elderly? A number of groups are voicing opinions on what should be done to create better ways of caring for the next generation of the frail elderly. · Elder Health Coalition: Governments need an Elder Health Strategy and must make seniors a priority for programs and support networks allowing them to stay healthy and independent. (No website: the coalition represents 30 groups advising the province on care for older persons) · Concerned Friends of Ontario Citizens in Care Facilities (concernedfriends.ca): There needs to be enough of everything -- enough beds, enough staff. The industry needs to attract more people, particularly physicians, to this challenging field. · Alzheimer Society of Ontario (alzheimerontario.org): Issues posed by dementia must be addressed through specialized training, better-designed nursing and group homes, overcoming stigma and making dementia a national priority. · Ontario Health Quality Council (ohqc.com): Building assisted-living homes and communities creates nursing-home vacancies. Improve long-term care resident satisfaction through better staff attention and morale, activities and a homelike environment. · Canadian Association of Retired Persons (carp.ca): Family caregivers should get support, including the right to time off work, training and respite. Home-care services must be more reliable. · Ontario Long Term Care Association (oltca.com): Ensure the long-term care sector can use new technology and innovation to improve residents' lives and deliver proper care to people wherever they are. · Ontario Hospital Association (oha.com): Help people better understand care options, properly plan and resource future services they will need, and continue to focus on improving quality of patient lives. · Ontario Association of Non-Profit Homes and Services (oanhss.org): Senior care, wherever it is delivered, must meet a consistent minimum standard. In nursing homes, staffing levels must be increased to handle residents' greater needs. · PSW Canada, (pswcanada.com): The ratio of patients to personal support workers must change so PSWs have more time to spend with residents, and PSW training should be standardized. · Canadian Medical Association (cmaj.ca): Canadians must plan for the effects of retiring baby boomers on health care, and deal with the current scarcity of long-term care and homecare services. · Canadian Union of Public Employees, Ontario Division (cupe.on.ca):ntario needs meaningful rules and laws to hold service providers accountable for how they're spending public money on seniors, including guaranteed levels of care. idents deserve to live life to the fullest. "To their families and the people who love them, they are their history, their parents. These people are loved, and their people who love them want to see them respected, not in pain, having joy." Gerry Phillips, Ontario minister responsible for seniors, said municipalities can help improve daily life for older citizens, through, for example, providing "kneeling buses" (with suspensions that can be lowered to accommodate a wheelchair ramp) or different uses of community centres and parks. When people look at towns and cities, he said, they see -- and rightly so -- some "very youthoriented" features such as hockey rinks and child care. The province is eager to help municipalities become more "age-friendly," he said. The province is also encouraging development of technology -- from high-tech pushbutton devices to summon help or monitor health, to low-tech kitchen sinks people in wheelchairs can use -- that could help seniors stay home longer. As demand for senior-friendly devices grows, Phillips said, costs should go down. In a decade, the first of the baby boom generation will hit 75. By 2036, the number of Ontarians 75 and over will rise to 2.2 million, from 850,000 today. Seniors will outnumber children in the future, and one might expect that a scramble to build as many new nursing homes as possible would be under way. But that's not what the province is doing, contrary to what some experts on the elderly advise. Indeed, the focus is on aging in place. Ontario elder advocate Doris Grinspun said Scandinavia incorporates the elderly into dayto-day life, and embraces them as vibrant members of the community. Every senior in Denmark gets a phone call at 75. "Happy Birthday!" says the nurse on the line. "We'd like to discuss how to help you stay in your house as long as you want." Grinspun, cochair of the Elder Health Coalition, an adviser to the province of Ontario since 2004, said "we haven't made enough progress" on helping seniors age gracefully at home, and there's no time to waste. 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