Note from the editor

National Forum, Spring 1998 by Kaetz, James P

IN THIS ISSUE

The United States has long had an obsession with youth. We Americans spend millions, if not billions, on life-extending potions and vitamins, beauty supplies, exercise machines and programs, cosmetic surgery, hair replacement, fat removal, tanning beds, and so on in an effort to keep both the appearance and the functioning of youth. Inevitably, of course, we all grow old. So far, no one has found the fountain of youth, or even anything that can appreciably extend the apparent maximum human life span. Only improved and wider availability of medical care has extended our average life expectancy. Despite our collective denial, mortality stares us all in the face.

With the first Baby Boomers reaching fifty, and the possibility of a quarter of our population (the largest percentage ever) at some point being elderly, many questions arise about how to handle such a huge population. National programs such as Medicare and Social Security will be stretched to the limit, and individual families must learn how to cope with caring for aging relatives. Solutions to these looming problems are both complex and challenging.

In this issue, our authors address some of these problems, as well as some of the other issues we associate with and fear about aging. To lead off, Paul B. Baltes and Margret M. Baltes write realistically on the idea of successful aging: what to expect in the later stages of life and how best to cope with the changes that occur. Richard J. Hodes and Susan Cahill present information on interesting new work at the National Institute on Aging on a substance that has been ballyhooed in the media as a fountain of youth, cautioning us that the rumors of our imminent immortality, at least at this point, are greatly exaggerated.

Teresa E. Seeman and Nancy Adler then provide some essential facts on just who the elderly will be in the next few decades, and what populations are most at risk in terms of health care resources. Gordon Sherman, commissioner of the Atlanta Region of the Social Security Administration, discusses the viability of the Social Security safety net and outlines some of the proposed ways to shore up the program. Then Andrew Achenbaum provides a look at the way our perceptions of aging have changed over the years and makes some predictions on how those perceptions might change as America's population ages.

John C. Cavanaugh looks at some of the clinical research he and others have been doing on the relationship between memory and aging, with some encouraging news for those of us whose greatest fear is not physical, but mental decline. And finally, Neil Bull presents data on one particular part of the elderly population, the rural elderly, and discusses the special problems they face with limited access to services and programs. In addition, in our Lagniappe section, former Phi Kappa Phi Fellow Hank Capps presents his views on an issue much in the news in recent years: physicianassisted suicide, and the alternative of palliative care.

A word of thanks to Professor Virginia E. O'Leary, head of the Department of Psychology at Auburn University for her help with this issue. Her suggestions about topics and authors were most helpful to us.

In addition, our thanks go to Professor Robert Brinkerhoff and his students for the wonderful illustrations throughout this issue and on the covers. Professor Brinkerhoff is one of our Arts columnists and an associate professor at the Rhode Island School of Design. His students have come up with some clever and beautifully executed pieces to grace our pages, and we greatly appreciate their efforts.

And finally, we wanted to say a special thanks to our copy editor, Dr. James T. Barrs, for his continued service to us. Many of you know Dr. Barrs from his long tenure as Vice President for what was then the East Region. Now in his tenth decade, Dr. Barrs is the best example I know of successful aging.

IN MEMORIAM

John E. Braithwaite, Jr., the Assistant Executive Director and Coordinator of Publications for Phi Kappa Phi, passed away on May 5 of complications from his long battle with cystic fibrosis. We are going to press too soon to insert something more complete about John, but we will remedy that on our Web site and in an upcoming issue. Those of you who met and worked with John know how much he meant to the Society, and how much he will be missed by his family and friends. As the minister said of him at his service, John was "more than a conqueror."