Shedding Light on Twilight Years?

The New York Times today did a story on 90+ -year-olds who are totally lucid. The one in 200 people above 90 who don't have dementia.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/22/health/research/22brain.html?em

These people are mentally engaged - a lot. Reading, playing bridge (especially), having lots of social contact, doing crosswords. Bridge especially, because it requires players be sharp, quick, and keep track of the hands that've been played. Make a slip and you risk your partner's irritation or worse - a request for you to downgrade to a more casual bridge group.

Now that my parents are pushing 70, (and my grandmother turning 100) I've been thinking about that a lot. How can my sibs and I make it easier for them to be more active? Do we take turns making sure they spend an hour or two in the gym? Right now it's just golf. Do we go get grown-up, "mental gym" books for them? I'd like to get them to the real gym too, or learn a new language, meet new people.

Staying vigorous requires having strong social interaction, exercise, and mental stimulation, studies say. Right now one of my parents is occupied daily with technical analysis charts and minding a stock portfolio, and is planning on restarting piano lessons. I'm really glad. How about my other parent? Will reading the International Herald Trib and news mags constantly, and playing golf weekly, be enough? Well, they're currently on a cruise in Eastern Europe with their friends. And I'd just brought my dad to Funan to get a new IdeaPad netbook so he could go to Internet Cafes while he's on holiday to stay connected. So I guess we're OK for now.

Still, I find myself thinking - are they slowing down? Are they hangin' out with friends enough? Should I try to get them to meet new people?

These are things govts and institutions are going to be thinking about as our populations get greyer and greyer. The Singapore Ministry of Health is gearing up for the Silver Tsunami. More nursing homes, more healthcare training, insurance and savings programs. Great, infrastructure stuff.

While the government builds up the hardware - perhaps there's a place for private enterprise to deal with the software: set up for-profit businesses for the Silver Set. Kind of like a physical, rather than virtual, social network so they're able to continue meeting new people, do and learn new things, exercise. Because I'd really, really to be able to continue talking to my parents about politics and stocks, go out to try new restaurants, travel with them, and listen to them talk about their golf game - in twenty years.