Expecting a NEWNORMAL
Imagine this scenario, perhaps a year or two in the future: An effective COVID-19 vaccine is routinely available, and the world is moving forward. Life, however, will likely never be the same — particularly for people over 60.
That is the conclusion of geriatric medical doctors, aging experts, futurists and industry specialists. Experts say that in the aftermath of the pandemic, everything will change, from the way older folks receive health care to how they travel and shop. Also overturned: their work life and relationships with one another.
“In the past fewmonths, the entire world has had a near-death experience,” said Ken Dychtwald, CEO of Age Wave, a think tank on aging around the world. “We’ve been forced to stop and think: I could die or someone I love could die. When those events happen, people think about what matters and what they will do differently.”
Older adults are uniquely vulnerable because their immune systems tend todeteriorate with age, making it so much harder for them to battle not just COVID-19 but all infectious diseases. They are also more likely to suffer other health conditions, like heart and respiratory diseases, that make it tougher to fight or recover from illness. So it’s no surprise that even in the future, when a COVID-19 vaccine is widely available, and widely used, most seniors will be taking additional precautions.
“Before COVID-19, baby boomers, those born after
1945 but before 1965, felt reassured that with all the benefits of modern medicine, they could live for years and years,” said Dr. Mehrdad Ayati, who teaches geriatric medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine and advises the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging. “What we never calculated was that
a pandemic could totally change the dialogue.”
It has. Here’s a preview of post-vaccine life for older Americans:
Medical care
Time to learn telemed. Only 62% of people over 75 use the internet, and fewer than 28% are comfortable with social media, according
to data from the Pew Research Center.
“That’s lethal in themodern age of health care,” Dychtwald said, so there will be a drumbeat tomake them fluent users of online health care: 1 in 3 visits will be telemed.
Dr. Ronan Factora, a geriatrician at Cleveland Clinic, said he saw no patients age
60 and up via telemedicine before the pandemic. He predicted that by the time a COVID-19 vaccine is available, at least a third of those visits will be virtual.
“It will become a significant part of my practice,” he said.
Older patients likely will see their doctors more often than once a year for a checkup and benefit from improved overall health care, he said.
More regular remote care will be bolstered by a team of doctors, said Greg Poland, professor of medicine and infectious diseases at the Mayo Clinic. The team model “allows me to see more patients more efficiently,” he said. “If everyone has to come to the office and wait for the nurse to bring them in from the waiting room, well, that’s an inherent drag on my productivity.”
Drugstores will do more vaccinations. To avoid the germs in doctors’ offices, older patients will prefer to go to drugstores for regular vaccinations such as flu shots, Factora said. Your plumbing will be your doctor. In the not-too-distant future, perhaps just a few years from now, older Americans will have special devices at home to regularly analyze urine and fecal samples, Dychtwald said, letting them avoid the doctor’s office.
Travel
Punch up the Google Maps. Many trips of 800 miles or less will likely become road trips instead of flights, said Ed Perkins, a syndicated travel columnist for the Chicago Tribune. Perkins, who is 90, said that’s certainlywhat he plans to do, even after there’s a vaccine. Regional and local travel will replace foreign travel. Dychtwald, who is 70, saidhe will bemuch less inclined to travel abroad.
For example, he said, onetime plans with his wife to visit India are now unlikely, even if a good vaccine is available, because they want to avoid large