
Adult Day Cares in the Rio Grande Valley - onemind
https://www.texasobserver.org/the-day-shift/
======
FreedomToCreate
[https://acl.gov/sites/default/files/Aging%20and%20Disability...](https://acl.gov/sites/default/files/Aging%20and%20Disability%20in%20America/2017OlderAmericansProfile.pdf)

Over the next 20 years, the number of elderly over the age of 85 is projected
to go from 6.4 to 14.6 million. 10% of the population is over 65. That's a lot
of people who don't work and need care in the next 2 decades. We are probably
going to see a big uptick in Y combinator graduating companies who focus on
elderly care.

~~~
jen_h
I really hope so. There's a huge need for a sea change in eldercare. My spouse
and I have spent at least three months of this year helping older relatives,
and I worry it'll consume a bigger chunk of next year.

One interesting bright light is that a lot of the startups targeted towards
younger people are actually godsends for senior independence -- grocery
delivery, meal delivery, ridesharing. Not to mention how much cheaper it is to
order assistive devices -- _the very same assistive devices_ for a quarter of
the price -- online vs. the local medical device rental places.

~~~
Consultant32452
I believe this is an unsolvable problem. The math just doesn't work anymore.
Back when exponential population growth was more of an option you'd just have
6 kids to spread the cost of elder care across. It doesn't matter whether you
care for your parents or hire someone to, the fact of the matter is there is
increasingly just not enough young people to provide the elder care and also
perform the other kinds of productive work we need to get done in society.

~~~
crooked-v
Maybe we should start letting in all those young immigrants from demographics
who have lots of children who want to move to the US.

~~~
Consultant32452
I'm pro immigrant, but this doesn't solve the problem. At best it postpones it
slightly because as soon as those immigrants become a little more prosperous
they stop having so many kids too.

~~~
DoreenMichele
If you "postpone" it often enough, that's basically the same as fixing it.

Postpone means "fixing it for now, but not for all time." Fix it for now, then
let tomorrow figure out how to _postpone_ it again.

That's only a problem if postponing it involves incurring worse future
problems.

~~~
Consultant32452
Whether or not it creates worse future problems depends primarily on whether
or not it creates net tax revenue. So the new immigrants pay taxes, that
helps. But presumably this new elder care is going to be funded in part or in
whole by an increase in taxes.

~~~
DoreenMichele
Your argument comes across to me like "Let's not do a thing I agree would be
short-term useful and helpful because it's all bad news, all the time." It
sound super pessimistic.

Long experience suggests to me that fixing what can be fixed today makes
tomorrow better. What a lot of people scoff at as _bandaid solutions_ are very
often perfectly good solutions.

Bandaids need to changed regularly while the wound heals. You don't slap a
bandaid on and leave it there forever.

It's only worse than doing nothing if it isn't sterile and thereby introduces
infection to the wound.

As long as your metaphorical bandaid solution is sterile, it's probably better
than doing nothing.

Sometimes, fixing today is the best way to arrive at a brighter tomorrow.

~~~
Consultant32452
I think we have very deep problem in our culture where so many systems are
built on unsustainable exponential growth. It encompasses everything from our
elder pension/healthcare system to tenure at the universities. Huge cultural,
social, and economic changes are going to be necessary and it's not going to
be pretty. Eric Weinstein calls this phenomenon EGOs, or embedded growth
obligations.

~~~
DoreenMichele
On the good news front, one of the current trends in elderly care is an
increased reliance on tech to help elderly individuals maintain their
independence. They are increasingly using alarms, text messaging notifications
and similar to help them take their medication without a person supervising
that in person and to notify a relative if they fall and fail to get back up
and similar.

Technology is helping to address the issue in a way which reduces the need
younger labor to care for an aging population while simultaneously improving
quality of life for the elderly. Win/Win.

------
thbr99
I am very interested to see how many Latinos work here. At least here in
Canada elderly care workers are mostly indentured Filipino workers whose
immigration files are delayed by the Federal govt essentially making them
indentured servants. It is appalling to see first world countries exploiting
third world workers by indentured servitude to take care of their parents &
elderly.

~~~
jen_h
Similar story in the US: [https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-05-22/classic-tale-
human-gr...](https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-05-22/classic-tale-human-greed-
california-caregivers-earn-little-2-hour)

~~~
lonelappde
These two comments are about nursing homes, different from adult day care /
community centers.

------
telesilla
I have family members who work for similar groups in another country - they
pick up the seniors in a van every morning and have activities at a
comfortable base location that emulates a sitting room. It's a non-profit
supported by the community, knowing that mental health leads to better
physical health: ultimately leading to lower hospitalisation rates, catching
problems early due to good communication, and therefore lower costs. It's
extremely beneficial for all involved, and the women who run it tend to be
older themselves nearing retirement age, as it's undemanding work for those
who don't have much education or were "home makers" (being an older generation
of women).

------
coachtrotz
Can the title be updated to include the date on the Article as 2018? This
particular piece is nearly 2 years old.

