August 24, 2025 • 58 mins
Aging is an extreme sport. In this episode, Ron sits down with Taylor Brennan of MIT AgeLab to explore how design, data, and intergenerational programs can help us thrive at 85+. We dive into AGNES (the age-empathy suit), surprising financial red flags that can precede dementia by 6–8 years, older adults hacking hearables (yes, AirPods), and the real costs of family caregiving. Plus: how to join AgeLab’s panels and where the field is headed next. You’ll learn
MIT AgeLab — agelab.mit.edu
45 Forward archives — 45Forward.org
Caregiving Navigator — CaregivingNav.com
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/45-forward--6550893/support.
- How non-clinical signals (e.g., financial losses) can flag early cognitive decline
- What AGNES teaches engineers about friction, fatigue, and safety
- How Omega teen–elder clubs beat loneliness on both ends of life
- What older workers need to succeed with AI & digital tools
- Where to find practical help for caregivers
MIT AgeLab — agelab.mit.edu
45 Forward archives — 45Forward.org
Caregiving Navigator — CaregivingNav.com
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/45-forward--6550893/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
We are so so close actually to developing technology that
can help us actually like help detect or predict when
someone's starting to exhibit really early signs of cognitive decline
before a formal dementia diagnosis may ever even be on
the scene, for example. So we have yeah, we have
(00:22):
one project right now that's really looking at some of
these indicators of prey dementia if you will, that are
non that are social. So one area, for example, is financial.
We have a lot of emerging work or I'm sorry,
not just we've been in the age lab, but gerontology
more broadly has a lot of emerging work looking at
(00:42):
different kinds of financial losses that can proceed a formal
dementia diagnosis, you know, six seven, eight years before someone
actually ever receives a formal diagnosis from a doctor. So yeah,
it's a really it's definitely a cutting edge space for sure.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Hello everyone, welcome to forty five Forward. I'm your host
Ron Roell. When was the last time you thought about
what the world might look like at age eighty five?
Imagine trying to read a label, navigate a busy sidewalk,
or manage your finances. Well, everything around you seemed designed
for someone half your age. What if there were people
who could not only imagine that future, but build it well. Today,
(01:26):
we're moving from forty five forward to eighty five forward
as we meet an innovative researcher, Taylor Brennan of Mitge Lab.
We'll be guiding us through a unique story. So, Taylor,
welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Thanks so much for having me. Ron, I'm happy to
be here.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
I know about you, guys. I've known about my Age
Lab for quite some time, actually since some was the
editor of the Act two section of Newsday in the
early two thousands, and I remember reading about Age Lab
and going, Wow, interesting, that's an interesting phenomenon. And it
was innovative then, and so I'm delighted to have you
many years later as part of the show. And there's
(02:02):
a lot to talk about, a lot about the lab,
about your involvement, your research taught me about it, start though,
by you know, giving people a sense of just a
taste of some of your work and perhaps some of
your interaction with your folks eighty five and plus and
perhaps you know, an experience with one of them.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Yeah, absolutely, So it's Yeah, it's a real pleasure to
be here. With you this afternoon from the Age Lab.
We are a multidisciplinary research lab that was started back
in nineteen ninety nine. We were under the direction of
doctor Joe Coughlin, who is still still very much our director,
(02:43):
and we are also sort of nestled within MIT Center
for Transportation and Logistics. Are our director. Joe got his
start with the lab and thinking about older drivers. We
were really interest stood then in trying to understand how,
you know, auto insurres and families could really be having
(03:08):
better conversations around driving retirement and driving cessation. And so
that is one corner in one sort of area where
our research really started, and I think, in the spirit
of you know, one of the themes of the podcast
today and thinking about life at age eighty five and beyond,
we are he has since very much expanded our work.
(03:31):
We really look across the lifespan about what the implications
for sort of longevity really are and.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Will be for people as we age.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
And so one of you know, one of the more
compelling All the things I get to work on are
really interesting to me in different ways, but one really
interesting research panel that I run is focused on convening
a group of eighty five plus year olds or of
oldest old as we call them in the literature. And
(04:03):
this is also one of the fastest growing age demographics
in the US right now.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
And so with.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Our ability to kind of convene that panel, over time,
I've been able to meet a lot of different octogenarians
and nonagenarians who are similarly interested in helping sort of
improve our day to day lives. And so with with
some of that work and with some of that research,
you know, I've been able to meet participants like someone
(04:33):
I'll call Ronda, for example, who is someone that came
to us to participate in our panel with eighty five
plus year olds and had really profound experience with hearing loss,
for example, and she was, you know, we were convening
a session on here hearables. They're sort of called this
(04:56):
intersection of like technology for the ear and for hearing loss,
and she, you know, sort of came to us with
this like immense desire to sort of contribute to that
work and learn more about how we were thinking about
this issue, and then went back to her senior living
community and actually not only like started at learning about
(05:16):
different kinds of hearables and sort of like audio amplifiers
that she could get off of Amazon, like relatively, you know, quickly,
in a convenient way for her and her abilities of
the time. But also she started making transformations to her
unit in the senior housing community, and so she literally
was like diying panels all over her room to help
(05:39):
the noise balance in a more sort of easier to
hear way, and really like modified her built environment in
direct response to that workshop. And so I think a
story like hers really reflects this sort of powerful component
that research can offer beyond us being able to listen
(05:59):
to people's stories and take insight that people share with
us and sort of use it to help transform businesses
and governments and other organizations and how they do their
work as well for an aging society, but also in
how research can be a really empowering tool for individual
participants in how they're able to sort of go about
(06:20):
their lives after their interactions with us.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
I think the hearing is an area, of course, that
we think about as we get older. I do, at
least because it's something that you know people think about.
You lose your hearing, it becomes auditorily challenged, but you
learn how important it is to your functioning of everybody.
And I remember listening to some of the audeologists talk
about the relationship of hearing loss to Alzheimer's and the
(06:48):
fact that you know, and we don't think about that,
but it's you know, you lose touch with the world
if you lose your hearing, and so understanding I think
that is important. And I remember her her saying, you know,
when you listen to yourself, you know, and tape recording,
you're like, well, that doesn't sound like me, you know,
and even just understanding that that's because you have an
(07:10):
inner ear that you hear yourself when you're talking, not
just from the outside, you know. So there, you know,
it's it's important work, and I'm glad you're doing it.
And so let me just up back a bit and
ask you about how did you get involved personally, you know,
in this field.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
I have a background in public health and in social work.
I sort of first became exposed to the field of
aging or gerontology when I was doing my Bachelor's of
Social Work degree at the University of Georgia. And so
a sort of hallmark of social work education is the
ability to engage in like a field placement which is
(07:52):
sort of like applied learning experiential learning, putting.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
Social work practice into action.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
And so at the time, I was placed in a
council in aging in that local community and was working
with a couple of really innovative programs and I still
think they're innovative.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Even though that was a decade ago.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
I was working with grandparents who were raising their grandchildren,
and so in that yeah, so sort of in that space,
I was exposed first to this kind of whole area
of work that involved working with older adults and those
who care for them. And so I knew that if
I was going to kind of pursue kind of any
(08:36):
sort of helping professional job in the space, that I
needed a master's and so I kind of pushed on
and pursued sort of a combined like a dual degree
program and MPH and an MSW is what they're called.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
And so.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
In that sort of time in graduate school, I was
able to kind of explore more are more about gerontology
from the research angle and try to understand, you know,
what this intersection of research and geruitology kind of looks like.
And I think, you know, to be perfectly honest, my
(09:14):
first big girl job after that time after graduate school
was with the Age Lab and I'm still.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Here and then never left.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
So I think I have grown to really love research
as a tool for helping to understand you know, a
lot of like larger societal like issues and topics, but
also as a tool for being able to contribute in
a way that I see, as you know, obviously very
positive to the world through my work.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Was there or there any objective moments when you can remember, like,
this is it for me? You know, this is what
really excites me about. It's something that you know, younger
people don't think about that much. You have to sort
of have a sense of vision looking ahead and saying
this is very different, you know, this is where we're
all headed.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
Yeah, I mean it's sort of interesting because I don't
have a specific moment per se. I think I hear
from a lot of younger students and interns that we
often encounter. There's a lot of stories about grandparents and
like really impactful elders and people's lives. Which is not
to say that my own grandparents and those sort of
(10:22):
elders I've come across in my own life haven't been
impactful by any means, but I think they're kind of
came I guess, sort of a light bulb for me
with the Age Lab work around the convening of multidisciplinary
perspectives and this idea that there was this space in
this lab that was doing social science research, which was
(10:43):
what I was trained to do and was interested in doing,
but was doing that research with many different perspectives. I'm
the only social worker on our team. I'm really working
in day to day with computer scientists, with human factors, engineers,
with psychologists and educators, and so it's like this very
(11:04):
sort of intentional convening in that way, and it makes
the work really fun in a way that is just
not always the case in research.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Really. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Yeah, So let's talk a little bit more about the labs,
take a little deeper dive in terms of what the
lab does, because it does a lot of different things,
and I think the interdisciplinary approaches, as you mentioned, I
think is very much part of it. I'm just looking
at some of the background. I mean, it's you know,
it covers caregiving and well being, home logistics and services,
(11:36):
longevity and retirement planning, Liverpool communities, the longevity economy. So
perhaps take a couple of these and talk a little
bit more, and also about just your particular approach, which
I think is sort of the living lab approach with
which I think is distinctive. Maybe talk about that first.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Yeah, So if you were to kind of pop up
at the Age Lab today and you would very much see.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
That we are living and breathing and working lab.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
You know, we've got I would say, probably twenty five
to thirty folks in our group right now we are using,
i think, in the spirit of that sort of multidisciplinary
perspective and sort of multidisciplinary ways of looking at these
different kinds of research questions. That also lends itself to
really dynamic methods that we're using in our work. So
(12:28):
you can pop up any day and we might be convening,
you know, one of our eighty five plus Lifestyle Leaders
workshops in person, where you have kind of a whole
gaggle of eighty five plus year olds who are rolling
into the lab for lunch, for a couple of and
for a couple of hours where they're kind of engaging
in a series of focus groups with us.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
Or you could be seeing someone that almost.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Looks like a robot walking around the floor, but it's
really our AGNES suit, which is our age Empathy suit.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
It's a suit we frequently use with young.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
MIT engineers or designers who haven't had the lived experience
yet of being an older person, but who are designing
products and services and technology for an aging society or
for an aging consumer. And so maybe we are running
a you know, sort of design sprint in our AGNES
(13:23):
suit where we're having them do a whole bunch of
series of consumer journey journeys in the suit.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Talk a little bit more about that about this agnasuits
not an AGNES, it's an acronym. But yeah, explain this
a little bit more about how that you know what it's.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Yeah, the acronym stands for the Age Game Now Empathy System.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
AGNES was really first developed.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
As a tool to help multidisciplinary teams get on the
same page about who it was that they're designing for.
We've used her in a whole bunch of different contexts.
One that we really like to talk about is really
in the transportation context that we work with. Some of
the agnes's early worked involved working with designers of like cars,
(14:09):
for example, literally the interior of your cab, the cab
of the car that you sit in and drive in
and thinking about everything from how to ingress and egress
out of the car to what it feels like to
deal with some of the more like TecTile points of
the car, whether it's the infotainment system or the you know,
like dealing with like driver assist systems or other kinds
(14:30):
of you know, buttons and things that buzz.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
What is the agnisuit, like the tailor what does it entail?
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Yeah, so the suit itself is going to involve you know,
a series of weights and bungeies from head to toe.
The pieces simulate some of the more common chronic conditions
that can occur as we age.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
The suit generally is.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Not going to be representative of what every older person's
going to feel like, but we say, you know, maybe
a little bit more unhealthy a version of like a
late seven to early eighties person, Maybe someone with some
more unmanaged chronic conditions with theritists or neuropathy, some kind
of gait that's a little bit more.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Off balance, some muscle loss, things like that.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
So, yeah, when we have agnes in action and that
we are you know, really trying to understand the sort
of friction, frustration and fatigue that can really come up
in some of the journeys that we're taking with Agnes.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Yeah, yeah, it reminds me. I think I was working
with someone who's involved in training for caregivers of Alzheimer's
people with Alzheimer's and similar kind of you know, they
kind of thrust me up with gloves and things that
made it sort of simulate like this, this could be
the trouble that someone with the mention might have in
(15:51):
performing daily tasks. So yeah, it's important to have that
almost that sensory you know, experience that people might have.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Yeah, I mean the spirit of sort of MIT's education
purpose among one of its money purposes. Right, it's sort
of like a form of experiential learning and a different
way of knowing beyond. We certainly always pair our work
with Agnes with you know, walk alongs with other older
adults or interviews or focus groups as well. But it's
(16:20):
just another tool in our toolbox to help us try
to better understand what people experience.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
So we're going to take a quick break, folks. It's
very a very short break, but when we come back,
we'll be talking much more with Taylor Brennan of Age Lab.
So don't go anywhere.
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(16:58):
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Speaker 2 (17:19):
Welcome back, folks to forty five Forward. I'm your host,
Ron Roell. Once again, we're here with Taylor Brennan from
MIT Lab. We're talking about a lot of what the
lab does and what she's done in terms of using
intergenerational insights and technology design and policy to help older
adults thrive. So before the break, we were talking about
(17:40):
some of the technology agress the aggress suit and so forth.
Let's talk broad a little bit about I mean not
a lot of which deal deals broadly with the issues
of agism. So talk about what that, how you folks
approach agism and how you tackle these issues.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Yeah, we sort of started some of our work on
agism really with the Lifestyle Leader's panel. A lot of
our work starts with this panel, where we sort of,
you know, we sort of think that if we have
an idea about something or we're sort of curious about something,
we can run it by that group. And if this
group of participants, you know, thinks there could be something
(18:20):
interesting there to better understand, then we often are able
to kind of push forward from there with with some
of our some of our research questions. And so that
was the case in this example. We were sort of
curious how this like sort of upper age of age
spectrum or the oldest old experience agism in their everyday lives,
(18:41):
and so we did it kind of our more typical
session around that with this group, and then it was
sort of very like poignant for them, like they were
sort of very like they really enjoyed topic to the
extent that we were like, maybe we need to dig
a little deeper around this. And so we ended up
(19:03):
also pursuing another study with the same age group, but
a wider net beyond our panel, where we had people
also engage in a qualitative methodology called photovoice, which involved
sort of taking photos also of agism in everyday life
in ad ditch to like doing more of an interview
(19:25):
and survey as well, And so yeah, those data are
kind of being looked at right now, and we've since
then even launched another arm of the study where we're
talking to eighteen to twenty four year olds as well
about their experience of agism. So I'm hoping we'll be
able to put those two really interesting sort of opposite
(19:46):
ends of the age spectrum, if you will, into conversation
with each other, and how that might look differently for
each group.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Yeah, could you talk a little bit more about the
younger group, because it's something people don't think about it,
agism when when you're younger, but of course there isn't
and there's agism in terms of how they're perceived by
older people.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Absolutely, Yeah, So I you know, definitely sort of think
about agism as happening kind of across the age spectrum
and in different you know ways, at each sort of
age or like life stage, if you will.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
There's also a term though.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
And I'm trying to remember who exactly coined this term,
but the term youngism is also sometimes used to describe
like the sort of experience of being younger, having the
experience of like different stereotyping or discriminatory related experiences about
being younger. Right, so maybe ideas that younger people are
(20:44):
perceived as lacking experience or entitled or things like that.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
Yeah, I think that some of us are now just
sort of refer to, you know, olders and youngers. You know,
which is because I even you know now have you
noticed in your tenure? So you're dealing with a lot
of eighty five plus. Of course, some people think, oh,
that's really old, but doesn't seem so old anymore, especially
when you get to my age just in the previous
(21:10):
decade that I can tell you that, and I think
most people are many people at least when you say, well,
how old do you feel, many people say, you know,
they feel like ten to fifteen years younger than their
actual chronological age. So it's been changing in terms of
I guess part of that is more healthier, hopefully more active.
(21:31):
So the perceptions and the self perceptions are different. I
know that you know that when people join senior centers,
I think in most cases, I think you just have
to be like sixty to join senior centers, but most
people don't join until they're in their seventies. Or eighties,
and a lot of people will say like, well, senior centers,
that's that's for old people.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
And we actually saw we heard a similar theme in
our study with the Lifestyle Leaders that you know, this
idea that like maybe agism doesn't happen to me, but
it happens to others, and you're sort of like say
more about that, like why is that? And there's like
interesting overlap there with like other you know, issues around
intersectionality and other identities that people hold that maybe you know,
(22:17):
buffer if you will, like the impact of agism for example,
if that's something they're like experiencing a felt impact from.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
But yeah, it's it's a really it's interesting as well.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
We've seen I've certainly seen in more of my work
in the in the community with professionals working in aging.
In Massachusetts, you know, a shift away from I know
of a couple you know, senior centers in the state
that are now changing like away from having any sort
of age related designation calling themselves like community centers even
(22:50):
and or not having like age you know, requirements to
engage in certain programs and things like that. So there
certainly seems to be a shift in people thinking around
this issue. We used to do more work with teenagers
through our program our Omega programming at the Age Lab.
And one of the questions I used to ask teens
(23:14):
that some of those events is this question how old
is old? Or how old do you think old is?
And you know, to offer a counterpoint there, those answers
will absolutely crack you up, right, because I'm getting everything
from fifty plus to seventy to eighty five plus. And
then you're like, realize that sort of internalized your self
(23:36):
perception of age is really varied within you know, inter
individual differences.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
So yeah, I certainly, you know, I think it's shifted
a lot. I can certainly remember growing up, you know,
and I can remember, you know, watching my parents, you know,
have parties in the living room and I would be
sort of you know, hiding under the furniture, you know,
and watching and and I was thinking, well, these people
are these are old people, you know, and thinking back,
(24:05):
of course, like, yeah, they were probably in their forties,
you know, fifties. So have you looked at sort of
longitudinal differences as people, you know, go from their sixties
to seventies to eighties and shifts in their attitudes or
feelings or perceptions.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
So we haven't done a ton of that yet around
the agism question. For sure, it's certainly an area of
future work, and we definitely need to sort of think about,
like how a study like this strand of research could be.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
Replicated with other age groups, and like sort of.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
How, yeah, how we might explore those experiences across explicit
life stages in some of our other work we do, However,
I want to at least acknowledge like we often will
take more of like a life stage or life course
approach and looking across the lifespan in a lot of
like our national surveys, we're often sampling people for example
(25:08):
fifty to fifty nine, sixty to sixty nine, seventy to
seventy nine, eighty plus things like that, so we can
at least also look at nuances around a lot of questions,
everything from housing, you know, choices and how housing is
changing for people as the age, to transportation how people
are getting around and how that's changing as the age,
(25:30):
and so yeah, while we haven't done the best job
at sort of looking linking those data longitudinally over time.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
We're certainly interested.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
In looking at you know, sort of the age, the
range of experiences across the spectrum at any given point.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Yeah, well, it does seem. I don't know if it's
I guess by your mid eighties, things you know, can change,
So I know that there. I think that people's now
with longevity. I think now that I guess, well, the
two things are or finances and health. I think that
people worried about having enough money as they got older,
but I think now it's also they're worried about demensia.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Yeah, there is a huge emphasis in this space right
now on brain health. It's massively of interest, and I
think some of that is, yeah, is a direct result
of some of the shifts in our knowledge. Right we
know that you know more than we ever had before
about the role of certain modifiable lifestyle factors, for example,
(26:29):
and helping to enhance brain health and prevent cognitive decline.
And we're sort of interested into like some of the
technology around that, right, Like, we are so so close
actually to developing technology that can help us actually like
help detect or predict when someone's starting to exhibit really
(26:50):
early signs of cognitive decline before a formal dementia diagnosis
may ever even be on the scene for example. So
we have yeah, we have one project right now that's
really looking at some of these indicators of pretty dementia
if you will, that are non.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
That are social. So one area, for example, is financial.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
We have a lot of emerging work or I'm sorry,
not just we've been in the age lab, but gerontology
more broadly has a lot of emerging work looking at
different kinds of financial.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
Losses that can proceed a formal dementia diagnosis.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
You know, six seven, eight years before someone actually ever
receives a formal diagnosis from a doctor. So yeah, it's
a really it's definitely a cutting edge space for sure.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Now we started talking about Omega, but talk a little
bit more about what that is Omega, which is I
guess an intergenerational program. What does that entail? What are
some of the salient features or program or stories you
can tell us about that.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Absolutely, So Omega is one of our our programs really
targeted at teens, and so you know, when we started it,
we were sort of surveying the landscape of you know,
intergenerational programs that are out there for sort of younger
people and older people to connect, and we felt that
(28:12):
teams were like a particularly underserved group via these programs,
because you know, you might often see for example, like
a lot of shared sites like senior housing communities co
located with daycares, or the opposite end of that spectrum
being like university housing, or like college students co living
(28:35):
with older adults in the community through like different kinds
of cohousing websites or apps.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
Or things like that.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
So we, yeah, we thought teens were kind of being
a little bit left out, and we were like, what
would it look like to envision a program for this group?
And this is a group you know, as we know
that's like there's a lot going on. There's a lot
of college prep, for example, like different kinds of note
building happening in that life stage where like the pairing
(29:04):
of olders and youngers could be really powerful.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
And so part of that program.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
Involves a series of sort of events that we put
on where we're really exposing teens even just like to
this idea of longevity and aging and the way that
the age love thinks about these topics and also what
the concept of an intergenerational program even is. Our sort
of hope there is that the students will be inspired
(29:30):
and excited to build their own intergenerational clubs or programs
within their own schools and in their own communities. And
so the other part of that program for a long
time has also involved a college scholarship.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
So for students who have actually.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Gone on to implement some sort of intergenerational club or program,
we've been able to offer a small scholarship for high
school juniors or seen who apply with those programs and
sort of us understand and illustrate, you know, how their
program is really pushing the envelope in that way, and
(30:09):
that sort of a break lens of bringing together olders
and youngers.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Great, and I want to talk much more about this,
but we're going to take another quick break, so once again, folks,
we've been talking with Taylor Brennan mit Lage Lap, but
we'll be coming right back with much more. So don't
go away.
Speaker 5 (30:26):
Do you like what you're hearing, Well, we've got plenty
more where that came from. Head over to forty five
forward dot org, where you'll find a full archive of
over two hundred episodes of the forty five Forward podcast,
all hosted by Ron. Each week, Ron talks with fascinating guests, experts,
(30:51):
advocates and everyday folks sharing insights and stories to help
you live a better, fuller life in your second half.
We cover everything from health and care giving to careers, relationships,
and finding purpose. Whatever helps you move forward with clarity
and confidence. That's forty five Forward dot Org. Check it
(31:15):
out and keep moving forward. Forty Welcome back, folks to
forty five Forward. Once again.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
We're talking with Taylor Brennan of mit Ah Lab. Before
the break, we were talking about lots of intergenerational issues
and I think, you know, as we as we explort more,
I think there are relationships that we're discovering. I mean, interestingly,
you know, even the terminology when we think about seniors,
I'm thinking, well, seniors in high school. You know what,
(31:51):
you know, there are interesting transition points we have in life.
And I think that you know that. I think as
they look at issues like isolation and loneliness, I think
they've discovered that there are these two periods of extreme
senses of loneliness and dislocation, and one of them is
(32:13):
in the early twenties, and one of them there is
our late sixties and seventies. And I think it's part
of that is that they are periods where you go
from a lot of structure to not so much and
you've got to figure out well, a lot of anxiety,
a lot of worry about what's next and not there
are opportunities, but there's not a lot of guidance. So
I think that there are some really lessons to be
(32:34):
learned from these generational comparisons. They've also I guess the
America program talks on these intergenerational teams working on problems together.
Anything that you know, you want to talk about in
terms of the kinds of some examples of things that
solutions that people have produced.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Yeah, I mean we have seen seen the gamut of
programs and ideas, and you know, remember these are sort
of like programs or initiatives that the students themselves are running.
And so that's really the emphasis to us. I think
a lot of our OMEGA programs have a few things
in common. One is that they're really creative, right, Like
(33:11):
we're trying to look for like out of the box ideas.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
I've talked with some of our previous.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Scholarship winners, for example, have been banjo club, multi generational
banjo club. We've talked with, We've had folks students do
like a grocery program, a high school students grocery shop
for home bound older adults and you know, deliver the
groceries and then also stay for like a conversation. And
(33:38):
so that's like a little bit more of like the
instrumental support, right. And then also programs that maybe involve
like art or I guess I just mentioned the program
the banjo program, but a lot of interest in combining
sort of interests around painting and drawing and different kinds
of art classes. And then I think one other that
comes to mind for me too was a student that
(34:01):
worked on like more of a skills based project, so
connecting teens that were interested in certain career pathways right
with older folks who were perhaps retired from those same
sorts of careers and more of like a knowledge sharing
and like mentorship support type. Yeah, so there's been a
(34:21):
lot of really unique ways that we've seen students do
this work.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
And I think you know, the.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
Other huge like area that of overlap that they share
is this idea of innovation and and sort of being
able to be really innovative in how they're doing this
this stuff. And that's a program that's been running since
say twenty sixteen or so, and so even through things
like the COVID nineteen pandemic when high school classrooms were
(34:49):
really disrupted, we've seen, you know, these students get really
innovative and do really interesting things with our programs.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
Now, you know, one of the areas is technology, of course,
and I think that's not something that interests me because
you know, they again the stereotype is, oh, older people
to the technology, and I think some of that's breaking down.
I think certainly as older baby boomers or you know,
we weren't, we're not digital natives, but certainly much more
(35:19):
involved technology. So what are we learning about, you know,
older and younger people dealing with technology, and what are
the challenges or are there differences or the different ways
they use it or expect or and do they older
and younger do they engage in looking at problems of
using technology in different ways?
Speaker 5 (35:37):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (35:38):
Absolutely, I mean, yeah, so this is a really complex topic,
and I would just emphasize to that technology adoption, acceptance, use,
you know, really goes across our research and across it
cuts across our work.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
It's interesting to everything that.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
We're really thinking about, and a lot of this work
has been led by my colleagues Chaiwu l at the
Age Lab, who first did her dissertation, you know, really
thinking about what technology adoption, like what are those factors
that influence technology adoption for older adults in particular, because
she had found a gap in a literature around our
(36:18):
understanding of technology adoption even just for the older adult population. Like,
we're still sort of filling in our understanding of that
gap in particular, and so when we bring in the
intergenerational angle, I think one area we've seen really flourish
in OMEGA has been like the learning aspect of technology
(36:41):
and how olders and youngers can like help each other
learn technology. I find that that's also still a huge
gap in the work that has to be done. A
lot of my eighty five plus year olds will come
and tell me, you know, hey, you've showed me how
to do how to because that's the Google form for
the workshop twenty times, but like I'm still not like
(37:05):
I'm not retaining it.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
I'm not actually learning how to continue.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Like use that or like you know, whether it's a
device or a software or whatever, there's like sort of
a learning gap. For example, teams can like offer insight
older adults around learning technology and like sustaining that learning
is really compelling and interesting, and it's certainly informing some
(37:31):
of my interests as I move into doctoral doctoral research
myself thinking about the intersection of sort of age in
our increasingly multi generational workforce and how technology like AI
that's now everywhere and on the scene and really popular
right now, right, how that looks in like the organizational
(37:51):
context right how we can help like older workers, you know,
adopt AI use AI in their workplaces, and what we
can learn from like youngers about that as well, and
what that sort of means for well being and other
kinds of interesting organizational outcomes.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
Are there particular issues that older people have with technology
that younger don't. Is it just a matter of exposure
or practice or I mean, certainly, you know, their social
media is one area where younger people are much more involved,
But it's not clear to me that that you know,
sort of fluency extends to a world technological problems. And
(38:32):
in some cases, I think that older people have more experience,
so their sort of brains absorb a lot of different experiences,
so they can solve certain problems faster actually than younger
people just based on their experience. So I'm still trying
to figure out what are the issues of technology that
affect older people other than exposure.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
Yeah, it's really interesting because it's not right.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
I think you're getting at some of this as well,
Like it's not that one group is like better than
the other at certain things, right, but it's like trying
to understand where some of those nuances even are in
the first place. And so we know, for example that
like older workers are you know, these workers maybe tend
to lag behind workers of other age groups and their
(39:16):
digital skills, including like you know, developing and adopting emerging
technologies for work. But you know, potentially there are things
that we have yet to understand about how this age
group you know, can like help sort of issue can
(39:37):
sort of like help organizations during digital transformation points actually
like contribute to like getting everybody sort of like on
board with that digital transformation, right, And so yeah, I
think there's sort of like a lot of gaps here
still in trying to understand this. They think what this
(40:00):
looks like in a workforce context is going to differ
completely depending on the industry we're talking about, or the
accupation or job function. Yeah, so there's there's sort of
a lot to still to still understand there, and like
you know, olders have that like to your point, right,
like that lifetime of exposure to different kinds of technology
(40:24):
that youngers maybe don't right have in that kind of way.
So even just like the difference in mental models across
the age groups or the generations even.
Speaker 3 (40:35):
Is interesting all on its own.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
Anything that you can recall in terms of being sort
of surprised by their older person's understanding of technology or
use of technology, or insights about how to do something
that maybe they wouldn't have been when they were younger.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
I mean we see it all the time with our
panel for sure, just as like a tiny example or
you know, using them as a case study, the sort
of stereotype that older adults are just like laggards of
laggards in their technology adoption or that they're not using technology, right, Like,
these are just outdated that stereotypes and it's.
Speaker 3 (41:10):
Simply not the case.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
And as you and I age, you know, I'm going
to be a much savvier different consumer of technology when
I'm in my sixties and seventy even relative of course
to my parents at my grandparents generation. So yeah, that's
to say that there are definitely people are older, our
(41:33):
elders are definitely adopting technology. I'll tie it back to
the hearing story that we started before. I think that
is a really interesting one because you know, there's sort
of like this one mental model of dealing with hearing
loss and older age as involving you know, pretty expensive,
sort of finicky device that goes in the ear. But
(41:53):
in doing that particular workshop with our lifestyle leaders, we
learned that they're adopting you know, these like of off
non prescription, behind the counter audio amplifying devices off of Amazon.
Speaker 3 (42:08):
Right. They're also using things like AirPods, which weren't.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
Designed to necessarily be a hearing aid, right, but they
have like different kinds of muting and amplification properties that
people are just like hacking and like using to help
them better interact with their environment.
Speaker 3 (42:26):
And so that's a really good example I think.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
In that case, in the case of like hearables and
this like class of technology, of how our older adults
might be very much making you know, our very much
adopting technology, just.
Speaker 3 (42:38):
Maybe not in the ways that we would normally expect.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
Yeah, it seems to me that a lot of it
is just about learning and teaching and assumptions about what
is required in that process. I mean, there are lots
of times when you know, I'm faced with a technological
issue in a computer and it's just like, well, this
isn't a matter of I'm just not with it or
I can't figure it out. It's not intuitive, and the
(43:02):
technology is set up by people who basically understand how
they did it, but they don't in some cases, understand
how to explain.
Speaker 5 (43:10):
It to you.
Speaker 3 (43:11):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
Yeah, well we're going to take another quick break, final break,
but don't go away, folks. We're going to have one
terrific second to go with the Taylor Brennan of Mitage Labs,
So don't go away.
Speaker 6 (43:24):
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(43:46):
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Speaker 2 (44:20):
Welcome back, folks to forty five forward. We're talking with
Taylor Brennan, and research specialist at MIT Lab. And before
the break we were talking about a number of intergenerational
issues with respective technology. I wanted to talk about some
other things as well. Basically we touched a little bit
about intergenerational issues in the workplace too, and so I
(44:43):
know you guys do a lot of work in that
area and I think they it sort of ties into
not only work issues, but I know part of your
portfolio is dealing with caregiving issues as well and how
to deal with that. So talk about let's talk about
those issues in terms of a multi generation in the
workplace and what are the issues. Some of them are
(45:03):
in the work itself and some of them are in
personal issues like caregiving.
Speaker 3 (45:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:08):
Absolutely, so a lot of this work that sits that
are at the intersection of work in family is led
by my colleague, doctor Samantha Brady, and so with some
of this work we're really interested in trying to understand
I think, you know, what the implications of increasingly multi
(45:32):
generational workforce have for organizations and for this like sort
of quote unquote feature of work, which I think you
see in a lot of the sort of business in
the business world mentioned.
Speaker 3 (45:44):
So, you know, I.
Speaker 1 (45:45):
Think right now, some of our work in this space
has certainly dealt with family caregiving. We do run a
panel of primarily US based, though it is international family caregiver,
so people caring for an adult loved one who are
unpaid generally. With that group, you know, we're able to
really do a lot of work to try to understand
(46:08):
the true labor that is caregiving. We're working right now,
for example, in a study that looks at the cost
of caregiving, both direct and indirect costs over time for
those caregivers, So really trying to understand at a very
individual micro level, over the course of even like a month,
for example, what are the sort of you know, direct
(46:31):
and indirect costs that people are kind of incurring in
order to provide care. And you know, Sam and I
worked on a paper last year that was you know,
leveraging one of our larger national data sets that we
have in gerontology, generally the Health and Retirement Study or
the HRS, to really look at how sort of combining
(46:55):
work related and caregiver related roles ultimately impowered mental health,
for example, and how those impacts maybe look differently for
different demographics of workers. And so that paper was really interested,
was really interesting to work on, and offered us a
little bit more insight into sort of you know how
(47:16):
something like depression, for example, can actually look differently and
shift differently for different groups of people depending on the
types of caregiving roles that they actually enter into while
also working. So that will give you a little bit
of a taste of the flavor of some of our
interests at that intersection of work and care And then
(47:38):
I think I'll just tie it back to some of
our conversation from earlier about technology. But I think some
of my interests also in this space around workforce development
are again like interested in, you know how like digital
skilling and digitalization sort of looks for different kinds of
occupational contexts for different ages of workers. I'm also interested
(48:01):
in the development of the aging services workforce as well,
so outside of my work at the Age Lab, but
this group is also partnered with the Age Lab. There's
a Massachusetts based organization called Boston Bridge and really really
interested in helping, you know, sort of offer different kinds
(48:25):
of professional development for people that are working in this space.
And so, as you know, you might imagine, right, people
working in aging services span a spectrum.
Speaker 3 (48:35):
We know people and you know, more traditional aging services
social workers providing services at senior centers to people that
are building technology in the age.
Speaker 1 (48:45):
Tech space, right that are creating creating those products. Two
people that are you know, maybe working more like in
the financial services sector or kind of helping support caregiver
family caregivers directly, and so all of those folks need
professional development in some form, thought leadership and some form.
(49:06):
And as this field continues to sort of grow and
become increasing way technology enabled in the like, I'm also
sort of interested in how in what's going on there
and how professionals are thinking about some of these shifts
within the field, if you will too.
Speaker 2 (49:23):
So what sorts of things do they need to know
that they might not think they realize as they answer
this field.
Speaker 3 (49:29):
Yeah, So, I mean there's certainly like a sort of.
Speaker 1 (49:34):
You know, common need for like credentials like CEUs. They're
called or continuing Educati units, which are associated with a
lot of like health professional licenses and like ongoing requirements
around licensure, which Boston Bridge hasn't traditionally sort of offered
those sorts of things. But I would say that the
(49:54):
group's interest is in really convening like thought leaders in
this space, bringing those folks to professionals.
Speaker 3 (50:01):
So the group has had you know, everyone from like
our state.
Speaker 1 (50:08):
ARP director to our state Massachusetts has an Office of
Aging Independence, to like the City of Boston Aging Commissioner
has come in. So it's like kind of a whole
host of different kinds of leaders in the field to
try to get people an understanding of like both like
the breadth of what work in the space can look like,
but also like what different sorts of career trajectories can
(50:31):
look like.
Speaker 2 (50:33):
So just reflect a little bit about your own career
and your own learning in this space. What are some
of the things that you learned about aging that you
didn't expect?
Speaker 3 (50:44):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (50:44):
Yeah, I think our director Joe likes to use this
phrase like aging is an extreme sport, which I completely
agree with, but also for me that aging can really
be very fun even though it's a very complicated time
of life as we're sort of touched on all these
different domain areas that you know has to do with
age and longevity. So there truly are ways to make
(51:08):
aging fun cool, interesting that we've seen through our work here,
and that's something that I have learned in my time
at the lab and that I also hope to hold
on to as I continue to work in this space.
Speaker 2 (51:23):
When you say an extreme sport, I think.
Speaker 1 (51:28):
In traditionally the context of using agnes or age empathy
suit and thinking a little bit about, you know, some
of the real challenges that people face as part of
aging and sort of the biological aging process too.
Speaker 3 (51:42):
It's certainly not for the faint of heart, right.
Speaker 1 (51:46):
This is sort of the reality of living. If you're aging,
you're living. So there's sort of I think a lot
of emphasis on some of that in that.
Speaker 3 (51:54):
Sort of slogan.
Speaker 2 (51:56):
Yeah, it's consider the alternative, right Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, and
anything about you know, some of your assumptions that change
over time.
Speaker 1 (52:05):
Yeah, I mean, I think all certainly tag us back
to sort of the Omega programming stuff. I think a
lot of our work there has been really interesting to
me in terms of also like helping to really under
better understand what teens face these days too, Right, I am,
I'm not a teen anymore, and so my experience of
(52:27):
being a teenager was very different than the teens that
we are working with and we encounter today.
Speaker 3 (52:34):
And so.
Speaker 1 (52:36):
I think just to just speak to that point before
about this idea of like, any beliefs that I had
that had connections to youngism, or this idea that you know,
teens are inexperienced or don't know, you know, what they're
talking about or something like that, is has certainly been
completely shifted in light of our sort of omega programming.
Speaker 2 (52:57):
Yeah, I think it's sort of our you know, our
techo lineal approach to human development, I think has been
challenging the sense that we you know, we split up
the generations, and we split up ages, and we split
up seniors from you know, you know, we have childcare
and elder care. And I think now we're starting to
bring some things closer together. You know what I call
sort of more of an ecological as opposed to a
(53:19):
technological perspective of specialization. So I think that things things
like housing are something we're really taking another look at.
Speaker 1 (53:29):
Yeah, I absolutely agree, And that makes me think too
about like that these sorts of challenges or like problems
that we're talking about are not just the experiences or
issues of individuals rather but like the sort of collective
way that we have sort of implemented systems in our
society right around some of these topics that this isn't
(53:51):
just you know, just because Ronda couldn't hear. It's not
just like her problem that she couldn't hear and like
needs about her device. It's like also thinking about how
the bill environment contributes to that, how her ability to
get around is going to affect the extent to which
she gets to that audiologist appointment, and the idea that
(54:15):
she can that whether or not she has disposable income
to purchase the extra amplifier devices off of Amazon, Like
these are not just individual problems of Ronda, right, but
rather also how.
Speaker 3 (54:28):
She's interacting within our larger social system.
Speaker 2 (54:32):
So so her last thoughts other than you know, getting
involved in getting a degree or an academic degree or
get involved in Boston Bridge and any thoughts on if
people earners in aging issues and you know, the future
of aging, are there little things they can do to
think about you know these issues or get involved in
(54:54):
some way.
Speaker 3 (54:56):
Absolutely. We have.
Speaker 1 (54:58):
All of our stuff is on our our website at
Age Lab dot mit dot eu. We have a monthly
newsletter our team puts out that is fabulous and I
highly recommend folks sign up for that. We have panels
going on at any given time. Right now, we're working
on our eighty five plus panel and our faily caregiving panel.
(55:19):
We also have a panel for financial professionals, so if
you or someone you know is a financial advisor, counselor
anyone that sort of helps somebody with finances. We're sort
of building out a panel around that because it's very
related to aging and how people plan to age. And
(55:40):
then we also have a database that we could have
just call like our general Volunteer database, which is really
for anyone of any age to join and as there
are study opportunities available where we are looking for potentially you,
that is a database that we tap into for that
as well.
Speaker 2 (56:00):
MM, so people can get involved remotely or they don't
have to be at the lab to be involved exactly.
Speaker 5 (56:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (56:08):
Most of our stuff these days, honestly, is you know,
conducted over zoom or online.
Speaker 2 (56:14):
Yeah, and I guess there's field work as well. I
mean you go into yeah.
Speaker 1 (56:18):
Yeah, for more of our We didn't even talk today
about some of our work that's still happening around driving,
but we have a whole team that's doing work in
transportation and driving and looking at how people interact with
technology in the vehicle these days, and as they ate.
For a lot of that work, you have to often
be able to come into our lab in Cambridge or
(56:39):
drive a vehicle.
Speaker 3 (56:41):
Also in the Boston.
Speaker 1 (56:42):
Area, those studies involve more of an experimental or on
the in the field element for.
Speaker 2 (56:48):
Sure, challenging at any age driving in Boston or Long Island,
this and this, you know, it's yeah, yeah, yeah, so wow,
there's much more talk about. Maybe next time we'll dive
deeper in to driving and other issues, but there's the
will always be the stuff for us to talk about.
So I want to thank you. And now people have
more questions or comments, how would they get in touch
(57:09):
with you?
Speaker 1 (57:09):
Yeah, you can also find me on our site and
my M I T email is t r P A
T s at n I T dot e okay.
Speaker 2 (57:20):
And again the website is Age lab dot MI I
T dot E d uever.
Speaker 5 (57:26):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (57:27):
Once again, folks, this is Ron Roel from forty five Forward.
Thank you for spending this hour with us, helping us
all make the journey through the second half of life
even better than the first. If you want to see
a full archive of my shows What's coming Up, you
can go to forty five Forward dot org. And if
you want to send me comments or questions or suggestions
(57:49):
or sign up for a monthly newsletter, to send me
an email at Ron dot Roel at gmail dot com.
So until our next episode, keep moving forward. Forty five Forward,
We are so so close actually to developing technology that
can help us actually like help detect or predict when
someone's starting to exhibit really early signs of cognitive decline
before a formal dementia diagnosis may ever even be on
the scene, for example. So we have yeah, we have
(00:22):
one project right now that's really looking at some of
these indicators of prey dementia if you will, that are
non that are social. So one area, for example, is financial.
We have a lot of emerging work or I'm sorry,
not just we've been in the age lab, but gerontology
more broadly has a lot of emerging work looking at
(00:42):
different kinds of financial losses that can proceed a formal
dementia diagnosis, you know, six seven, eight years before someone
actually ever receives a formal diagnosis from a doctor. So yeah,
it's a really it's definitely a cutting edge space for sure.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Hello everyone, welcome to forty five Forward. I'm your host
Ron Roell. When was the last time you thought about
what the world might look like at age eighty five?
Imagine trying to read a label, navigate a busy sidewalk,
or manage your finances. Well, everything around you seemed designed
for someone half your age. What if there were people
who could not only imagine that future, but build it well. Today,
(01:26):
we're moving from forty five forward to eighty five forward
as we meet an innovative researcher, Taylor Brennan of Mitge Lab.
We'll be guiding us through a unique story. So, Taylor,
welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Thanks so much for having me. Ron, I'm happy to
be here.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
I know about you, guys. I've known about my Age
Lab for quite some time, actually since some was the
editor of the Act two section of Newsday in the
early two thousands, and I remember reading about Age Lab
and going, Wow, interesting, that's an interesting phenomenon. And it
was innovative then, and so I'm delighted to have you
many years later as part of the show. And there's
(02:02):
a lot to talk about, a lot about the lab,
about your involvement, your research taught me about it, start though,
by you know, giving people a sense of just a
taste of some of your work and perhaps some of
your interaction with your folks eighty five and plus and
perhaps you know, an experience with one of them.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Yeah, absolutely, So it's Yeah, it's a real pleasure to
be here. With you this afternoon from the Age Lab.
We are a multidisciplinary research lab that was started back
in nineteen ninety nine. We were under the direction of
doctor Joe Coughlin, who is still still very much our director,
(02:43):
and we are also sort of nestled within MIT Center
for Transportation and Logistics. Are our director. Joe got his
start with the lab and thinking about older drivers. We
were really interest stood then in trying to understand how,
you know, auto insurres and families could really be having
(03:08):
better conversations around driving retirement and driving cessation. And so
that is one corner in one sort of area where
our research really started, and I think, in the spirit
of you know, one of the themes of the podcast
today and thinking about life at age eighty five and beyond,
we are he has since very much expanded our work.
(03:31):
We really look across the lifespan about what the implications
for sort of longevity really are and.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Will be for people as we age.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
And so one of you know, one of the more
compelling All the things I get to work on are
really interesting to me in different ways, but one really
interesting research panel that I run is focused on convening
a group of eighty five plus year olds or of
oldest old as we call them in the literature. And
(04:03):
this is also one of the fastest growing age demographics
in the US right now.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
And so with.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Our ability to kind of convene that panel, over time,
I've been able to meet a lot of different octogenarians
and nonagenarians who are similarly interested in helping sort of
improve our day to day lives. And so with with
some of that work and with some of that research,
you know, I've been able to meet participants like someone
(04:33):
I'll call Ronda, for example, who is someone that came
to us to participate in our panel with eighty five
plus year olds and had really profound experience with hearing loss,
for example, and she was, you know, we were convening
a session on here hearables. They're sort of called this
(04:56):
intersection of like technology for the ear and for hearing loss,
and she, you know, sort of came to us with
this like immense desire to sort of contribute to that
work and learn more about how we were thinking about
this issue, and then went back to her senior living
community and actually not only like started at learning about
(05:16):
different kinds of hearables and sort of like audio amplifiers
that she could get off of Amazon, like relatively, you know, quickly,
in a convenient way for her and her abilities of
the time. But also she started making transformations to her
unit in the senior housing community, and so she literally
was like diying panels all over her room to help
(05:39):
the noise balance in a more sort of easier to
hear way, and really like modified her built environment in
direct response to that workshop. And so I think a
story like hers really reflects this sort of powerful component
that research can offer beyond us being able to listen
(05:59):
to people's stories and take insight that people share with
us and sort of use it to help transform businesses
and governments and other organizations and how they do their
work as well for an aging society, but also in
how research can be a really empowering tool for individual
participants in how they're able to sort of go about
(06:20):
their lives after their interactions with us.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
I think the hearing is an area, of course, that
we think about as we get older. I do, at
least because it's something that you know people think about.
You lose your hearing, it becomes auditorily challenged, but you
learn how important it is to your functioning of everybody.
And I remember listening to some of the audeologists talk
about the relationship of hearing loss to Alzheimer's and the
(06:48):
fact that you know, and we don't think about that,
but it's you know, you lose touch with the world
if you lose your hearing, and so understanding I think
that is important. And I remember her her saying, you know,
when you listen to yourself, you know, and tape recording,
you're like, well, that doesn't sound like me, you know,
and even just understanding that that's because you have an
(07:10):
inner ear that you hear yourself when you're talking, not
just from the outside, you know. So there, you know,
it's it's important work, and I'm glad you're doing it.
And so let me just up back a bit and
ask you about how did you get involved personally, you know,
in this field.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
I have a background in public health and in social work.
I sort of first became exposed to the field of
aging or gerontology when I was doing my Bachelor's of
Social Work degree at the University of Georgia. And so
a sort of hallmark of social work education is the
ability to engage in like a field placement which is
(07:52):
sort of like applied learning experiential learning, putting.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
Social work practice into action.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
And so at the time, I was placed in a
council in aging in that local community and was working
with a couple of really innovative programs and I still
think they're innovative.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Even though that was a decade ago.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
I was working with grandparents who were raising their grandchildren,
and so in that yeah, so sort of in that space,
I was exposed first to this kind of whole area
of work that involved working with older adults and those
who care for them. And so I knew that if
I was going to kind of pursue kind of any
(08:36):
sort of helping professional job in the space, that I
needed a master's and so I kind of pushed on
and pursued sort of a combined like a dual degree
program and MPH and an MSW is what they're called.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
And so.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
In that sort of time in graduate school, I was
able to kind of explore more are more about gerontology
from the research angle and try to understand, you know,
what this intersection of research and geruitology kind of looks like.
And I think, you know, to be perfectly honest, my
(09:14):
first big girl job after that time after graduate school
was with the Age Lab and I'm still.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Here and then never left.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
So I think I have grown to really love research
as a tool for helping to understand you know, a
lot of like larger societal like issues and topics, but
also as a tool for being able to contribute in
a way that I see, as you know, obviously very
positive to the world through my work.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Was there or there any objective moments when you can remember, like,
this is it for me? You know, this is what
really excites me about. It's something that you know, younger
people don't think about that much. You have to sort
of have a sense of vision looking ahead and saying
this is very different, you know, this is where we're
all headed.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
Yeah, I mean it's sort of interesting because I don't
have a specific moment per se. I think I hear
from a lot of younger students and interns that we
often encounter. There's a lot of stories about grandparents and
like really impactful elders and people's lives. Which is not
to say that my own grandparents and those sort of
(10:22):
elders I've come across in my own life haven't been
impactful by any means, but I think they're kind of
came I guess, sort of a light bulb for me
with the Age Lab work around the convening of multidisciplinary
perspectives and this idea that there was this space in
this lab that was doing social science research, which was
(10:43):
what I was trained to do and was interested in doing,
but was doing that research with many different perspectives. I'm
the only social worker on our team. I'm really working
in day to day with computer scientists, with human factors, engineers,
with psychologists and educators, and so it's like this very
(11:04):
sort of intentional convening in that way, and it makes
the work really fun in a way that is just
not always the case in research.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Really. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Yeah, So let's talk a little bit more about the labs,
take a little deeper dive in terms of what the
lab does, because it does a lot of different things,
and I think the interdisciplinary approaches, as you mentioned, I
think is very much part of it. I'm just looking
at some of the background. I mean, it's you know,
it covers caregiving and well being, home logistics and services,
(11:36):
longevity and retirement planning, Liverpool communities, the longevity economy. So
perhaps take a couple of these and talk a little
bit more, and also about just your particular approach, which
I think is sort of the living lab approach with
which I think is distinctive. Maybe talk about that first.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Yeah, So if you were to kind of pop up
at the Age Lab today and you would very much see.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
That we are living and breathing and working lab.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
You know, we've got I would say, probably twenty five
to thirty folks in our group right now we are using,
i think, in the spirit of that sort of multidisciplinary
perspective and sort of multidisciplinary ways of looking at these
different kinds of research questions. That also lends itself to
really dynamic methods that we're using in our work. So
(12:28):
you can pop up any day and we might be convening,
you know, one of our eighty five plus Lifestyle Leaders
workshops in person, where you have kind of a whole
gaggle of eighty five plus year olds who are rolling
into the lab for lunch, for a couple of and
for a couple of hours where they're kind of engaging
in a series of focus groups with us.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
Or you could be seeing someone that almost.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Looks like a robot walking around the floor, but it's
really our AGNES suit, which is our age Empathy suit.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
It's a suit we frequently use with young.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
MIT engineers or designers who haven't had the lived experience
yet of being an older person, but who are designing
products and services and technology for an aging society or
for an aging consumer. And so maybe we are running
a you know, sort of design sprint in our AGNES
(13:23):
suit where we're having them do a whole bunch of
series of consumer journey journeys in the suit.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Talk a little bit more about that about this agnasuits
not an AGNES, it's an acronym. But yeah, explain this
a little bit more about how that you know what it's.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Yeah, the acronym stands for the Age Game Now Empathy System.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
AGNES was really first developed.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
As a tool to help multidisciplinary teams get on the
same page about who it was that they're designing for.
We've used her in a whole bunch of different contexts.
One that we really like to talk about is really
in the transportation context that we work with. Some of
the agnes's early worked involved working with designers of like cars,
(14:09):
for example, literally the interior of your cab, the cab
of the car that you sit in and drive in
and thinking about everything from how to ingress and egress
out of the car to what it feels like to
deal with some of the more like TecTile points of
the car, whether it's the infotainment system or the you know,
like dealing with like driver assist systems or other kinds
(14:30):
of you know, buttons and things that buzz.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
What is the agnisuit, like the tailor what does it entail?
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Yeah, so the suit itself is going to involve you know,
a series of weights and bungeies from head to toe.
The pieces simulate some of the more common chronic conditions
that can occur as we age.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
The suit generally is.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Not going to be representative of what every older person's
going to feel like, but we say, you know, maybe
a little bit more unhealthy a version of like a
late seven to early eighties person, Maybe someone with some
more unmanaged chronic conditions with theritists or neuropathy, some kind
of gait that's a little bit more.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Off balance, some muscle loss, things like that.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
So, yeah, when we have agnes in action and that
we are you know, really trying to understand the sort
of friction, frustration and fatigue that can really come up
in some of the journeys that we're taking with Agnes.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Yeah, yeah, it reminds me. I think I was working
with someone who's involved in training for caregivers of Alzheimer's
people with Alzheimer's and similar kind of you know, they
kind of thrust me up with gloves and things that
made it sort of simulate like this, this could be
the trouble that someone with the mention might have in
(15:51):
performing daily tasks. So yeah, it's important to have that
almost that sensory you know, experience that people might have.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Yeah, I mean the spirit of sort of MIT's education
purpose among one of its money purposes. Right, it's sort
of like a form of experiential learning and a different
way of knowing beyond. We certainly always pair our work
with Agnes with you know, walk alongs with other older
adults or interviews or focus groups as well. But it's
(16:20):
just another tool in our toolbox to help us try
to better understand what people experience.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
So we're going to take a quick break, folks. It's
very a very short break, but when we come back,
we'll be talking much more with Taylor Brennan of Age Lab.
So don't go anywhere.
Speaker 4 (16:36):
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(16:58):
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Speaker 2 (17:19):
Welcome back, folks to forty five Forward. I'm your host,
Ron Roell. Once again, we're here with Taylor Brennan from
MIT Lab. We're talking about a lot of what the
lab does and what she's done in terms of using
intergenerational insights and technology design and policy to help older
adults thrive. So before the break, we were talking about
(17:40):
some of the technology agress the aggress suit and so forth.
Let's talk broad a little bit about I mean not
a lot of which deal deals broadly with the issues
of agism. So talk about what that, how you folks
approach agism and how you tackle these issues.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Yeah, we sort of started some of our work on
agism really with the Lifestyle Leader's panel. A lot of
our work starts with this panel, where we sort of,
you know, we sort of think that if we have
an idea about something or we're sort of curious about something,
we can run it by that group. And if this
group of participants, you know, thinks there could be something
(18:20):
interesting there to better understand, then we often are able
to kind of push forward from there with with some
of our some of our research questions. And so that
was the case in this example. We were sort of
curious how this like sort of upper age of age
spectrum or the oldest old experience agism in their everyday lives,
(18:41):
and so we did it kind of our more typical
session around that with this group, and then it was
sort of very like poignant for them, like they were
sort of very like they really enjoyed topic to the
extent that we were like, maybe we need to dig
a little deeper around this. And so we ended up
(19:03):
also pursuing another study with the same age group, but
a wider net beyond our panel, where we had people
also engage in a qualitative methodology called photovoice, which involved
sort of taking photos also of agism in everyday life
in ad ditch to like doing more of an interview
(19:25):
and survey as well, And so yeah, those data are
kind of being looked at right now, and we've since
then even launched another arm of the study where we're
talking to eighteen to twenty four year olds as well
about their experience of agism. So I'm hoping we'll be
able to put those two really interesting sort of opposite
(19:46):
ends of the age spectrum, if you will, into conversation
with each other, and how that might look differently for
each group.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Yeah, could you talk a little bit more about the
younger group, because it's something people don't think about it,
agism when when you're younger, but of course there isn't
and there's agism in terms of how they're perceived by
older people.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Absolutely, Yeah, So I you know, definitely sort of think
about agism as happening kind of across the age spectrum
and in different you know ways, at each sort of
age or like life stage, if you will.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
There's also a term though.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
And I'm trying to remember who exactly coined this term,
but the term youngism is also sometimes used to describe
like the sort of experience of being younger, having the
experience of like different stereotyping or discriminatory related experiences about
being younger. Right, so maybe ideas that younger people are
(20:44):
perceived as lacking experience or entitled or things like that.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
Yeah, I think that some of us are now just
sort of refer to, you know, olders and youngers. You know,
which is because I even you know now have you
noticed in your tenure? So you're dealing with a lot
of eighty five plus. Of course, some people think, oh,
that's really old, but doesn't seem so old anymore, especially
when you get to my age just in the previous
(21:10):
decade that I can tell you that, and I think
most people are many people at least when you say, well,
how old do you feel, many people say, you know,
they feel like ten to fifteen years younger than their
actual chronological age. So it's been changing in terms of
I guess part of that is more healthier, hopefully more active.
(21:31):
So the perceptions and the self perceptions are different. I
know that you know that when people join senior centers,
I think in most cases, I think you just have
to be like sixty to join senior centers, but most
people don't join until they're in their seventies. Or eighties,
and a lot of people will say like, well, senior centers,
that's that's for old people.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
And we actually saw we heard a similar theme in
our study with the Lifestyle Leaders that you know, this
idea that like maybe agism doesn't happen to me, but
it happens to others, and you're sort of like say
more about that, like why is that? And there's like
interesting overlap there with like other you know, issues around
intersectionality and other identities that people hold that maybe you know,
(22:17):
buffer if you will, like the impact of agism for example,
if that's something they're like experiencing a felt impact from.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
But yeah, it's it's a really it's interesting as well.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
We've seen I've certainly seen in more of my work
in the in the community with professionals working in aging.
In Massachusetts, you know, a shift away from I know
of a couple you know, senior centers in the state
that are now changing like away from having any sort
of age related designation calling themselves like community centers even
(22:50):
and or not having like age you know, requirements to
engage in certain programs and things like that. So there
certainly seems to be a shift in people thinking around
this issue. We used to do more work with teenagers
through our program our Omega programming at the Age Lab.
And one of the questions I used to ask teens
(23:14):
that some of those events is this question how old
is old? Or how old do you think old is?
And you know, to offer a counterpoint there, those answers
will absolutely crack you up, right, because I'm getting everything
from fifty plus to seventy to eighty five plus. And
then you're like, realize that sort of internalized your self
(23:36):
perception of age is really varied within you know, inter
individual differences.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
So yeah, I certainly, you know, I think it's shifted
a lot. I can certainly remember growing up, you know,
and I can remember, you know, watching my parents, you know,
have parties in the living room and I would be
sort of you know, hiding under the furniture, you know,
and watching and and I was thinking, well, these people
are these are old people, you know, and thinking back,
(24:05):
of course, like, yeah, they were probably in their forties,
you know, fifties. So have you looked at sort of
longitudinal differences as people, you know, go from their sixties
to seventies to eighties and shifts in their attitudes or
feelings or perceptions.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
So we haven't done a ton of that yet around
the agism question. For sure, it's certainly an area of
future work, and we definitely need to sort of think about,
like how a study like this strand of research could be.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
Replicated with other age groups, and like sort of.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
How, yeah, how we might explore those experiences across explicit
life stages in some of our other work we do, However,
I want to at least acknowledge like we often will
take more of like a life stage or life course
approach and looking across the lifespan in a lot of
like our national surveys, we're often sampling people for example
(25:08):
fifty to fifty nine, sixty to sixty nine, seventy to
seventy nine, eighty plus things like that, so we can
at least also look at nuances around a lot of questions,
everything from housing, you know, choices and how housing is
changing for people as the age, to transportation how people
are getting around and how that's changing as the age,
(25:30):
and so yeah, while we haven't done the best job
at sort of looking linking those data longitudinally over time.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
We're certainly interested.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
In looking at you know, sort of the age, the
range of experiences across the spectrum at any given point.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Yeah, well, it does seem. I don't know if it's
I guess by your mid eighties, things you know, can change,
So I know that there. I think that people's now
with longevity. I think now that I guess, well, the
two things are or finances and health. I think that
people worried about having enough money as they got older,
but I think now it's also they're worried about demensia.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Yeah, there is a huge emphasis in this space right
now on brain health. It's massively of interest, and I
think some of that is, yeah, is a direct result
of some of the shifts in our knowledge. Right we
know that you know more than we ever had before
about the role of certain modifiable lifestyle factors, for example,
(26:29):
and helping to enhance brain health and prevent cognitive decline.
And we're sort of interested into like some of the
technology around that, right, Like, we are so so close
actually to developing technology that can help us actually like
help detect or predict when someone's starting to exhibit really
(26:50):
early signs of cognitive decline before a formal dementia diagnosis
may ever even be on the scene for example. So
we have yeah, we have one project right now that's
really looking at some of these indicators of pretty dementia
if you will, that are non.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
That are social. So one area, for example, is financial.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
We have a lot of emerging work or I'm sorry,
not just we've been in the age lab, but gerontology
more broadly has a lot of emerging work looking at
different kinds of financial.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
Losses that can proceed a formal dementia diagnosis.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
You know, six seven, eight years before someone actually ever
receives a formal diagnosis from a doctor. So yeah, it's
a really it's definitely a cutting edge space for sure.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Now we started talking about Omega, but talk a little
bit more about what that is Omega, which is I
guess an intergenerational program. What does that entail? What are
some of the salient features or program or stories you
can tell us about that.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Absolutely, So Omega is one of our our programs really
targeted at teens, and so you know, when we started it,
we were sort of surveying the landscape of you know,
intergenerational programs that are out there for sort of younger
people and older people to connect, and we felt that
(28:12):
teams were like a particularly underserved group via these programs,
because you know, you might often see for example, like
a lot of shared sites like senior housing communities co
located with daycares, or the opposite end of that spectrum
being like university housing, or like college students co living
(28:35):
with older adults in the community through like different kinds
of cohousing websites or apps.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
Or things like that.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
So we, yeah, we thought teens were kind of being
a little bit left out, and we were like, what
would it look like to envision a program for this group?
And this is a group you know, as we know
that's like there's a lot going on. There's a lot
of college prep, for example, like different kinds of note
building happening in that life stage where like the pairing
(29:04):
of olders and youngers could be really powerful.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
And so part of that program.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
Involves a series of sort of events that we put
on where we're really exposing teens even just like to
this idea of longevity and aging and the way that
the age love thinks about these topics and also what
the concept of an intergenerational program even is. Our sort
of hope there is that the students will be inspired
(29:30):
and excited to build their own intergenerational clubs or programs
within their own schools and in their own communities. And
so the other part of that program for a long
time has also involved a college scholarship.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
So for students who have actually.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Gone on to implement some sort of intergenerational club or program,
we've been able to offer a small scholarship for high
school juniors or seen who apply with those programs and
sort of us understand and illustrate, you know, how their
program is really pushing the envelope in that way, and
(30:09):
that sort of a break lens of bringing together olders
and youngers.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Great, and I want to talk much more about this,
but we're going to take another quick break, so once again, folks,
we've been talking with Taylor Brennan mit Lage Lap, but
we'll be coming right back with much more. So don't
go away.
Speaker 5 (30:26):
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(30:51):
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(31:15):
out and keep moving forward. Forty Welcome back, folks to
forty five Forward. Once again.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
We're talking with Taylor Brennan of mit Ah Lab. Before
the break, we were talking about lots of intergenerational issues
and I think, you know, as we as we explort more,
I think there are relationships that we're discovering. I mean, interestingly,
you know, even the terminology when we think about seniors,
I'm thinking, well, seniors in high school. You know what,
(31:51):
you know, there are interesting transition points we have in life.
And I think that you know that. I think as
they look at issues like isolation and loneliness, I think
they've discovered that there are these two periods of extreme
senses of loneliness and dislocation, and one of them is
(32:13):
in the early twenties, and one of them there is
our late sixties and seventies. And I think it's part
of that is that they are periods where you go
from a lot of structure to not so much and
you've got to figure out well, a lot of anxiety,
a lot of worry about what's next and not there
are opportunities, but there's not a lot of guidance. So
I think that there are some really lessons to be
(32:34):
learned from these generational comparisons. They've also I guess the
America program talks on these intergenerational teams working on problems together.
Anything that you know, you want to talk about in
terms of the kinds of some examples of things that
solutions that people have produced.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Yeah, I mean we have seen seen the gamut of
programs and ideas, and you know, remember these are sort
of like programs or initiatives that the students themselves are running.
And so that's really the emphasis to us. I think
a lot of our OMEGA programs have a few things
in common. One is that they're really creative, right, Like
(33:11):
we're trying to look for like out of the box ideas.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
I've talked with some of our previous.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Scholarship winners, for example, have been banjo club, multi generational
banjo club. We've talked with, We've had folks students do
like a grocery program, a high school students grocery shop
for home bound older adults and you know, deliver the
groceries and then also stay for like a conversation. And
(33:38):
so that's like a little bit more of like the
instrumental support, right. And then also programs that maybe involve
like art or I guess I just mentioned the program
the banjo program, but a lot of interest in combining
sort of interests around painting and drawing and different kinds
of art classes. And then I think one other that
comes to mind for me too was a student that
(34:01):
worked on like more of a skills based project, so
connecting teens that were interested in certain career pathways right
with older folks who were perhaps retired from those same
sorts of careers and more of like a knowledge sharing
and like mentorship support type. Yeah, so there's been a
(34:21):
lot of really unique ways that we've seen students do
this work.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
And I think you know, the.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
Other huge like area that of overlap that they share
is this idea of innovation and and sort of being
able to be really innovative in how they're doing this
this stuff. And that's a program that's been running since
say twenty sixteen or so, and so even through things
like the COVID nineteen pandemic when high school classrooms were
(34:49):
really disrupted, we've seen, you know, these students get really
innovative and do really interesting things with our programs.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
Now, you know, one of the areas is technology, of course,
and I think that's not something that interests me because
you know, they again the stereotype is, oh, older people
to the technology, and I think some of that's breaking down.
I think certainly as older baby boomers or you know,
we weren't, we're not digital natives, but certainly much more
(35:19):
involved technology. So what are we learning about, you know,
older and younger people dealing with technology, and what are
the challenges or are there differences or the different ways
they use it or expect or and do they older
and younger do they engage in looking at problems of
using technology in different ways?
Speaker 5 (35:37):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (35:38):
Absolutely, I mean, yeah, so this is a really complex topic,
and I would just emphasize to that technology adoption, acceptance, use,
you know, really goes across our research and across it
cuts across our work.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
It's interesting to everything that.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
We're really thinking about, and a lot of this work
has been led by my colleagues Chaiwu l at the
Age Lab, who first did her dissertation, you know, really
thinking about what technology adoption, like what are those factors
that influence technology adoption for older adults in particular, because
she had found a gap in a literature around our
(36:18):
understanding of technology adoption even just for the older adult population. Like,
we're still sort of filling in our understanding of that
gap in particular, and so when we bring in the
intergenerational angle, I think one area we've seen really flourish
in OMEGA has been like the learning aspect of technology
(36:41):
and how olders and youngers can like help each other
learn technology. I find that that's also still a huge
gap in the work that has to be done. A
lot of my eighty five plus year olds will come
and tell me, you know, hey, you've showed me how
to do how to because that's the Google form for
the workshop twenty times, but like I'm still not like
(37:05):
I'm not retaining it.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
I'm not actually learning how to continue.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Like use that or like you know, whether it's a
device or a software or whatever, there's like sort of
a learning gap. For example, teams can like offer insight
older adults around learning technology and like sustaining that learning
is really compelling and interesting, and it's certainly informing some
(37:31):
of my interests as I move into doctoral doctoral research
myself thinking about the intersection of sort of age in
our increasingly multi generational workforce and how technology like AI
that's now everywhere and on the scene and really popular
right now, right, how that looks in like the organizational
(37:51):
context right how we can help like older workers, you know,
adopt AI use AI in their workplaces, and what we
can learn from like youngers about that as well, and
what that sort of means for well being and other
kinds of interesting organizational outcomes.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
Are there particular issues that older people have with technology
that younger don't. Is it just a matter of exposure
or practice or I mean, certainly, you know, their social
media is one area where younger people are much more involved,
But it's not clear to me that that you know,
sort of fluency extends to a world technological problems. And
(38:32):
in some cases, I think that older people have more experience,
so their sort of brains absorb a lot of different experiences,
so they can solve certain problems faster actually than younger
people just based on their experience. So I'm still trying
to figure out what are the issues of technology that
affect older people other than exposure.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
Yeah, it's really interesting because it's not right.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
I think you're getting at some of this as well,
Like it's not that one group is like better than
the other at certain things, right, but it's like trying
to understand where some of those nuances even are in
the first place. And so we know, for example that
like older workers are you know, these workers maybe tend
to lag behind workers of other age groups and their
(39:16):
digital skills, including like you know, developing and adopting emerging
technologies for work. But you know, potentially there are things
that we have yet to understand about how this age
group you know, can like help sort of issue can
(39:37):
sort of like help organizations during digital transformation points actually
like contribute to like getting everybody sort of like on
board with that digital transformation, right, And so yeah, I
think there's sort of like a lot of gaps here
still in trying to understand this. They think what this
(40:00):
looks like in a workforce context is going to differ
completely depending on the industry we're talking about, or the
accupation or job function. Yeah, so there's there's sort of
a lot to still to still understand there, and like
you know, olders have that like to your point, right,
like that lifetime of exposure to different kinds of technology
(40:24):
that youngers maybe don't right have in that kind of way.
So even just like the difference in mental models across
the age groups or the generations even.
Speaker 3 (40:35):
Is interesting all on its own.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
Anything that you can recall in terms of being sort
of surprised by their older person's understanding of technology or
use of technology, or insights about how to do something
that maybe they wouldn't have been when they were younger.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
I mean we see it all the time with our
panel for sure, just as like a tiny example or
you know, using them as a case study, the sort
of stereotype that older adults are just like laggards of
laggards in their technology adoption or that they're not using technology, right, Like,
these are just outdated that stereotypes and it's.
Speaker 3 (41:10):
Simply not the case.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
And as you and I age, you know, I'm going
to be a much savvier different consumer of technology when
I'm in my sixties and seventy even relative of course
to my parents at my grandparents generation. So yeah, that's
to say that there are definitely people are older, our
(41:33):
elders are definitely adopting technology. I'll tie it back to
the hearing story that we started before. I think that
is a really interesting one because you know, there's sort
of like this one mental model of dealing with hearing
loss and older age as involving you know, pretty expensive,
sort of finicky device that goes in the ear. But
(41:53):
in doing that particular workshop with our lifestyle leaders, we
learned that they're adopting you know, these like of off
non prescription, behind the counter audio amplifying devices off of Amazon.
Speaker 3 (42:08):
Right. They're also using things like AirPods, which weren't.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
Designed to necessarily be a hearing aid, right, but they
have like different kinds of muting and amplification properties that
people are just like hacking and like using to help
them better interact with their environment.
Speaker 3 (42:26):
And so that's a really good example I think.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
In that case, in the case of like hearables and
this like class of technology, of how our older adults
might be very much making you know, our very much
adopting technology, just.
Speaker 3 (42:38):
Maybe not in the ways that we would normally expect.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
Yeah, it seems to me that a lot of it
is just about learning and teaching and assumptions about what
is required in that process. I mean, there are lots
of times when you know, I'm faced with a technological
issue in a computer and it's just like, well, this
isn't a matter of I'm just not with it or
I can't figure it out. It's not intuitive, and the
(43:02):
technology is set up by people who basically understand how
they did it, but they don't in some cases, understand
how to explain.
Speaker 5 (43:10):
It to you.
Speaker 3 (43:11):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
Yeah, well we're going to take another quick break, final break,
but don't go away, folks. We're going to have one
terrific second to go with the Taylor Brennan of Mitage Labs,
So don't go away.
Speaker 6 (43:24):
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(43:46):
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Just visit Caregiving nav Dot because you're not alone on
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click away.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
Welcome back, folks to forty five forward. We're talking with
Taylor Brennan, and research specialist at MIT Lab. And before
the break we were talking about a number of intergenerational
issues with respective technology. I wanted to talk about some
other things as well. Basically we touched a little bit
about intergenerational issues in the workplace too, and so I
(44:43):
know you guys do a lot of work in that
area and I think they it sort of ties into
not only work issues, but I know part of your
portfolio is dealing with caregiving issues as well and how
to deal with that. So talk about let's talk about
those issues in terms of a multi generation in the
workplace and what are the issues. Some of them are
(45:03):
in the work itself and some of them are in
personal issues like caregiving.
Speaker 3 (45:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:08):
Absolutely, so a lot of this work that sits that
are at the intersection of work in family is led
by my colleague, doctor Samantha Brady, and so with some
of this work we're really interested in trying to understand
I think, you know, what the implications of increasingly multi
(45:32):
generational workforce have for organizations and for this like sort
of quote unquote feature of work, which I think you
see in a lot of the sort of business in
the business world mentioned.
Speaker 3 (45:44):
So, you know, I.
Speaker 1 (45:45):
Think right now, some of our work in this space
has certainly dealt with family caregiving. We do run a
panel of primarily US based, though it is international family caregiver,
so people caring for an adult loved one who are
unpaid generally. With that group, you know, we're able to
really do a lot of work to try to understand
(46:08):
the true labor that is caregiving. We're working right now,
for example, in a study that looks at the cost
of caregiving, both direct and indirect costs over time for
those caregivers, So really trying to understand at a very
individual micro level, over the course of even like a month,
for example, what are the sort of you know, direct
(46:31):
and indirect costs that people are kind of incurring in
order to provide care. And you know, Sam and I
worked on a paper last year that was you know,
leveraging one of our larger national data sets that we
have in gerontology, generally the Health and Retirement Study or
the HRS, to really look at how sort of combining
(46:55):
work related and caregiver related roles ultimately impowered mental health,
for example, and how those impacts maybe look differently for
different demographics of workers. And so that paper was really interested,
was really interesting to work on, and offered us a
little bit more insight into sort of you know how
(47:16):
something like depression, for example, can actually look differently and
shift differently for different groups of people depending on the
types of caregiving roles that they actually enter into while
also working. So that will give you a little bit
of a taste of the flavor of some of our
interests at that intersection of work and care And then
(47:38):
I think I'll just tie it back to some of
our conversation from earlier about technology. But I think some
of my interests also in this space around workforce development
are again like interested in, you know how like digital
skilling and digitalization sort of looks for different kinds of
occupational contexts for different ages of workers. I'm also interested
(48:01):
in the development of the aging services workforce as well,
so outside of my work at the Age Lab, but
this group is also partnered with the Age Lab. There's
a Massachusetts based organization called Boston Bridge and really really
interested in helping, you know, sort of offer different kinds
(48:25):
of professional development for people that are working in this space.
And so, as you know, you might imagine, right, people
working in aging services span a spectrum.
Speaker 3 (48:35):
We know people and you know, more traditional aging services
social workers providing services at senior centers to people that
are building technology in the age.
Speaker 1 (48:45):
Tech space, right that are creating creating those products. Two
people that are you know, maybe working more like in
the financial services sector or kind of helping support caregiver
family caregivers directly, and so all of those folks need
professional development in some form, thought leadership and some form.
(49:06):
And as this field continues to sort of grow and
become increasing way technology enabled in the like, I'm also
sort of interested in how in what's going on there
and how professionals are thinking about some of these shifts
within the field, if you will too.
Speaker 2 (49:23):
So what sorts of things do they need to know
that they might not think they realize as they answer
this field.
Speaker 3 (49:29):
Yeah, So, I mean there's certainly like a sort of.
Speaker 1 (49:34):
You know, common need for like credentials like CEUs. They're
called or continuing Educati units, which are associated with a
lot of like health professional licenses and like ongoing requirements
around licensure, which Boston Bridge hasn't traditionally sort of offered
those sorts of things. But I would say that the
(49:54):
group's interest is in really convening like thought leaders in
this space, bringing those folks to professionals.
Speaker 3 (50:01):
So the group has had you know, everyone from like
our state.
Speaker 1 (50:08):
ARP director to our state Massachusetts has an Office of
Aging Independence, to like the City of Boston Aging Commissioner
has come in. So it's like kind of a whole
host of different kinds of leaders in the field to
try to get people an understanding of like both like
the breadth of what work in the space can look like,
but also like what different sorts of career trajectories can
(50:31):
look like.
Speaker 2 (50:33):
So just reflect a little bit about your own career
and your own learning in this space. What are some
of the things that you learned about aging that you
didn't expect?
Speaker 3 (50:44):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (50:44):
Yeah, I think our director Joe likes to use this
phrase like aging is an extreme sport, which I completely
agree with, but also for me that aging can really
be very fun even though it's a very complicated time
of life as we're sort of touched on all these
different domain areas that you know has to do with
age and longevity. So there truly are ways to make
(51:08):
aging fun cool, interesting that we've seen through our work here,
and that's something that I have learned in my time
at the lab and that I also hope to hold
on to as I continue to work in this space.
Speaker 2 (51:23):
When you say an extreme sport, I think.
Speaker 1 (51:28):
In traditionally the context of using agnes or age empathy
suit and thinking a little bit about, you know, some
of the real challenges that people face as part of
aging and sort of the biological aging process too.
Speaker 3 (51:42):
It's certainly not for the faint of heart, right.
Speaker 1 (51:46):
This is sort of the reality of living. If you're aging,
you're living. So there's sort of I think a lot
of emphasis on some of that in that.
Speaker 3 (51:54):
Sort of slogan.
Speaker 2 (51:56):
Yeah, it's consider the alternative, right Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, and
anything about you know, some of your assumptions that change
over time.
Speaker 1 (52:05):
Yeah, I mean, I think all certainly tag us back
to sort of the Omega programming stuff. I think a
lot of our work there has been really interesting to
me in terms of also like helping to really under
better understand what teens face these days too, Right, I am,
I'm not a teen anymore, and so my experience of
(52:27):
being a teenager was very different than the teens that
we are working with and we encounter today.
Speaker 3 (52:34):
And so.
Speaker 1 (52:36):
I think just to just speak to that point before
about this idea of like, any beliefs that I had
that had connections to youngism, or this idea that you know,
teens are inexperienced or don't know, you know, what they're
talking about or something like that, is has certainly been
completely shifted in light of our sort of omega programming.
Speaker 2 (52:57):
Yeah, I think it's sort of our you know, our
techo lineal approach to human development, I think has been
challenging the sense that we you know, we split up
the generations, and we split up ages, and we split
up seniors from you know, you know, we have childcare
and elder care. And I think now we're starting to
bring some things closer together. You know what I call
sort of more of an ecological as opposed to a
(53:19):
technological perspective of specialization. So I think that things things
like housing are something we're really taking another look at.
Speaker 1 (53:29):
Yeah, I absolutely agree, And that makes me think too
about like that these sorts of challenges or like problems
that we're talking about are not just the experiences or
issues of individuals rather but like the sort of collective
way that we have sort of implemented systems in our
society right around some of these topics that this isn't
(53:51):
just you know, just because Ronda couldn't hear. It's not
just like her problem that she couldn't hear and like
needs about her device. It's like also thinking about how
the bill environment contributes to that, how her ability to
get around is going to affect the extent to which
she gets to that audiologist appointment, and the idea that
(54:15):
she can that whether or not she has disposable income
to purchase the extra amplifier devices off of Amazon, Like
these are not just individual problems of Ronda, right, but
rather also how.
Speaker 3 (54:28):
She's interacting within our larger social system.
Speaker 2 (54:32):
So so her last thoughts other than you know, getting
involved in getting a degree or an academic degree or
get involved in Boston Bridge and any thoughts on if
people earners in aging issues and you know, the future
of aging, are there little things they can do to
think about you know these issues or get involved in
(54:54):
some way.
Speaker 3 (54:56):
Absolutely. We have.
Speaker 1 (54:58):
All of our stuff is on our our website at
Age Lab dot mit dot eu. We have a monthly
newsletter our team puts out that is fabulous and I
highly recommend folks sign up for that. We have panels
going on at any given time. Right now, we're working
on our eighty five plus panel and our faily caregiving panel.
(55:19):
We also have a panel for financial professionals, so if
you or someone you know is a financial advisor, counselor
anyone that sort of helps somebody with finances. We're sort
of building out a panel around that because it's very
related to aging and how people plan to age. And
(55:40):
then we also have a database that we could have
just call like our general Volunteer database, which is really
for anyone of any age to join and as there
are study opportunities available where we are looking for potentially you,
that is a database that we tap into for that
as well.
Speaker 2 (56:00):
MM, so people can get involved remotely or they don't
have to be at the lab to be involved exactly.
Speaker 5 (56:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (56:08):
Most of our stuff these days, honestly, is you know,
conducted over zoom or online.
Speaker 2 (56:14):
Yeah, and I guess there's field work as well. I
mean you go into yeah.
Speaker 1 (56:18):
Yeah, for more of our We didn't even talk today
about some of our work that's still happening around driving,
but we have a whole team that's doing work in
transportation and driving and looking at how people interact with
technology in the vehicle these days, and as they ate.
For a lot of that work, you have to often
be able to come into our lab in Cambridge or
(56:39):
drive a vehicle.
Speaker 3 (56:41):
Also in the Boston.
Speaker 1 (56:42):
Area, those studies involve more of an experimental or on
the in the field element for.
Speaker 2 (56:48):
Sure, challenging at any age driving in Boston or Long Island,
this and this, you know, it's yeah, yeah, yeah, so wow,
there's much more talk about. Maybe next time we'll dive
deeper in to driving and other issues, but there's the
will always be the stuff for us to talk about.
So I want to thank you. And now people have
more questions or comments, how would they get in touch
(57:09):
with you?
Speaker 1 (57:09):
Yeah, you can also find me on our site and
my M I T email is t r P A
T s at n I T dot e okay.
Speaker 2 (57:20):
And again the website is Age lab dot MI I
T dot E d uever.
Speaker 5 (57:26):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (57:27):
Once again, folks, this is Ron Roel from forty five Forward.
Thank you for spending this hour with us, helping us
all make the journey through the second half of life
even better than the first. If you want to see
a full archive of my shows What's coming Up, you
can go to forty five Forward dot org. And if
you want to send me comments or questions or suggestions
(57:49):
or sign up for a monthly newsletter, to send me
an email at Ron dot Roel at gmail dot com.
So until our next episode, keep moving forward. Forty five Forward,
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