In her 16th year as administrator of the Allegheny County Area Agency on Aging, Mildred Morrison serves as the first expert Q-and-A for Aging Edge.
Ms. Morrison, 63, worked in banking administration and directed the large and comprehensive Vintage senior center in East Liberty before being appointed in 2000 to run an agency serving the needs of adults 60 and older in Allegheny County, primarily using state and federal funding. She has retained the position throughout the administrations of county executives Jim Roddey, Dan Onorato and Rich Fitzgerald.
The AAA has about 200 employees and also contracts with more than 100 other agencies and organizations to provide senior centers, Meals on Wheels deliveries, home care assistance and additional services.
Nearly 45,000 older adults in the county use AAA programs and services in some manner, with a phone call to the agency’s staff at 412-350-5460 serving as the first step in obtaining information and help.
Ms. Morrison provided the following insights about government’s role in assisting seniors, in addition to addressing other topics:
Aging Edge: Who should be contacting the AAA for assistance and when?
Morrison: If I were queen of the world and could wave my wand, every 55-year-old who is picking up a prescription for their parent — that is where the conversation should begin. Whether it begins with the older person or with the 55-year-old who’s the caregiver, they should begin the discussion about what are aging services, how to access them, what all they should know. The call we frequently get instead is at a moment of crisis, and the person helping out in the family has used up their vacation and care leave, and if they’re going to retain their job they need to get back to work. But then they’re wondering who’s going to care for the parent, and the stress is off the charts.
Aging Edge: What kind of help is the AAA best positioned to offer people?
Morrison: It’s the help with acts of daily living, the personal care. If someone says I need help with bathing or getting the house cleaned, or I need a ride to a medical appointment, or I need someone to prepare meals because I’m not able to stand up for the necessary time, or I need someone to help with shopping or getting pharmaceuticals because I can’t get out of the house — those are the very practical things we can help with. But the greatest help is the knowledge and guidance of an experienced social worker to assist the older person and family in making effective decisions and choices.
Aging Edge: What do people most fail to take into account in preparing for their older years?
Morrison: When people think about planning for retirement, most of the information they’re offered is about the financial aspects, like, “How much income will you have?” There are not the same discussions about “What are you going to do with yourself in retirement? How are you going to spend your time? Have you thought about where you live and whether it’s going to be accommodating if you develop serious arthritis or other changes in your health in 10 years?” Many people define themselves by the work they do, but how are you going to define yourself when you no longer have that job?
Aging Edge: What stands out as different in the agency and the aging services field from when you started as AAA administrator 16 years ago?
Morrison: The volume has gone up considerably, because we do have an older population. And the frequency with which dementia or another cognitive impairment is present for an individual has gone up a huge amount. As people are living longer, that’s becoming a heavier and heavier burden for those who care for them. And we more often see with today’s older generation that they don’t have a child living down the block or a mile away anymore. They are farther away, and there are fewer of those children. The level of natural support that’s out there is changing.
Aging Edge: Even if people move away from the Pittsburgh area, it has a reputation as a place people often return to in their older years. Aside from being close to family still here, what are the advantages the region has for older adults that might make it a good place for them?
Morrison: The state has made a commitment to use lottery dollars to support older adults unlike anywhere else in the country. People get upset here about things, like they may not appreciate having to wait for an Access ride, but what they don’t realize is somewhere else there may be no ride-sharing service at all. And we have a phenomenal medical community here in terms of the health resources that are available. So you’ve got good services, and there’s general financial stability for elders here, and you have a community that’s still like a big small town where people generally get to know their neighbors — they do care, and even if they may not formally be volunteers they take time to be helpful to one another.
Aging Edge: What might be the downside for older adults about living here?
Morrison: We have some of the oldest housing stock in the United States, and much of it is up and down all these steps. One thing we don’t have much of are low-cost homes that a senior might be willing to trade down for — that little two- or three-bedroom ranch house for a modest-income person. Having appropriate housing is a bit of a challenge here, but we can help people think about home modifications like building ramps, expanding a doorway, putting in electric stair glides. Paying for them depends on a person’s financial status, and we have to see if the house they’re living in can have the modifications, but we help frequently with expanding bathroom doorways so someone can get through in a wheelchair or walker.
Aging Edge: What would you add to the housing options for older adults if you had the chance?
Morrison: More and more around the country you’re getting a “Golden Girls” kind of thing, in which a group of unrelated adults choose to share a home, and it’s a manageable number — maybe five to 10 — with enough privacy in living but enough communal living so that if you’re ill or need a ride to the doctor or something like that, you’ve got the built-in support. It’s a model that lets everyone keep their individuality and still find that sweet spot of being part of a shared community. We do not have those kinds of arrangements or experiments going on here. That’s an area I’d like to see explored.
Aging Edge: What can you pass along about whatever you’ve learned constitutes “healthy aging”?
Morrison: Most people define it as needing three legs. One is your physical health, and I don’t mean crazy, killing-yourself exercise but healthy movement, like carrying a one-pound weight as you take a 30-minute walk. Second, you need financial stability. And there’s a third leg that some call psychological and some would call spiritual. It’s about taking joy in life and valuing life — some get it from faith, some from family, some from volunteering or some blend of things. It really is a three-legged stool, and when one of those legs isn’t working, you have strayed away from healthy aging.
Aging Edge: What lessons have you learned best from your own older family members?
Morrison: I’ve learned that feisty is good, and that honesty is even better. A number of people are stunned when people die, but I’ve never seen that from an older adult. I had an elderly cousin who only went through education as far as the sixth grade and when her physician said it’s time to do advance planning, and we asked my cousin directly what she would want at the end, she said, “What do you mean?” I said it could mean whether she wanted lots of medical treatment like Uncle Melvin had with treatment and tubes, and she said, “No, no, no, leave it alone and let nature take its course.” There’s an unwillingness of the younger generation to accept that mortality will come, but if they have these conversations in advance and adhere to what the senior wants, it’s a tremendous gift to the senior and family.
Gary Rotstein: grotstein@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1255.
First Published: April 4, 2016, 4:17 a.m.
