A Hard Look at Growing Old
published Sunday, March 16, 2008

Will Roanoke grow old gracefully? It's looking doubtful.

Linda and Tommy Rhodes' till-death-do-us-part love story in Saturday's newspaper offers an intimate glimpse of the challenges when the most feared frailty of age, dementia, destroys one spouse and leaves to the other a solitary struggle to keep two lives afloat.

Linda is the epitome of competence, stamina and grace. Together, the couple built a secure, middle-class life. Yet Tommy's steady degeneration is close to overwhelming his wife.

Family life reporter Beth Macy told their story to open what will be an occasional series on the challenges facing people in the Roanoke Valley and surrounding region as the population ages.

The Rhodes' story is heartrending and inspiring, but their circumstances are not unique. And many people as helpless as Tommy are far more vulnerable. Not everyone can be married to Linda. And not everyone has even the limited resources she can draw on to hold onto her job and care for her husband at home.

Macy reports in today's edition that the region's senior population, people 65 and older, will boom over the next 25 years -- the still strong echo of the 1950s baby boom. And the old old, people 85 and older, will have nearly doubled in number from today. Analysts expect more than 13,600 people in the region will have dementia by the year 2030.

Yet the gaps in community care for the elderly are longstanding and long understood. What is lacking are solutions.

The Roanoke Valley is focused on drawing more young professionals to the region, and it needs them. But the valley is a haven for older transplants, and enjoys many benefits from them. Fit, well-to-do retirees bring their money, time and talent and, as empty-nesters, they aren't expected to cost the public a lot in the way of services.

But life doesn't end there.

People age. And with age, they decline.

As more of the region's population grows dependent on others -- for personal care, for transportation, for food and shelter and medicine -- gaps now affecting a relative few will widen into chasms.

Linda Rhodes says of her life with her impaired husband, "I try not to look forward, and I try not to look back." That's wise.

For families heading obliviously toward the challenges of old age, though, it is imperative to think ahead. To provide them with reasonable choices, so, too, must the community.

- The Roanoke Times editorial board

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