Author: Varsity Team

‘Like it’ or not, we’ll never know, thanks to a new update being rolled out by Instagram that will prevent you from seeing how many likes the accounts you follow are receiving on their accounts. To see what this means for your brand, check out this infographic.

As we head into 2019, we look back on an exciting year for the Varsity blog! Here’s a countdown of our most popular posts for 2018. It’s a potpourri of topics, from serious to humorous to touching. One common thread: innovative ways of helping people age well, from a world-renowned village for people experiencing dementia to LEGOs.

5. Older Adults Experiencing Homelessness Inspired by an experience our president Wayne Langley had passing an underpass in Los Angeles, this three-part series provides insights into how older individuals experiencing homelessness are treated. Read the first installment here.

4. Difficulties in Diagnosing Parkinson’s Disease  In this guest post, Rebecca Evans of geriatric nursing.org discusses the second most common age-related disease after Alzheimer’s, including the lack of a precise screening test and why early diagnosis is so important. Read it here.

3. Remembering Sal J. Molite, Jr.  Derek Dunham, vice president of client services at Varsity, pays his respects to Sal J. Molite, Jr., former president of Edenwald Communities in Towson, Maryland, who sadly passed away in January 2018. He was a true friend and colleague, who had a passion and dedication for the aging services. Read the post.

2. American Hogeweyk — an Interview with UMC’s Larry Carlson Varsity spoke with Larry Carlson, President and CEO of United Methodist Communities, on his fascinating experience visiting Hogeweyk, the world-famous memory support community in The Netherlands. Read the post.

1. Playing with LEGOs Could Help Older Adults Our most-read post of the year came from Robinson Smith, Varsity creative director and lover of all toys and games. Rob discusses Adult Fans of Legos (AFOLS), many of whom are older adults who use Legos to engage in a creative exercise for the mind. Read the post.

That’s our countdown of top posts for 2018! Stay tuned for more fresh perspectives in 2019, and please contact us  if there’s a topic or issue you’d like us to cover.

Larry Carlson of United Methodist Communities is known as a thought leader in the aging services space. He’s always pushed his team and his communities to be more resident-focused and to come up with creative ways to meet their needs. Recently, Larry spent some time in Europe. While there, he visited the world-famous Hogeweyk memory-support community in the Netherlands. Profiled by CNN, Hogeweyk has become a model for dementia care that many American providers have dreamed of reproducing in the States. Its community-based design, open and spacious amenities and focus on daily living have made it a model for the rest of the world.

We took a minute to sit down and chat with Larry about his experience and what he thinks the future of memory-support communities might look like.

Varsity – How did you first hear about Hogeweyk and become interested in the work being done there?

Larry – In 2013, CNN profiled the community in an excellent 20-minute segment. Since then, I’ve always wanted to visit and see the community firsthand. (For reference, here’s a link to that piece https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwiOBlyWpko&app=desktop.)

Varsity – We know that Hogeweyk is centered on memory-support services. But, it seems it would be difficult to create such an environment for those with severe memory loss.

Larry – On the contrary! Residents don’t come to Hogeweyk because they are just mildly confused. Every person living in the community has a severe memory issue. Forty percent of the residents utilize some kind of mobility assistance. This isn’t a community created for those with onset dementia issues. It’s built to help those that are living with severe dementia.

Varsity – Wow! That’s not what would we would have expected at all. How can they care for such a population in a free and open environment like Hogeweyk?

Larry – Residents live in homes with six or seven other people. There are 23 such homes at Hogeweyk. Each resident has their own bedroom, sharing a kitchen and general living space with others. Team members are only in the homes between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. each day. As the residents move about the community, every team member is there to assess their needs and ensure safety. At night, residents are monitored with advanced technology. Rather than keeping a team member in every home overnight, they utilize microphones to listen for movement and issues, deploying staff as needed.

Varsity – It seems like Hogeweyk takes the idea of ‘person-centered care’ to a whole new level. Can you describe the environment and vibe within the community as you toured?

Larry – While ‘care’ is important, it’s not the most important phrase in the lexicon at Hogeweyk. The entire team is focused on a single mission: ‘normalize life.’ Every team member’s goal is to provide as normal a daily living experience as possible for every resident. If a resident wants to go grocery shopping, help with laundry, clean the house or just go for a walk, they are allowed to do that. No one chases after a resident who wanders away on their own. Within the community, residents are safe and allowed to explore as they like. At Hogeweyk, they care for their residents by ensuring their independence.

Varsity – This sounds like an amazing community but also one that would be a regulatory and risk management nightmare here in the States. How do they handle these issues?

Larry – Communities like Hogeweyk are mostly government funded and heavily regulated. That provides some layer of protection. The Dutch have a saying, ‘Don’t shoot the bear until you see the bear.’ This means that you don’t restrict an activity or area because it could be a problem in the future. For instance, there was a balcony with a regular height handrail. My inner administrator was immediately fearful that someone could fall over such a railing. When I posed this question to my Dutch counterpart, he noted that no one has ever fallen, so why would they change it now? It’s definitely a different mindset than what I’m used to.

Varsity – With this in mind, do you think there’s a way to bring a Hogeweyk-type community to the United States?

Larry – Absolutely! It’s become my goal to do so. We’ve reviewed the staffing requirements and realized that Hogeweyk’s staffing is within a single FTE of the staffing we would provide for a similarly sized community. Also, the monthly cost to reside at Hogeweyk is nearly identical to what UMC charges in many of our communities. Yes, there will be some regulatory hurdles, but the model is completely viable, and we want to make it happen at UMC.

Varsity – Thank you so much for sharing your experiences and thoughts with us and our readers! Do you have any final thoughts you’d like to share?

Larry – I really appreciate this opportunity as well! I’d encourage all of my colleagues and counterparts to learn more about Hogeweyk. Even if they can’t create a replica of the services offered, I’d implore them to think beyond person-centered care when it comes to memory support. Think about how you can normalize life for each resident. That simple change in thought process is the first step in the Hogeweyk model.

This article is a guest post by Rebecca Evans of GeriatricNursing.org. As we approach Older American’s month, we thought it was an appropriate time to discuss one of the most challenging diseases that an aging adult might face – Parkinson’s. We thank Rebecca for her input and we hope you enjoy the piece!

I can hear you wondering: How is it hard to diagnose Parkinson’s Disease? After all, aren’t the characteristic symptoms rather distinctive?

Well…yes and no, unfortunately.

Yes, Parkinson’s disease symptoms are rather distinctive (for the most part, anyway; there are a few diseases and drug reactions that can mirror Parkinson’s symptoms)…but they take time to develop. In the early stages of the disease, in fact, it can be incredibly hard to diagnose.

After all, there are no precise tests for Parkinson’s. As often as not, it is mistaken in its early stages for another disease—which in turn delays appropriate treatment.

Most common diagnosis difficulties

For instance, there’s data that actually suggests that as many as 25% of Parkinson’s patients are misdiagnosed. That is, they may be receiving treatment for Parkinson’s, and not actually have Parkinson’s. Or they may be receiving treatment for something else, and actually have Parkinson’s disease.

A big part of this goes back to the fact that there is no precise test for Parkinson’s, and different diagnosing doctors treat different indicators differently. For instance, some of the most common tests given to potential Parkinson’s patients are CT scans, blood tests, urine samples, and more. None of these tests are definitive, however (remember, no precise test?), and so it is up to the doctors reviewing these tests to decide what to make of them.

For some doctors, inconclusive test results may cause them to lean toward a Parkinson’s diagnosis. For other doctors, those same inconclusive results may cause them to lean away.

So what are more accurate predictor tests?

In particular, because Parkinson’s is a neurological disorder, you probably want systematic neurological assessments to play a role in your diagnosis. For instance, neurologists familiar with Parkinson’s will know to test your reflexes, balance, muscular strength and responsiveness. Additionally, it is not uncommon for a neurologist looking at the possibility of Parkinson’s to say they aren’t yet sure. They want to run more tests, or want to run more tests in the future to see if your symptoms develop further. Parkinson’s is not an easy diagnosis to make. As such, neurologists familiar with the disease will likely not rush into such a diagnosis.

Similarly, there are a whole range of neurological disorders that can present many of the same symptoms as Parkinson’s. As a result, a neurologist may want to be careful to eliminate or rule out some of those other neurological disorders.

As a general rule, the more careful and thorough your neurologist is in testing you,  the more comfortable you can be in their diagnosis.

Please do note, however, that you can always get a second opinion from a neurologist you trust if you don’t feel comfortable with your original neurologist.

Why is appropriate and early diagnosis so important?

Quite simply, because it is the key to better treatment. When earlier caught, treatment can begin earlier, and adjustments can be made to help preserve independence and a high quality of life. This might mean developing an early exercise routine that works, finding the pharmaceutical regimen that gives best results, and determining what level of physical therapy works best for you and your current symptoms.

What diseases are most often confused with Parkinson’s disease?

In particular, if you suspect you or a loved one may have Parkinson’s disease, these are some of the other diseases that may regularly be confused with Parkinson’s. You will want your neurologist to rule them out in testing:

Benign essential tremor
Brain tumor
Huntington’s disease
Multiple sclerosis
Multiple system atrophy
Striato-Nigral degeneration
Supranuclear palsy

Other diseases may also be confused with Parkinson’s, obviously, but the above list is some of the most common.

So ask your neurologist to be thorough. It’s more important that you are appropriately diagnosed, so you can get the care you need, than that you are diagnosed quickly.

Multiple Sclerosis – An infographic by GeriatricNursing.org

We are proud to announce our participation in this year’s LeadingAge PEAK leadership summit, held March 18–21 in Washington, D.C.

The Varsity team has gone all-in this year, hosting a basecamp at zone 5 of the event. The theme of our basecamp is “Telling your story: connecting with tomorrow’s discerning customer.” All of our presentations will cover topics that relate to how aging services providers will need to grow and adapt their messaging in the coming years.

Keynote presentations will include:

• “Positioning the Mission,” with Varsity President Wayne Langley
• “Connecting with Consumers,” with Rob Smith, creative director, and Jackie Stone, vice president of sales consulting — both of Varsity
• A panel discussion, hosted by Derek Dunham, Varsity’s vice president of client relations, where he will interview marketers to get their respective takes on how to get the most of an agency relationship
• Kevin Purcell, of WildFig, who will demonstrate how data-driven decision-making can change the way you do business

In between these sessions, the Varsity team will be on hand to meet and discuss these topics and more with all of the attendees. We invite you to stop by and say hello!

Following PEAK, we plan to make a selection of our presentations available via videos on our website, so if you can’t attend in-person, be sure to check back to catch the highlights of the event.

Earlier this week, Mozilla and Google announced changes to their internet browsing products and user accounts. These changes are empowering users who don’t want to see remarketing advertisements, such as display banners that are used to target advertising to previous website visitors. These changes are coming as a direct response from users who have shown a desire to have more control over their web browsing experience. By giving users the ability to control their ads, these companies hope to maintain their market share.

Of course, any time major changes like this are announced, blogs and writers try to look at the story from all angles, including from those who claim the sky is falling and that remarketing advertising is going to die out. After taking a look at the facts of the changes, we at Varsity are confident that this remarketing remains a viable means of reaching the right market for our clients.

First, let’s look at the actual announcement from Google:

Reminder ads like these can be useful, but if you aren’t shopping for Snow Boot Co.’s boots anymore, then you don’t need a reminder about them. A new control within Ads Settings will enable you to mute Snow Boot Co.’s reminder ads.

This position makes total sense. If someone isn’t interested in or shopping for an advertiser’s products anymore, then he or she should be able to turn off the remarketing ads. As an advertiser, this actually makes us very happy, because it means that our ads are getting smarter. Rather than serving an ad to someone who may no longer be interested, there is now a way for the person to opt out of the ads, ensuring that our ad dollars aren’t being spent on someone who we have no chance of converting.

This change is about quality over quantity and how organizations measure success. Ad impressions are one way to measure success, but they concentrate on quantity. If your key performance indicator (KPI) is serving more ads, then yes, this change is going to hurt your KPI, as your ad will be served less.

But, at Varsity, we believe in quality-based measures of success. If 1,000 people see your ad but don’t act on it, was it worth it? Or would you rather have 10 people see your ad, and three people make a connection with you? Of course, you’d prefer to have three out of 10, rather than zero out of 1,000.

By giving users the ability to say no to your ads, Google and Mozilla are actually helping organizations spend their ad dollars more efficiently. So, don’t let the reports fool you — this is an important change, but not one that you should be worried about. Remarketing ads will continue to be an effective way to keep your brand top of mind with your target audience.

Many aging services providers use Facebook as a means to engage with their current and future residents, families and supporters of the community. The platform has become a powerful tool for communities and marketers alike. But, after several years of building a quality Facebook presence, providers are now being warned about upcoming changes to how Facebook works, which can and will affect their accounts.

In a January 11, 2018, post to the Facebook blog, Adam Mosseri, head of News Feed at Facebook, announced that changes to the News Feed are being implemented. Says Mosseri, ”With this update, we will also prioritize posts that spark conversations and meaningful interactions between people. To do this, we will predict which posts you might want to interact with your friends about, and show these posts higher in the Feed. These are posts that inspire back-and-forth discussion in the comments…We will also prioritize posts from friends and family over public content…”

Obviously, these changes are going to be felt the most by organizations that operate a Facebook Page as part of their outreach efforts. Facebook expects that Pages will see their reach, video watch time and referral traffic decrease. While people will still see posts from pages they follow, Facebook will prioritize content that prompts conversation and interaction between users.

So, what can you do to ensure that your posts will still be seen by your target audience? Here are our top tips for keeping your content in front of your followers:

1. Make your content engaging. We can’t stress this enough. The days of just posting a pretty picture or trying to promote an upcoming marketing event are over. Your content needs to elicit a response from your audience. Before you make a post, ask yourself, “Does this post inspire me to leave a comment or share it?” If it doesn’t, then you should go back to the drawing board.
2. But don’t beg for engagement. Facebook announced that it will algorithmically degrade content that asks for engagement. This means that you shouldn’t end your post with, “Please leave a comment” or “Make sure to Like and share.” Again, your goal is to inspire this behavior organically.
3. Use a mix of words and media to garner a response. Every post you make should have a picture or video attached. Studies have repeatedly shown that text-only posts receive far less engagement. However, this doesn’t mean that you can ignore the words that go along with the post. The corresponding text needs to be descriptive enough that someone who has no knowledge of the topic being presented could be moved to engage.

Facebook has a history of making changes to its platform that are initially resisted by the user base but, over time, have proven effective, making for a better user experience. We believe this round of changes will be in the same vein, requiring us to adapt to a changing paradigm that will make us smarter and more effective marketers in the future.

Since the 1990s, divorce among adults 50+ has doubled, according to a Pew Research poll. People under the age of 50 have seen declining divorce rates, but later-in-life divorce (often termed “grey divorce”) continues to climb. Many researchers are studying why this is occurring, while families and senior living communities are on the frontlines, dealing with the real-life fallout from the ending of marriages.

Before we can understand how to handle grey divorces, we should probably understand the reasons why they are happening. An article on HuffPost, dated September 2015, actually laid out a pros and cons list for those who are “di-curious” and considering a divorce after 50. Reasons cited in favor of divorce included the ability to more easily meet new people (such as when moving into a retirement community), rediscovering of one’s sense of self, new sexual experiences and a freedom to engage in new hobbies that the previous spouse may not have been interested in. Of course, the cons list included issues like loneliness, feeling out of place among married friends and having to handle all of life’s challenges alone after many years of interdependent marriage.

With all of this in mind, we generally see a couple of trends for the reasons that people get divorced after 50. First, as attitudes toward divorce have changed in America, so have the attitudes of those growing older. The stigma of divorce used to be strong; today, it’s become more normalized. As such, older adults now feel less social pressure to remain in relationships that aren’t working for them. Of course, these divorces are enabled by “irreconcilable differences,” the modern catch-all phrase for when couples can’t seem to get along anymore. With children out of the nest, and the daily grind of work coming to an end, many couples find that spending so much time together in retirement is much harder than they had anticipated. They realize just how far they’ve grown apart and start to consider life beyond the marriage. Of course, these kinds of conversations can and do happen after a couple moves into a retirement community, creating a very murky situation, indeed.

Another sad trend that directly affects grey divorce and senior living is financial issues. There are more than a few instances where being divorced leads to a better financial situation for those involved. When nursing expenses become income-based, and one spouse was the breadwinner for years, the couple can be left holding a bill they weren’t prepared to pay. If divorced, those costs could be significantly reduced. What a terrible option this must be — pay to keep your marriage alive or divorce and keep yourself out of the poorhouse!

So, with all of this in mind, what can aging services providers do to help?

First, recognize that just because a couple has been married for 25, 30 or even 40+ years, there may still be issues in that relationship that you can’t control or understand. Everyone loves to say, “Awwww!” when they see an older couple holding hands, but for every couple like that, there is another that struggles to stay together every day. Having your pastoral care staff and social workers prepared to deal with marital issues in retirement is a great first step in providing resources for your residents.

We also advise that directors, admissions and marketing associates have a standardized plan in place for when a couple decides they are going to divorce after moving into the community. How will you handle the finances? Who moves out? What happens to the apartment or cottage? Taking a little time to think about these issues before they arise not only helps your organization better manage the situation, but it makes the transition easier and more respectful for the residents in question.

While the grey divorce trend can be unsettling for community managers, adult children and other residents of a community, it is an issue that is on the rise. We would like to think that every relationship will be able to grow and mature into retirement, but we know that not all will. It behooves aging services professionals to understand and plan for these changes now, before they are presented with them.

Sources:
http://www.griswoldhomecare.com/blog/3-reasons-why-seniors-are-getting-divorced/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barry-gold/gray-divorce_b_8045840.html?utm_hp_ref=fifty&ir=Fifty
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/03/09/led-by-baby-boomers-divorce-rates-climb-for-americas-50-population/

I once worked at a large retirement community. The residents came from all walks of life and had very diverse views of the world. One day, I was talking with a couple just prior to election season. With politics consuming the media, it made sense that the topic became part of the conversation. I knew this couple had fairly liberal views, while many others in the community tended to be conservative. I asked them how they adapted socially during the election.

“Well, we just avoid people that we know will want to talk politics and disagree with us. Many of our neighbors sit and watch Fox News all day. We aren’t going to change their opinions, and they won’t change ours. So, why go through the exercise? It’s just easier to avoid it. Like during meals, we know which tables not to sit at or near,” said the woman.

During my time at that community, it wasn’t uncommon for political officials to make campaign stops on the campus. With more than 1,000 residents and staff, it was an excellent location for getting your name out there. Plus, we all know that older Americans are more likely to vote and generally spend more time learning about issues that affect them (such as health care). Knowing all this, what politician wouldn’t want to swing by a retirement community full of potentially influential voters? The administration also enjoyed having candidates and office holders visit the community because it buoyed the community’s reputation and provided an opportunity for free lobbying about issues involving aging services. Naturally, these visits focused the political spotlight — if even just for a short time — and got residents and employees talking.

As aging services organizations like LeadingAge devote ever-increasing budgets to lobbying, the role of politics continues to balloon. This puts residents and providers into sometimes unenviable positions. For example, an administrator may want to have lunch with a local representative to talk about issues relating to her community. Meanwhile, the residents hear about this and ask why she’s supporting a candidate that doesn’t match their views. Perhaps the residents even ask the administrator what her political leanings are, which could only exacerbate the issue, leading to a harmful situation.

While it’s not a topic that many think about, senior bullying is a very real problem, and politics are one way it comes out. Think back to the woman at the start of this story. She said that she avoids people who want to talk politics. She is being forced to change her behavior to avoid uncomfortable situations induced by others. Is this bullying? Probably not, but it’s easy to see how residents could become so vocal in their views that it intimidates others and rises to the level of bullying.

So, with all this being said, what can providers and marketers do to help these situations? Start by settig the tone from the top — and we mean the very top! The board of directors and administration need to be on the same page, regardless of what that page might be. Most human resources departments have policies in place regarding political activities while at work, but it can never hurt to go back and ensure that it covers all the bases. For instance, does it include guidance on how to deal with political activities from residents? All of this should be done with one goal in mind — and that’s creating a culture of civility between everyone on your campus.

Politics are part of life in America. We can’t ignore them, and we shouldn’t expect our residents and employees to, either. However, we can and should discuss proper boundaries around the topic and be proactive in creating civil spaces on our campuses. Politics, by nature, will always be divisive, but that doesn’t mean they have to divide our communities.

As communications professionals in the world of marketing, the way we frame language around our products is very important. In the digital realm, it becomes vital — especially in a world of search engine marketing and optimization that’s driven by customer vocabulary. Through this, users influence how organizations market themselves; meanwhile, providers try to influence a user’s search language by changing industry-accepted terms.

A great example of this is the term “Continuing Care Retirement Community.” It was adopted by the aging services field, but over time, it failed to truly describe what consumers want. Recently, the industry leaders (including our team at Varsity) pulled together to recommend the term “Life Plan Community” be adopted as a more aspirational term for the Boomers. Let’s pull back a bit further and think critically about how we continue to use language as senior living marketers.

If you perform a Google search for retirement communities or senior living options, you’ll generally run into two euphemisms used by marketers — “luxury” and “affordable.” I ask myself, if I were in the market for aging services, what do these terms say to me?

Luxury — “Luxury means the finest amenities and high-end dining” or, perhaps, “Do I have enough money to afford this property?”

Versus

Affordable — “Oh, great. A community that won’t break the bank and that I could actually afford” or, perhaps, “I guess I’ll settle for whatever an affordable community has because I can’t afford luxury.”

There are upsides and downsides to how we interpret these shorthand phrases. Certainly, marketers like them because they force consumers to self-segment. Those without assets will naturally avoid luxury, and those with money wouldn’t be interested in the more limited offerings found in the affordable space. Certainly, as we manage search engine marketing campaigns, providers often identify “affordable” as a negative keyword, meaning that if a user enters that phrase in his or her search, an ad will not be shown because the organization assumes that the user can’t afford its offerings.

Maybe you’re like us, and you’ve noticed something missing. Yes, just like the rest of America, we’re forgetting the middle class. Middle class used to be something everyone aspired to. It was a positive to be middle class, and people were proud of that label. Today, it seems that if you aren’t part of the upper, then you’re just part of the lower. When did that change? When did aging services stop engaging with the middle class?

For instance, let’s look at these search terms from Google Trends. This data is only for the United States, over the last 12 months, and shows the popularity of each phrase when it comes to searches:

The blue bar is “affordable senior living.”

The red bar is “luxury senior living.”

The yellow bar at the bottom is “middle class senior living.”

As you can see, no one searches for “middle class senior living.” There are plenty of reasons why this may be, but certainly it’s not a term used by providers to market their products. No one wants to be labeled “middle class,” it seems. What, then, is the term used by average Americans to find a middle-of-the-road community? In this case, there isn’t a universal answer — and, in my mind, that’s an opportunity.

While many communities are focusing on luxury and are trying to bring in asset-laden residents, there’s a strong middle class, driven by Baby Boomers, that are going to be looking for a retirement option. If providers can find a way to cater to this segment, they could potentially have much to gain. Marketers need to begin working now to define what middle class retirement accommodations look like and educate potential residents on how to find them.

Language is an amazingly powerful tool. As marketing professionals, we have a way of impacting how people perceive and interact with the products we make. No one would describe an Apple product as an affordable brand, but many do think of it as a luxury. Yet, for many Americans, it’s a luxury they can afford and represents a certain amount of prestige and status.

As we look to the future of marketing in the senior space, how do we capitalize on this and tell middle class Americans that a quality retirement experience is a luxury they, too, can afford?

That’s something that we, at Varsity, are thinking quite a lot about.