Stay up to date with our Up First newsletter, sent every weekday morning.Ailene Gerhardt hears a lot of stories.It's all part of her job.
She's a patient advocate, helping people navigate their care and the complexities of the healthcare system.During the last several years she's heard from more and more people getting older without adult children, a spouse, or both.
But the healthcare system remains stuck in the past, she says, assuming older people have family to support them, when that's often not the case.Gerhardt started and runs a network called Navigating Solo, which offers support and community to this group of older adults, often referred to as "solo agers.""Instead of looking at the concept of solo aging as something that's a crisis to be solved — it's not a crisis to be solved," she says."It's a reality to be supported."That reality is growing as Baby Boomers and Gen Xers age.
According to a 2023 AARP report, one in ten adults over age 50 lives alone and doesn't have a partner or children.Different lifestyles and changing societal attitudes suggest these numbers will grow in the future.
Plenty of people are single by choice.Gerhardt says right now, solo agers are expected to take the lead in planning for their housing, finances, and transportation to appointments, often by hiring professionals to help them.But rather than feeling like the odd ones out in systems that cater to couples and families, she says, why can't the systems themselves be more inclusive of solo agers?To take one example: instead of assuming every patient has someone who can pick them up from a medical appointment after being under anesthesia — and drive them home — she'd like the onus to be on hospitals and medical offices to arrange transport and an escort.
She says she has heard from people who have canceled a procedure because their ride backed out at the last minute."In both my solo aging advocacy hat and my healthcare advocate [hat], like, that is just infuriating," sh...