With the stock market in turmoil and housing in a slump, appliance manufacturers are taking the long view and retooling their offerings for aging baby boomers.
In the kitchen, General Electric Co. is designing ovens with easier-to-open doors and automatic shut-off burners. A joint venture of Germany’s Bosch and Siemens AG has introduced a glass cook top for its premium Thermador brand designed to prevent boil-overs. In the bathroom, Moen is trumpeting new grab bars that can support a 350-pound person, and Kohler is devising easier-to-handle faucet levers. Minnesota-based Truth Hardware reports booming sales for its remote-controlled window motors.
The offerings are largely geared for the roughly 76 million baby boomers — born between 1946 and 1964 — who control the biggest share of purchasing power for the roughly $25 billion U.S. appliance market. And many of these people are demanding appliances that help them cope with the aches, pains and other infirmities they confront as they grow older. In addition, more than half of Americans are expected to have elder-care responsibilities within 10 years, and many will likely want their homes to be senior-friendly.
Certified Age in Place Specialists. The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) grants this designation to remodelers, occupational therapists, designers and other professionals who want to specialize in the field of home modifications for seniors and others who desire to age in place.
In an article for the Chicago Sun-Times, David Mack writes :
In a three-day training course required to earn the designation, “the first day is working with and marketing to older adults,” said James Lapides of the NAHB. Role-playing is an essential part of this process, including sensitivity training.
“Remodelers will don sunglasses covered with petroleum jelly to simulate poor eyesight, grasp a tennis ball in each hand and cover each hand with an athletic sock to simulate arthritis, all the while trying to move around in walkers or wheelchairs,” he said. The second and third days focus on technical solutions and business practices.
Jeremy Hanson of Independent Living Solutions in Chicago took the training course. What he learned from the program are the correct techniques and methods for creating accessible living environments for aging seniors.
Successful aging is not an oxymoron. First the textbook definition (from “The Realities of Aging, Kinsey/Kart): “aging in which external factors either have a neutral role or counteract the effects of internal aging processes, resulting in little or no decrements in functioning.” Whew. What does that mean?
The AARP Healthy@Home study, which surveyed 907 seniors between 65 and 84, helps boil that down to plain English. They asked responders to identify both the importance and their satisfaction with attributes of successful aging, shown here in descending order of importance, with the first column the percentage who ranked the attribute as very important and the second column indicates the percentage that said they were completely satisfied with that aspect of their life:
