With age comes wisdom, but sometimes it is accompanied by a long list of possible age-related health problems, from restricted mobility to heart disease and difficulty hearing and seeing. Aging might be inescapable, but it doesn’t mean that our health has to suffer.
Join a distinguished panel, including University of Chicago experts William Dale, section chief of Geriatrics & Palliative Medicine, and Louise Hawkley, senior research scientist with the National Opinion Research Center, for How to be Healthy When You’re Older, a discussion of the latest research and developments that can help maintain health and quality of life as aging progresses. The discussion also will explore the physical and emotional side of aging, and how to manage complications from illnesses with medical providers.
The program, hosted by the Chicago Council for Science and Technology, will take place on Feb. 5, from 6-8 p.m., in Northwestern University’s Hughes Auditorium, 303 E. Superior St. The reception starts at 5 p.m. The award-winning TV news veteran and world-class senior triathlete, Elizabeth Brackett, will moderate the discussion.
The event is free and open to the public.
Speakers:
Louise Hawkley, senior research scientist with the NORC, is an internationally recognized expert on loneliness and its health consequences across the adult lifespan. She has studied middle- to older-age adults enrolled in the longitudinal “Chicago Health, Aging, and Social Relations Study,” and has extended her research to more advanced ages. She continues to study risk factors for loneliness, with a goal of identifying intervention targets to reduce the prevalence and intensity of lonely feelings in older adults.
William Dale, associate professor of medicine and the section chief of Geriatrics & Palliative Medicine, is board-certified in geriatrics and palliative medicine, with a PhD in health policy. Dale serves as the director of the John A. Hartford Center of Excellence in Geriatrics, and the Specialized Oncology Care & Research in the Elderly Clinic. Dale is an international speaker, publishing more than 90 publications in top journals on geriatric oncology, medical decision making, behavioral economics, quality of life and frailty assessment in older adults.
Wojtek Chodzko-Zajko, the Shahid and Ann Carlson Khan Professor in Applied Health Sciences, and head of Kinesiology and Community Health at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has focused for the past 25 years on the effect of exercise and physical activity on health and quality of life in old age. Chodzko‑Zajko served on the World Health Organization committee that developed the “WHO Guidelines for Physical Activity among Older Persons,” and chaired the writing group that authored the “American College of Sports Medicine’s Position Stand on Physical Activity and Exercise for Older Adults.”
Moderator:
Elizabeth Brackett currently serves as correspondent and substitute host for WTTW11’s nightly public affairs program Chicago Tonight. She co-hosted WTTW11’s science series Chicago Tomorrow and served as local correspondent for the PBS program, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. Prior to joining WTTW, Brackett served as a general assignment reporter for WLS-TV, WGN-TV and Radio and WBBM-TV. Brackett has won two Midwest Emmy Awards and a National Peabody Award for her television reporting. She is a four-time world champion triathlete, winning the ITU World Championship for her age group. She came in second in the world in 2013.
Registration is requsted for the event: https://www.c2st.org/civicrm/event/register?reset=1&id=16
—Prof. Kunle Odunsi
