There's No Aging in Vegas!

Wesley Knight 0:00
This is a k u and v studios original program. The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jazz and more the University of Nevada Las Vegas or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education

Pat Landaker 0:22
you're listening to there's no aging in Vegas a one stop shop for all things positive aging in the Vegas valley in any place within ears reach. This show features topics relevant to adults 50 And over, that help them live their lives to the fullest. listeners will meet a variety of residents who have taken the reins of aging, and are willing to share their tips and tools for creating a positive mindset and lifestyle. Or starting now.

Hello, and welcome to there's no aging in Vegas. I'm your host, Pat Landecker. And I want to tell you, why is there no aging in Vegas, because we're too busy living and loving life. I created this show so that I could help older adults embrace aging, take the reins of aging and live life to the fullest. This is truly my dream manifested into reality. So I'm glad you're all here. This is episode two, episode one. I want to thank my guest, Ron Garrett, he did an amazing job, Mr. Vegas entertainment, radio. That's how we kicked it off. And our guest today is no exception. He's going to share with us his knowledge of healthy aging, brain health. And we're gonna talk about a whole lot of other things. So stay tuned for that. But before we get there, we have our AARP five minutes. And I want to welcome Renee, are you there?

Renee 2:03
I'm here.

Pat Landaker 2:05
Hey, how are you doing?

Renee 2:07
Fine. How are you? Pat, thanks for having me today.

Pat Landaker 2:10
Well, thank you for joining me. You know, you're one of the mega volunteers over there at AARP. You've done everything I just saw you at CES. You were walking over at Towne Center, you know, with the group, the members from AARP. I mean, can you just tell us, cuz you do so many programs, tell us about some of the programs that you run in host?

Renee 2:31
Well, thank you, Pat, I am so excited to be working with AARP volunteering. One of my biggest things I'd love to do is working on the speaker's bureau. And that gives me the opportunity to do presentations across the community.

Pat Landaker 2:46
Well give me an example like what kind of speakers bureaus, topics do they have?

Renee 2:53
Well, some of the topics include brain health, making sense of caregiving, providing resources for caregiving, and also giving them an opportunity to get out of the house and to learn new things. And also we have fraud, the fraud Watch Network, and I get to do many, many sessions on identity theft and fraud. My favorite one is online romance scams.

Pat Landaker 3:17
Why is that your favorite one?

Renee 3:20
You know, when I, I got interested in online, reading and watching videos about different online scams, and then lo and behold, AARP had the opportunity for me to start learning more and training others about it. Wow,

Pat Landaker 3:33
that's fantastic. I know you have a lot of fun. What did you see? I'm just curious, when you were at CES, what did you see? That was just like you couldn't believe that we're headed that way. In terms of age technology.

Renee 3:46
Yes, one of my favorite things was the glasses that read captions that is near and dear to my heart, so I can put on that pair of glasses and talk to you. And our conversation is going across the glasses. That was one of my favorite Wow, products there.

Pat Landaker 4:03
Wow, that's really amazing. When you are out and you're doing your training. Well, first of all, till you have to be a member right to take any of the AARP classes.

Renee 4:15
No, you do not have to be a member of AARP classes are open to anyone, any age, anyone can participate. You do not have to be a member. That's the great thing about it. And you get such great resources. Yeah,

Pat Landaker 4:28
yeah, I know. I mean, I you know, I was the speaker for AARP Nevada, up in Reno and here in Vegas last year, and I was really kind of surprised as Charlie got up. You know, Charlie is the state director who does a lot of the legislative stuff, but I was really surprised when he got up and talked about all the many different nuanced programs that AARP have is there. I know that you're going to be involved in a new program. That joy Jenkins, the president of AARP have kind of put together from her book. And it's disrupt aging. Tell me a little bit about that you had to get the training for it.

Renee 5:08
Yes, I have to say certified to be an instructor for this disrupt aging classroom. And it is an opportunity for us to go Vizu into colleges and universities across the nation to teach college students about the trends in aging, and also their personal stake in aging. And so it's a great opportunity for me to go forward and talk to college students all across the country.

Pat Landaker 5:35
Yeah. And it's multi generational. They're just starting visibly starting at the college and community level, right?

Renee 5:43
Yes, yes, they're starting to they're now bringing it into the community and doing a little bit shifts a two and a half hour course. They're breaking it down into a 30 minute to an hour course to the community just to talk about the trends and aging and the the effects that we're having on the community because there's so many different generations living today. And so it's such a great opportunity to teach others about aging. Well,

Pat Landaker 6:07
you know, I've always said when I'm teaching my classes, I always say that if aging was taught from the beginning, if kids grew up understanding aging, and respecting aging, and realizing that we're all aging, it would really be different. So this is going to really help that. What do you think about that program? Pres.

Renee 6:28
Look, I'm a longtime fan of AAA or AARP, there's just amazing information that you get in an information rich world. They are like, they're the mountain. They're the mountain that you go to to get the information from it. But particularly that program is very exciting. Because I agree with you wholeheartedly. If we started teaching people about what aging actually meant, from the beginning, from from the from a young age, you would understand because aging occurs across the lifespan. It's not just the end of lifespan. It's across the lifespan, you need to understand and appreciate it and think about what you go through what others go through the people that you care for the people in your community. So absolutely fantastic. Yeah,

Pat Landaker 7:08
yeah. Well, there you go, Renee, you got the the president of UNLV is approval of the program, will I'm gonna really be looking forward to watching that come out. I think it's just back east now. But it'll be nice to get it here and be able to really get people trained up on that. So but Renee, go ahead. Yes, go ahead.

Renee 7:30
I was gonna say it's a growing program. And yeah, it's starting to move our way. Yeah.

Pat Landaker 7:35
No, I really appreciate you coming on. You know, you do so much for AARP. I mean, you're the photographer. Every time I do anything, you're there snapping photos. And I know that you always tell me that this is in your retirement, you couldn't have found a better retirement partner than AARP. What has meant the most to you about your relationship with them?

Renee 7:59
Being new to the state, AARP, like you said, just being a photographer gives me an opportunity to meet people and to make new friends, I get to learn about what people are doing, I get to see other events and participate in other events that I wouldn't, you know, maybe be able to get into, but because I'm the photographer, or I'm helping lead an event, I get to participate. And so it's just a great opportunity to move into different spaces. And that's what I love. Yeah, being involved in lots of different things. Well, you

Pat Landaker 8:28
certainly are out there doing it all. And I really appreciate you coming and taking the time today, Renee to come on and represent AARP and the AARP five. And so I'm gonna let you get back to your life. And thank you again for coming on.

Renee 8:46
Thank you for having me. I'm not here living my best life. Pat, thank you.

Pat Landaker 8:49
I know you are you soon Bye, bye. Thanks. All right. Well, there you go. I mean, you know, so many resources that come out of AARP, when I've gone to conventions when they're represented there. It's amazing all the different areas that they focus on. I mean, Native American, this LBGT Q that I mean, it's just so packed with stuff. But anyway, let's move away from that and get over to my guest, the president of UNLV Dr. Keith Whitfield, I am so thankful that you were able to make it I know you're busy and everything. But I thought maybe if I push that agent thing because we love that, that I can get him over here. I want to take a minute before we start talking. I want to just read a little bit about you. I was gonna highlight like I normally do some things about you out of this bio, but then I thought no, just read it. So Keith II will Whitfield is an experienced university administrator and prolific scholar in the fields of cycle psychology, Health and Ageing. President Whitfield joined UNLV in August 2020, after serving as provost, Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs and professor of psychology at Wayne State in Michigan. He previously served as Vice Provost for Academic Affairs at Duke University, where he was also a professor in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience and co director of the University's Center on behavior bio behavioral health disparities research. A student's success focus leader whitfill is proud to oversee one of the nation's most diverse universities for undergraduates and one of one that holds the highest recognition for both research and community engagement in 2021, he introduced top tier 2.0, a strategic plan, update that moves UNLV forward on its path to becoming a top public urban research university through focused growth in undergraduate and graduate students success, economic diversification, community engagement, and diversity, equity and inclusion. He has such an as an interdisciplinary approach to faculty hiring, excuse me, and research and the introduction of the first ever digital president to connect and meet with the needs of the student. And I'm going to leave you right there, I'm going to have his bio on my website, so you can read more about him. But I want to stop at the digital, I want to ask you, who has the best personality? You were the digital version?

Keith Whitfield 11:34
You know, it's funny, I think the digital version is better looking. You know, they cleaned it up a little bit, but I don't. And he knows a lot. But I don't know if he knows more than me. I think we don't want to be on like Jeopardy and have to go back and forth. Because he might be

Pat Landaker 11:48
depending on here. You know, I went on there just yesterday, because I thought well, let me check out this digital president. And I was really shocked at, you know, the Oh avatar, they kind of look kind of robotic. You look like you know what I've seen in person. It sounds like you. And I just was like, wow, this is great. So I did ask it a couple of questions, because I wanted to kind of dive see how deep it would go. So my questions are all focused on older students and things like that. And I was shocked at how deep you could go. Because you're and I'm probably not going to say it right. But you ask at the end? Did I answer your question? Or do you need any more help or whatever like that? So I said, Well, let me get this going. Right. So I asked another question. And they all had the word aging adult or older adult or senior. And I'm because I want it to get there. And what I was hoping to get to, and it's probably there somewhere, because I teach over at UNLV. Ali, I wanted it to say, a great resource for you. Because all my questions were about learning would be our you know, Bs Ali, you know, long Lifelong Learning Institute,

Keith Whitfield 12:50
it should have said that, and I have made a mental note to make sure. You know, it's so funny. We live in this time when we're both excited and scared of artificial intelligence. And a couple of years back when when I wanted to try to connect with students, and they were distant, they weren't here on campus like they are now that was going to be the method to be able to do it. And so we embraced it. But you do see that it's not perfect. It's not me. I'm not perfect either. But it's not me. And it's always learning. So actually, you using it helped it to learn more. Yeah. So I'm going to now plug into our AI guys to say, hey, you know, it needs to have this as an answer. So we'll put the answer. And then it'll connect to 5000 different things. So it's amazing. Wow, well,

Pat Landaker 13:35
I'm glad I was able to pull that I'm gonna run over to all the until everybody but know that it was really well done. And, and and just really intelligent. And that's what really took me aback. And so I'm sure students with regular questions, I'll call them are getting their questions answered with that, but I thought it was awesome. I really did. Thanks, right, we need an aging, digital aging or something like that we're seniors, because you know, we have so many different products that do AI, but they're also separate, you know, one for this one for your doctor, whenever we need just one. We're just people who are living and actively living can go on and ask those same questions. But thank you for letting me ask that that wasn't in the questions. So let's get to the questions I did send you and I just wanted to know when did you realize that you wanted to focus on brain health and aging?

Keith Whitfield 14:30
Well, you know, it's interesting. It's like what happens for a lot of people it was a personal experience. When I was in graduate school, and I was trying to figure out exactly where my focus was going to be in psychology and adult development. My grandfather passed away my grandfather was he had a he had a third grade education, but he was the smartest man that I that I'd ever met. You know, he could argue anything and he could argue, and when he passed away passed away from pretty significant heart condition. And there were no All connections, but I thought, shouldn't we have known something beforehand. And so one of the foci, in my graduate department was looking at the relationship between health and cognition. And I really wanted to learn more about that and actually thought about it, that I not only wanted to study it, I wanted to study it and African Americans, partly because of the differences that we find in terms of health outcomes, and life expectancy. And they tell you the honest truth, because nobody else was doing it at the time. So I wanted to be in a space, right and have to compete with too many other people. So back then, and it's funny, somebody just told me the other day that they think that I wrote the first paper on black cognition, and aging. And I said, Well, I'm not that old. It doesn't seem like you know, how's it can that be, but it's that, you know, in this was in the 90s, in the mid 90s, was one of the first scientific papers anyway. Wow.

Pat Landaker 15:50
So your focus started pretty early on, did you grow up seeing healthy aging? family relatives, you know, immunity?

Keith Whitfield 15:59
I did. But, you know, now that I'm a gerontologist. And actually, my latest project is on longevity, and to see African Americans living into their hundreds, you know, I thought they were old because they were living into their 60s. Yeah. And so, you know, part of it is a perception of what is old. But it was always that I had role models, who were seniors, who were the ones who, they didn't let too much bother them. They, they they had always these words of wisdoms of you know, it's hard to be an eagle when you start with turkeys. And you know, we have a lot. Yeah, now that we know that when applied to a whole bunch of times, but lots of words of wisdom that I could live my life by and so very much so grandparents, and even they all live in Chicago, so we select when we went to Chicago, that was like the field trip. Yeah. And you you met all your relatives, and they range in and age and region and wisdom and where Asian and what they did. That was always exciting.

Pat Landaker 17:03
Well, you know, I'm just just real quick. I mean, have you found? Are we dealing better with mental health in terms of accepting it? Because, you know, a lot of times we just kind of deal with it ourselves. We have some healing methods or things we've used throughout the ages. Do you see that improving at all that we're accepting that kind of mental health help us but

Keith Whitfield 17:22
I do think that we're reducing the stigma that's associated with mental health problems. And I think about this across the lifespan. In my day job as President University, I'm very concerned about the mental health of the kids coming out of K through 12. As you know, we had a horrific incident on our campus that shone a light on a lot of frailty that people have, and struggles. I mean, that was a situation that no one should have to deal with. But, you know, we were already designing to be able to deal with stress, depression, anxiety, and isolation and loneliness. I call them the big four. Yeah. And so we were we were working towards that but I think as a society, we're getting a little better for aging. You know, outsiders disease, if you think about it's um, in in my lifetime, doctors used to not prescribe or or, or say that you had Alzheimer's disease, because insurance didn't cover, you had to have something else. So now we've embraced it, the National Institute of Aging in I think it was about five or six years ago, doubled their budget, just to focus to just focus on Alzheimer's disease and dementia related diseases. And what you're seeing is, is that investment is paid off. Well,

Pat Landaker 18:39
let me tell you, what I see. And I actually was going to speak with you about this is that now we're seeing all these commercials on TV. One, I want the audience to know that there's different kinds of dementia, of which Alzheimer's is one a lot of people think there's dimension and there's Alzheimer's. So I want to make that clear. But those commercials we're seeing on TV, I saw a Lewy Body commercial. I mean, that's Yeah, yeah. Just a regular commercial. You know, they they're showing if your parent isn't remembering or if you're forgetting things, have you seen any of those? It may be Alzheimer's and all this type of stuff. We didn't see that I don't even remember it two years ago. It

Keith Whitfield 19:19
is interesting that you're getting again, it's still the stigma that goes from when you take the stigma off, you can actually get to the real reality of what's going on if that. You said the point boy, I was about to say preach sister, but that there are different kinds of dementias and that we need to keep them in mind. I think sometimes we want to put everything under Alzheimer's disease and use it as a catch all. But there are different ones that affect people differently. Different ages, you can see something happen very early like front frontal frontal temporal dementia, cardiovascular dementia, Parkinson's dementia, there's lots of different types that come and intersect and have different comp locations to him some more depression than others, there's lots of things that we need to know. And that that allows us to be able to both care for others and even for us to be able to understand what we might be experiencing. So the knowledge, information that's coming out is to me, it's fantastic.

Pat Landaker 20:17
I love it, I just was so happy to see that because it does give people the opportunity to ask that question of their parent or their their child. I mean, whoever may be suffering from that I know my husband, he died of brain cancer. And he was suffering at the end a little bit of you know, cognition issues and different things on associated with the actual brain cancer, but of course, associated with the actual brain cancer. But anyway, thank you for letting me kind of sidestep on that, because I want people to know, these commercials, they're seeing that, you know, they're kind of a sending you a message. Now look, I forget stuff every time I go downstairs, I'm not sure if I have something or not. But anyway, I wanted to ask you. So this show is all about aging, and how its looks in his lived in the valley. Does the culture and attitude here differ from other places you've lived in when it comes to aging?

Keith Whitfield 21:09
I tell you, I have not run any of my studies here. Although, you know, don't give me two seconds. I loved I love to collect data. But I think it does look different. Compared to some other places like thinking have spent time in Detroit and spent time in North Carolina did work in Baltimore. One of the things is that, I think that there's a bit more healthy active aging going on here. And it's partly because of our weather. Now, granted, there's three months that nobody wants to be outside, but still you can go outside versus when I think of actually living in Pennsylvania, this stretch of time, when it's actually dangerous to be outside, it's dangerous to be shoveling snow. If you're older, because of the physical exertion that it takes. We have the ability to do it, it doesn't mean that you do but you have the ability to do it. So that is a benefit. I think, too. There's something about the sunshine that hopefully changes our attitudes and make them a little bit more positive. I've been, this is nothing I've collected data on this just observation. No,

Pat Landaker 22:12
I get it because I moved here from Denver, when my husband passed away, it didn't take me very long to realize I never shoveled the snow before. So that was one like, I got to go somewhere. And we were going to retire here anyway. So it was just happened sooner than I expected. But yeah, you know, it makes a big difference, those types of things that you may have to do. But I'm curious, so is Vegas conducive to healthy aging? With all that comes with it?

Keith Whitfield 22:43
You know, I, I think that we are definitely getting there. You know, one of the things when you find places, when you look at whatever is this USA Today that talks about, you know, the best places to be able to live and retire. There's a few things that tend to be in common. One of them is is is activities and other one is is transportation. Another one is health care. And we're getting better at all of those. I mean, you know, activities. This is the entertainment capital. Yeah, just amazing. But I think once a health care, this is one of the things that UNLV is deeply, deeply committed to it's it's what we are designed to do. And as part of our mission is to be able to improve healthcare for the valley. I think that that's happening. We have great partners like the NHBC, with the university, Medical Center, UMC, all of these are starting to work together to be able to build a much healthier culture, that that starts from when they're babies to basically being able to talk to take care of people as we grow older. So I think that it's hitting those different little things that get measured as a great place to live. But I love it. You know, I've been here for four years now, I find this place so welcoming, and warm. That's a piece of a good community is when you can know that not everybody got to be perfect. And be the just the friendliest person. But that this is just it's a friendly community that lives here. And I think that that's another problem.

Pat Landaker 24:12
And I think it has a lot to do with the transient population. They're got people from everywhere, I mean, every country every everywhere, and that's very conducive to you know, acceptance and different things like that. So I completely agree with you on that point. And that's what I've kind of discovered because I, I do programs for aging. I teach aging, I write a monthly column in the Vegas police magazine, which is a magazine that's been around for like 20 years for 50 plus people here. And so I kind of live and breathe that and I have the opportunity to meet a lot of people and hear what their feelings are and their thoughts are on particular things in terms of aging and what they would like to see better. You know, I do a lot of emotional intelligence classes because I've determined that's the Great connector for seniors as we age, and we don't understand why we just snapped on somebody. I mean, the things that change in our brain that maybe shift how we approach certain things, and that class seems to help a lot there. But let me continue with my questions as I don't want to make you late. So how do I know you spoke a little bit about how race and healthy aging intersect, and you seem to believe that things are improving, especially in our community, but with other cultures? You know, do you think the fact that a lot of cultures, it's, it's it's in their culture to have the parent come live with them, check on them, make sure they're good, it's just a natural occurrence that, you know, once they get old, you're gonna take care of them. I mean, the mindset seems to be very different culturally, there

Keith Whitfield 25:57
are variations and cultural expectations about how we treat our older adults. And some of that is being changed. I mean, it used to be, for example, that in Japan, there was this really strong culture that the you know, oldest son would take care, while the oldest son is doing different things now, so it's having to be distributed differently, the same interesting variations in China. There's interesting variations here as well, even I think, geographically, when you think about the North versus the South, that in the south. And it really does depend on what's going on, on in the family, if the family is broken apart to experience and to move away and to capitalize on opportunities that are there. Once that family is broken up from where it used to be, which used to be, you know, we would be regional people can live across the country now. Some of that actually changed the expectations change. One of the things that I think is a relatively recent, be very hard, because I think it's very recent, is that with the ability to be able to work anywhere, I think for older people, they can live closer to the grandchildren. And for adults who need to take care of their parents, they may be much more likely and be able to take care of their parents and be closer, because they're not constrained by where they can work where they have to work. So we're going to see all of that changing. And then these next few years, you know, we're post COVID. And it has changed the way in which we live, and that we take care of others.

Pat Landaker 27:20
Well post Yeah, COVID. I mean, that changed a lot, because that brought a lot of family members back into the same household. And then I think families discovered, hey, this ain't so bad. You know, because they have all these sandwich generations, right and living together and helping each other. And that's really a great thing. So hey, let me just ask real quick, my director, I have two minutes left. So I just want to ask you quickly, because it's been fascinating to speak with you. What's ahead in your next five years?

Keith Whitfield 27:48
What's ahead, my next fight? What

Pat Landaker 27:50
are you going to invent your Creator?

Keith Whitfield 27:53
Well, one of the things is I have data that from us study, there's really just tailoring down and it's time to write papers from it. And it's on longevity, and African American families long lived in short lived families and taking a look and seeing what impact stress has on on on the discontinuity of living in those families. I am very much so hopeful and looking forward to staying at the university. And there's so much we can do here. This is an incredible university and incredible place, the dynamic changes that you're seeing, you're seeing both in the city but you're seeing at the university too. I want to see the university grow. There's I have a whole lot. There's, I do my State of the University address on March 5, and so you'll have a lot I'll talk about them. But it's it's it's just trying to meet the challenges that come up. And so some of it is planned and some of it you just gotta go

Pat Landaker 28:47
with what you'd like it that way, just kind of going if I

Keith Whitfield 28:51
do I think being a military brat, you kind of are used to kind of go on with the flow challenges. And Justin Yeah.

Pat Landaker 28:58
Well, it's been such a pleasure to have you here. And I just couldn't believe it when I was reading up on you and just realizing how deep you are into aging because I live, breathe and eat aging. So it's really been a super, I'm very grateful for this opportunity. And I've learned quite a few things. For me. It was well, well,

Keith Whitfield 29:17
thank you. And thank you for what you're doing for the community too, because our aging population here is growing. And so with that growth needs to be knowledge needs to be care needs to be creating that community and you're doing that. So thank you.

Pat Landaker 29:28
Thank you. I pray everybody hear that? Okay. Hey, I want to thank everybody for joining me today on the show. Thank you again, and I'll see you on the next show. sponsorship for

Wesley Knight 29:39
this program was provided by AARP Nevada, AARP Nevada helps more than 345,000 members live their best lives. AARP Nevada offers news information and resources on the issues that matter most to older adults, including fraud, caregiving and Social Security. For more information or to volunteer aarp.org backslash Nevada