Summer 2003
Introduction

The Mobile Elder: Getting Around in Later Life

By Jeff Finn and Harvey L. Sterns, guest editors

From the front porch of his one-room wooden cabin in Wolff County, Kentucky, the man looks across the holler in the direction of his car sitting on the side of the country road half a mile away. A bilateral amputee below the knees, the man is a testament to the power of mobility, the inner drive to stay connected to community, the connection between mobility and self-reliance.

On this morning--and several times each week--he rolls his wheelchair to the edge of the porch, whistles, and waits. In a few minutes, his mule, Betsy, walks to the edge of the porch, and he positions his wheelchair next to her. The cabin has no wheelchair ramp. Once he grasps the rope halter, he swings his leg stumps over the back of the mule and rides across the creek to his car.

Achieving and maintaining mobility enables us to participate fully and meaningfully in the activities of our lives.

After sidling into the car, he uses his tobacco stick to control the gas and brake, and he heads into town to collect groceries and mail. Pulling onto the main street of town, the man stops outside the grocery store and honks his car horn. The clerk soon comes out with the satchel of groceries and mail. By mid-day, the man has returned home and settled back to life in the holler.

Movement. Freedom. Growth. Movement is at the center of our life journey. Movement links us to our families, our communities, and ourselves. Movement supports our needs for exploration and, in doing so, expands our physical, social, and spiritual universe.

This issue of Generations, "The Mobile Elder," examines the many ways that the ability of older adults to get around defines and shapes their world. Their concept of self, their relationships with family and friends, their continuing connection and contribution to their communities--all are affected. As for most Americans, for older adults, the personal automobile remains firmly entrenched as the primary means of getting around. That fact in itself presents major challenges for families, healthcare providers, aging-services professionals, and policy makers seeking to intervene when functional declines or other factors render continued, unbridled use of the personal automobile an impractical or irresponsible option. But "The Mobile Elder" is not simply focused on older drivers.

This issue presents portraits of today's older adults exploring an increasingly diverse--though still sparse--array of options and technologies to meet their mobility needs and wants. In addition, "The Mobile Elder" discusses the implications of older-adult transportation for aging- services organizations and public policy makers as they seek to plan for and respond to an increasingly large and diverse population of older adults in the United States.

With the anticipated doubling of the older-adult population within the next three decades, fashioning viable responses to the need to keep older adults mobile within their communities will require creative and compassionate thinking. The task will demand that aging-services professionals recast and broaden their thinking about transportation and mobility as integral parts of "elder friendly" communities--made all the the more difficult in the face of constrained resources at the local, state, and federal level.

In the classical riddle of the three ages of man, the Sphinx asks, "What walks on four feet in the morning, on two at noon, and on three in the evening?" The hero answers unswerving: man. He describes the journey of individuals through the process of life--on all fours as a baby, upright in the prime of life, and with a staff in old age. The outward and visible serves as the symbol of the inward and spiritual. With each step, the longest journey continues.

The ability of individuals to get to where they wish to go in ways and at times that they want to get there has motivated individual actions and sparked creativity to achieve those ends throughout civilization. Achieving and maintaining mobility enables us to participate fully and meaningfully in the activities of our lives. Mobility enables us to forge relationships, to sustain our health and well-being, and to enhance our quality of life.

But, ideally, the journey is more than simply maintaining our mobility. Dignity and perceived self-worth serve as powerful motivation to keep us engaged in our communities of interest.

This issue of Generations explores the power of the journey for older adults and the power of maintaining mobility to transform lives and communities.

From Generations Summer 2003 issue, 27(2): 6-7. © 2003 American Society on Aging

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