Patricia Moore at age 26, disguised as an 86-year-old

I’m aging, my friends are aging and some are even taking their parents into their homes. Hip replacements, knee surgeries and other conditions that go along with aging mean mobility challenges, something that we didn’t think about if we bought homes when we were younger. When M. and I bought this home, we made a point of buying a one-story home that wouldn’t present huge mobility challenges as we age.

But some of my friends are finding that they need to modify their homes, either for themselves or because their aging parents now live with them. It’s all about making homes more accessible at this stage of our lives.

Author and designer Patricia Moore is making the media rounds.

Moore is best known for having disguised herself as an 86-year-old woman who couldn’t see very well, and then traveled around the country. She wrote a book about her experiences, and she talks just a little about that in this interview. I was shocked at the cruelty she faced as an elder–and how often she was taken advantage of because people thought she couldn’t see well.   And I was surprised and pleased to hear that the folks who were nicest to her were–taxi drivers.

Anyway, I asked Patricia to answer some questions about how homes can be inexpensively adapted to make them more accessible for mobility-challenged inhabitants.

Now here’s the rub:

I hadn’t realized that she was speaking for Lowe’s, and as you know, I am no longer a Lowe’s shopper. Not since they capitulated to pressure from a crazy fringe group and pulled advertising from a reality show about Muslim-Americans.  I blogged about it HERE.

But, I like her suggestions and what she had to say about elders in America. Otherwise, I wouldn’t run this video, since it suggests you go to Lowe’s.

Draw your own conclusion about Lowe’s.

But the video’s worth watching.