{"id":7548,"date":"2024-06-11T07:00:40","date_gmt":"2024-06-11T07:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=7548"},"modified":"2024-06-11T07:26:47","modified_gmt":"2024-06-11T07:26:47","slug":"a-column-in-which-age-takes-center-stage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=7548","title":{"rendered":"A Column in Which Age Takes Center Stage"},"content":{"rendered":"
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For Paula Span, a columnist for The Times\u2019s Health section, the subject of aging doesn\u2019t age.<\/p>\n

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For about 15 years, Paula Span has dedicated much of her journalism career to covering one subject: aging, and the challenges that come with it.<\/p>\n

Ms. Span writes The New Old Age, a twice-monthly column for the Health section at The New York Times about issues affecting older Americans. Among the topics she has recently explored are the costs of growing older<\/a>, the rise of robotic pets as companions<\/a> and the hazards of misinformation on social media<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ms. Span took over the column in 2009, when it was just a blog. Before The Times, she wrote for The Washington Post\u2019s Style desk and magazine, where in 2002, she reported an article about residents at an assisted-living facility in Bethesda, Md.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the time, people didn\u2019t really know much about assisted living,\u201d Ms. Span said. \u201cIt got me interested in spending time with older people and writing about these issues.\u201d Four years later, she began writing her first book, \u201cWhen the Time Comes,\u201d about the struggles of families with aging parents.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In a phone interview from her home in Brooklyn, Ms. Span, 74, discussed how the column\u2019s audience has changed over the years and why she reads every reader comment on her articles. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.<\/p>\n

What makes for a good column of yours?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Something that\u2019s a national trend or a development that\u2019s rooted in fact, science and research and affects people. There is no shortage of such topics when you\u2019re talking about a group as large as elder Americans. There\u2019s something like 60 million people over 65 in the United States. It\u2019s a very heterogeneous group. There are many things that this group is concerned about, like living arrangements; Medicare and other insurance and policy issues; health; end-of-life connections. It\u2019s a big canvas, which makes it enjoyable and continually interesting. When I took the column on, I thought I\u2019d run out of material in a few years. Of course, 15 years later, there\u2019s still so much to talk about.<\/p>\n

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Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into<\/a>\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe<\/a>\u00a0for all of The Times.<\/p>\n

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For Paula Span, a columnist for The Times\u2019s Health section, the subject of aging doesn\u2019t age.For about 15 years, Paula Span has dedicated much of her journalism career to covering one subject: aging, and the challenges that come with it.Ms. Span writes The New Old Age, a twice-monthly column for the Health section at The New York Times about issues affecting older Americans. Among the topics she has recently explored are the costs of growing older, the rise of robotic pets as companions and the hazards of misinformation on social media.Ms. Span took over the column in 2009, when it was just a blog. Before The Times, she wrote for The Washington Post\u2019s Style desk and magazine, where in 2002, she reported an article about residents at an assisted-living facility in Bethesda, Md.\u201cAt the time, people didn\u2019t really know much about assisted living,\u201d Ms. Span said. \u201cIt got me interested in spending time with older people and writing about these issues.\u201d Four years later, she began writing her first book, \u201cWhen the Time Comes,\u201d about the struggles of families with aging parents.In a phone interview from her home in Brooklyn, Ms. Span, 74, discussed how the column\u2019s audience has changed over the years and why she reads every reader comment on her articles. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.What makes for a good column of yours?Something that\u2019s a national trend or a development that\u2019s rooted in fact, science and research and affects people. There is no shortage of such topics when you\u2019re talking about a group as large as elder Americans. There\u2019s something like 60 million people over 65 in the United States. It\u2019s a very heterogeneous group. There are many things that this group is concerned about, like living arrangements; Medicare and other insurance and policy issues; health; end-of-life connections. It\u2019s a big canvas, which makes it enjoyable and continually interesting. When I took the column on, I thought I\u2019d run out of material in a few years. Of course, 15 years later, there\u2019s still so much to talk about.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7550,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7548"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7551,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7548\/revisions\/7551"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}