The Senior Scene

The north Pierce County and south King County area has gained more than 100 units of housing for seniors with the opening of the Alder Ridge senior apartments in Milton.

Village Concepts, the Alder Ridge developer, calls the new facility located near the county line an affordable housing community for independent seniors 62 years old and up. It has 116 one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments with washers and dryers, private patios and balconies in select units. Amenities include a media room, library, computer lab, beauty salon and barber shop, fitness room and a large social room with a full kitchen. The community is near a walking and biking trail and retail establishments such as stores and banks.

A grand opening Jan. 9 featured raffle prizes, tours and an appearance by Milton Mayor Debra Perry.

Fiinancing for Alder Ridge’s construction was arranged through the Washington State Housing Finance Commission, which issued $8 million in tax-exempt bonds combined with $4 million in housing tax credits for the developer. The financing package also included a taxable loan backed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The commission will work with Village Concepts in a relationship that will keep rents low and help the owner comply with federal and state requirements, officials said.

Village Concepts, based in Federal Way, operates 14 senior living communities that are home to more than 1,400 residents in the Puget Sound region, the Olympic Peninsula and central Washington. The dedicated company is at the forefront of the industry with programs and communities to offer the best senior living options.

Alder Ridge is at 38338 28th Ave. S. Its manager can be contacted at 253-878-5665 and stacyn@villageconcepts.com.

The recording “Life and Breath: Choral Works by Rene Clausen” received the Grammy for Best Choral Performance last year. And Clausen will bring The Concordia Choir from Concordia College in Moorhead, Minn. to perform in Tacoma at 8 p.m. Feb. 26 at Lagerquist Concert Hall on the Pacific Lutheran University campus.

The concert, part of the choir’s 15-day national tour that includes the Pacific Northwest and Hawaii, is among scheduled performances in Washington, Oregon, Hawaii, Minnesota and North Dakota. Tickets are available in advance at ConcordiaTickets.com and (800) 838-3006. They’ll also be sold at the door.

The concert planned for Pacific Lutheran includes the regional premiere of the new Hans Zimmer choral composition “Aurora.” Zimmer composed the movie scores for the Batman trilogy, “Pirates of the Caribbean,” “Superman – Man of Steel,” “Sherlock Holmes,” “Inception” and others. Zimmer wrote this choral piece as his artistic response to the movie theater shootings in Aurora, Colo.

Concordia is a four-year liberal arts college of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Touring nationally and internationally since 1918, the choir has performed in nearly every major hall in the United States.

Clausen, a world-renowned composer and conductor, conducts the 79-voice a cappella choir and is the artistic director of the Emmy-winning Concordia Christmas Concerts seen by audiences of 18,000 each year and televised nationally through PBS (Public Broadcasting Service).

Clausen has written more than 100 commissioned compositions for ensembles across the world, including the St. Olaf Choir and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. On the 10th anniversary of 9/11, he conducted his composition of “Memorial” at Lincoln Center in New York City.

A February 2010 performance and recording session with the Grammy Award-winning King’s Singers and multiple performances on Garrison Keillor’s “Prairie Home Companion” radio show are also among the choir’s credits.

The first public showing of the alpine Photography of George Kinkade will open Jan. 15 at the White River Valley Museum in Auburn .

Before his death in 1975, Kinkade, who worked as a newspaper pressman, photographed locations that are considered inaccessible by many today. He hiked into the mountains without advantages like logging or Forest Service roads, high-tech equipment or modern outerwear. 

The museum is at 918 H St. SE. Admission is $2 for seniors and children and $5 for other adults. It’s open Wednesday through Sunday.

For many senior drivers, it is only a matter of time before they are forced to give up their car keys due to failing eyesight or other health issues. Now, researchers have studied how aging adults’ driving cessation influences their work and social lives. The researchers found that seniors’ loss of driving independence negatively affected their ability to work and their volunteerism; the adults’ social lives were not instantly affected yet dwindled over time.

“We found that seniors’ productive engagement, such as paid work and formal volunteering, decreased when they stopped driving; however, adults’ ability to connect with people in their immediate environments was not immediately compromised by their transitions to non-driver status,” said Angela Curl, an assistant professor of social work at the University of Missouri and the study’s lead author.

Planning for driving cessation should happen well before older adults have to give up their car keys, and advance planning can help seniors remain active in society after they quit driving, Curl said.

“Often when individuals stop driving, their health and happiness decline,” Curl said. “For seniors, engaging more in their communities is linked to maintained health, lower rates of depression and financial benefits, and this is why adults need to better prepare before they quit driving.”

For smoother transitions to non-driver status, Curl suggested older adults think about alternative transportation options early on and include their family members in the conversations.

“Older adults have a tendency to think about driving cessation as something for other people, or they think of quitting driving as so far in the future, that they postpone planning,” Curl said. “Finally, when seniors do start thinking about quitting driving, it’s too late, and they’re panicked and overwhelmed thinking about all the freedoms they will lose.”

Many seniors lack appropriate driving alternatives, such as finding rides or using public transportation; yet, Curl found that many older adults will not ask their families for support during this time because they don’t want to become burdens. Family members should offer their help to their aging loved ones instead of waiting to be asked, Curl said.

“One way for aging adults to help ease the transition to not driving is to take public transportation once a month as practice before completely losing mobility status or to relocate to a retirement center that provides private transportation to its residents,” Curl said.

The Gerontologist published Curl’s article, “Giving up the Keys: How Driving Cessation Affects Engagement in Later Life,” earlier this year. Other MU researchers, James Stowe, Teresa Cooney and Christine Proulx co-authored the study. The School of Social Work is part of the MU College of Human Environmental Sciences.