“Knowing their risk of developing cognitive impairment is very relevant to making plans around retirement and where they live,”
via Alzheimer’s Blood Test Raises Ethical Questions | WBUR & NPR.
Knowing one’s risk of an impending impairment would help one prepare for and possibly prevent it. But there is one life stage we will all experience in one form or another (barring death) that doesn’t require a blood test – aging and the physical adjustments and supports we may need to make daily life comfortable and feasible. The tenets of universal design (UD) in our daily living environment are not meant to protect from future ailments of aging but rather to make today more comfortable.
You undoubtedly have already experience the pleasure of UD. Recall an experience with that wide hallway, stepless entry, OXO kitchen tool or decorative grab bar in a hotel shower. Perhaps they blended so much into your experience that you didn’t even notice it. In contrast we all remember that uncomfortably small bathroom, the item on a cupboard too high to reach, or that scary slippery floor which we carefully skated across with nothing to grab for balance.
We may not need a test to tell us we will age so let’s not wait to make our daily living environment a bit more comfortable for ourselves or that visitor to our home that would surely appreciate it.
gooddesignagewell.wordpress.com 