Cambridge At Home - HELPING

Edgar H. Schein, a Cambridge At Home (CAH) founder and Trustee, has recently written a book called HELPING. The book focuses on how to offer, give and receive help at any age. "Using examples from many types of relationships-doctors and patients, consultants and clients, husbands and wives-Ed Schein offers a concise, definitive analysis of what it takes to establish successful mutually satisfying helping relationships."

CAH recommends this book to readers of all ages.

A Cambridge At Home membership is all about helping. Many members use our services regularly for help with grocery shopping, volunteer rides to medical appointments, or home health care. CAH social events help members reconnect with old friends and meet new people who share their interests. Those members who do not need all our services yet join to take advantage of free exercise classes as well as discounts from both retail merchants and service vendors. They also access our professional staff for help locating products or services which frees them to do other things with their time.

CAH is a community of residents creating the means to remain at home as they grow older. Membership insures that this valuable community resource will be here to serve residents now and in the future. We invite you to join us!

Twilight Tipple

CAH members have many opportunities to connect with old friends and meet new ones through a variety of activities. A new favorite among members is our Twilight Tipple held at Legal Seafoods in Charles Square, Cambridge. Members started meeting on summer evenings to share a glass of wine and a few appetizers outdoors. Tipple was meant to be a summer activity, but continues on indoors among a growing group of members who enjoy sharing a light evening meal and conversation with friends.

Members explore the city on foot

A small but dedicated group of CAH members have been walking together, twice a month for the last two years. Walks have ranged in type from the historic like the Battle Road Trail in Lincoln, to convenient and familiar like Fresh Pond, to a little more creative like retracing Obama’s steps as a student in Cambridge. A few weeks ago one of our members along with a friend from Beacon Hill Village’s walking group joined forces to show us around the South End. Arguably our most beautiful walk, we passed by thriving vegetable gardens, beautiful parks and quaint neighborhoods. We also recently explored the great works of art found on the MIT campus making sure to stop inside to view pieces like the brightly colored floor by Sol Lewitt. Like last year, we plan to continue walking throughout the winter. For now, we are soaking up the fall weather and enjoying the spectacularly colored trees!

HILR publishes book entitled New Pathways for Aging

Cambridge At Home Recommends: New Pathways for Aging


Editors: Peg Senturia, Stan Davis, Hy Kempler, Prudence King, Rhoada Wald


In Their Own Words: Coping Successfully With Retirement and Aging.


Getting older can be a downer. Not for this group, members of the Harvard Institute of Learning in Retirement (HILR). New Pathways for Aging is a collection of personal stories, interspersed with poems and theoretical insights, about their lives. Twenty writers look back on their lives and tell stories of loss and hope. The book is a testimony to the various routes thoughtful people have followed as they tackle retirement, loss, illness and relocation with resilience, courage, creativity and hope. This book will get you thinking differently and offer wisdom about these important life issues.

The authors draw upon a wide range of experience in the business world, in social services, and in academia. Their concerns are the concerns of everyone in an aging world – social connections, self-esteem, an intellectual life, creativity, and mortality.

For more than 30 years the Harvard Institute for Learning in Retirement has helped seniors discover new intellectual interests and make new friends . From the 550 members of the group, editors Peg Senturia, Stan Davis, Hy Kempler, Prudence King, and Rhoada Wald recruited the 20 writers for their pioneering volume.
Also check out their website PathwaysforAging.org. Questions, reactions—the email address is -- pathwaysforaging@googlegroups.com

The book is available at the Harvard Coop in Cambridge (Harvard Institute for Learning in Retirement; Cambridge, Mass. 2009; 180 pages; $14.95).

CAH Lecture Series

Interested in meeting CAH members, Trustees and staff in an informal setting? Join us at one of the CAH Lecture/Receptions this year. The speakers are outstanding, the wine and appetizers are delicious and the charge for non-members is just $10.00.

The lectures take place in the Piper Auditorium at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, located at 48 Quincy Street, Cambridge. Here is the schedule to date:



October 18th - 3:00pm - Abigail Trafford
Abigail Trafford, author and columnist for the Washington Post spoke about the problems and opportunities of aging, about love and relationships in an age of longevity. Her latest book is My Time.


November 8th - 3:00 pm - Drs. Margaret Geller and Scott Kenyon Dr. Margaret Geller & Dr. Scott Kenyon, world-renowned astrophysicists at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory will speak about global warming from Venus to Pluto and climate change on Earth driven by human activity. Through lectures, interviews, films and television appearances Drs. Geller & Kenyon have taken audiences on journeys through the universe from the nascent solar system to the most distant young galaxies.


January 7 - 4:00pm - Dr. Howard Hiatt and Dr. Donald Berwick

Tough choices in health care will be the subject of a discussion between Dr. Hiatt and Dr. Berwick. Dr. Howard Hiatt, now Associate Chief of the Division of Global Health Equality at Brigham and Womens' Hospital, was Dean of the Harvard School of Public Health from 1972-1984. He is the author of Medical Lifeboat and A Measure of Malpractice. Dr. Donald Berwick is President and CEO of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and one of then nation's leading authorities on the quality of medical care. He is a professor at both the Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health and author of over 140 articles in scientific journals and co-author of several books.


February 7 - 3:00 pm - Professors Merle and Marshall Goldman

Professors Merle Goldman and Marshall Goldman will give us their insights into China and Russia as world powers. Noted scholars and authors who specialize in China and Russia respectively, both are frequent media commentators on events in those countries. They are both members of the Council on Foreign Relations.


Merle Goldman is Emerita Professor of History at Boston University and an associate of the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard. Her most recent book is From Comrade to Citizen: The Struggle for Political Rights in China.


Marshall Goldman, Emeritus Kathryn Wasserman Davis Professor of Russian Economics at Wellesley College, was Associate Director of the Davis Center for Russian Studies at Harvard. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and has been a consultant to the State Department and the Ford Foundation. His latest book is Petrostate: Putin, Power, and the New Russia.

Call our office today to reserve a space! 617-864-1715

These lecture/receptions are FREE for CAH members through the generous support of : Blue Cross Blue Shield MA, the Mt. Auburn Hospital, Privatus and HouseWorks.

Mount Auburn Hospital's Chief of Geriatric Medicine and Chief of Geriatric Psychiatry Discuss Memory Disorders

Some 22 Cambridge At Home members who gathered at Mount Auburn Hospital on Nov. 2 were urged not to treat memory loss as something to expect as a necessary by-product of growing old, but to seek medical attention if forgetfulness affects their ability to get on in daily life. At a session on memory, Dr. Joseph P. D'Afflitti, Chief of Geriatric Psychiatry, emphasized that memory disorders can be treated, although often not cured. He mentioned various physical and neurological tests that should be performed to rule out any underlying physical illness.
Mount Auburn Hospital's Chief of Geriatric Medicine, Dr. John R. Anderson, spelled out categories of memory disorders and their suggested treatments. First is Benign Senescent Forgetfulness, in which previously experienced difficulties like trouble remembering names, or misplacing keys, become more frequent. Next is Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) in which forgetfulness is more pervasive. In neither of these stages is there serious disruption of a person's ability to function normally. Next is dementia, sometimes caused by Alzheimer's disease. Both he and Dr. D'Afflitti described Alzheimer's as a "terminal diagnosis" of a condition requiring treatment. Cambridge at Home members then engaged the speakers in an animated question and answer session.
The Monday morning meeting was the latest enjoyable and informative program staged for CAH by our strategic ally, Mount Auburn Hospital. Before seating themselves around the long table in the Lynch Board Room at the hospital, attendees selected refreshments from a breakfast buffet of fruit juices, muffins and pastries, and coffee and tea.
Introducing Drs. Anderson and D'Afflitti was Jeanette Clough, the Chief Executive Officer of Mount Auburn Hospital. She stated that the non-profit hospital finished its fiscal year in good financial condition and could thus plough back earnings into improved services for patients.
Also attending from the hospital were Kathy Howard, Director of Social Services and Neurology, and Betsy Gonnerman, Clinical Social Worker. Both work closely with Cambridge At Home, for whose members Betsy is the hospital's designated liaison.