Occupational healthcare for older Alaskans: niche providers see increase in delivery.

• Author: Freeman, Louise
• Position: SPECIAL SECTION: Healthcare

In the 1970s, when the oldest of the Baby Boomer generation were in their twenties, "natural" everything was popular and they explored the body's natural ability to heal itself. They discovered new-to-them practices such as acupuncture, which is thousands of years old, and naturopathic medicine, then seventy years old, but it had almost died out in the United States. So it should come as no surprise that today three out of four Baby Boomers turn to alternative medicine to prevent illness and disease, recover from injuries, and get relief from chronic or acute pain.

Chiropractic care, acupuncture, massage, and naturopathy, in particular, are well suited for treating the types of health problems common to people over age fifty-five, including osteoarthritis, low backaches, chronic pain, and the reduced mobility and flexibility that can lead to falls and other accidents. Members of this generation are especially interested in maintaining their health because 85 percent of them plan to work beyond the age of sixty-five and nearly half plan to work into their seventies and eighties, according to a 2014 study by Cornell University.

Reasons for electing to stay in the workforce beyond the typical retirement age range from wanting to prolong a rewarding career to worries about having insufficient savings to live on in the future. In Alaska in 2012 there were more than sixty thousand workers age fifty-five and older, almost double the number ten years earlier. Of these, workers age fifty-five to sixty-four made up 17.3 percent of the civilian workforce, while workers age sixty-five and older accounted for 4.5 percent. This makes Alaska the fourth highest state in terms of the highest employment-to-population ratios for workers age fifty-five and older. Mark Hylen, vice president of Beacon Occupational Health and Safety Services, which has clinics and/or testing centers in Anchorage, Kenai, and Prudhoe Bay, says, "Alaska has an aging workforce on the North Slope. They came as younger workers when the pipeline went in in 76. Forty years into it, a lot of folks have retired in the last five years, but many continue to work."

Fortunately for these older workers, some types of alternative medicine are no longer considered an alternative to traditional medicine, but a complement to it. Now covered by many major health insurance companies, these different approaches have been increasingly integrated into a full-spectrum model of healthcare that includes everything from nutritional counseling and massage on one end to medication and surgery on the other.

Naturopathy

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