The Age Wave Is Crashing Around Us

Thirty-five years ago, Ken Dychtwald, PhD, wrote a landmark book, Age Wave. It was a thoughtful and well researched analysis on the impact of the baby boom population on the U.S. Dr. Dychtwald (Ken) went on to write many more books (19 in all) about the aging of America, but in this writer’s opinion, Age Wave offered us a seminal work and a prescient look at how the baby boomers, the biggest American population cohort ever, would change our country and the world – in ground-breaking and sometimes heartbreaking ways.

After the book became a bestseller, Dr. Dychtwald formed a company, AgeWave, to explore more of the concepts in the book. AgeWave has since partnered with some of the biggest financial firms, foundations, and polling organizations in the country to continue to gather more information about these demographic trends. Today, we all need to pay attention because they are having a massive impact on our health and our livelihood. The most recent study of Americans was a joint effort by The Hartford Foundation, the Harris Poll and AgeWave. Their report was released this week and I talked to Ken about some of the most important findings and their implications.