Aging and the costs that come with it

From Penn Today:

As a high school student, junior Darcey Hookway spent time volunteering on a dementia ward at a local hospital. “The social aspect of their condition really struck me,” says Hookway, who is from London. “They struggled immensely with social isolation. And now with COVID exacerbating that more than ever, I think that’s a huge detriment to their health.”

This summer Hookway, a health and societies major, pursued a paid research internship tightly linked to that earlier experience. Working with the Policy and Economics of Disability, Aging, and Long Term Care (PEDAL) Lab, run by Norma Coe of Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine, Hookway engaged with a variety of projects that touched on end-of-life issues.

“She provided important research support, such as collecting data and helping to problem-solve data-related issues, like when codes change over time or are different between data sets,” Coe says. “It isn’t always glamorous work, but it is important, and a good attention to detail is needed. She also provided a lot of enthusiasm, which we needed in the summer of 2020.”