The Senior Scene

(Pictured: Salt Lake City, Utah is number 1 in a study of which U.S. cities are the best places to retire.)

By Maggie Davis

Where they live can drastically impact what life is like for retirees.

The newest DepositAccounts study, released in January, looked at lifestyle, cost of living, medical quality and cost, and assisted-care quality and availability to determine the best places to retire. Across the 50 largest U.S. cities and metropolitan areas, Salt Lake City, Utah ranks as the best. On the other end of the scale, Seattle is the 22nd-worst, and Riverside, Calif., ranks last.

Salt Lake City is on top because ithas the lowest rate of preventable hospital stays (1,591 per 100,000 Medicare enrollees) and the highest percentage of older adults who volunteer (44 percent), plus a high percentage of physically active people . It also rates high in lifestyle (behind only Minneapolis, Minn. and Denver, Colo.).

Milwaukee, Wis. and Pittsburgh, Pa. rank second and third overall respectively, thanks to high marks for high percentages of physically activity, low median monthly housing costs ($996 in Pittsburgh), and low average healthcare costs for Medicare users.

California dominates the bottom of the list, with five of the 10 worst places to retire, mainly due to high costs of living. Besides Riverside at the very bottom, the low-ranking metros include San Jose, San Francisco, San Diego, and Los Angeles.

For the study, researchers with DepositAccounts, a Lending Tree-affiliated online source of banking and other financial analysis, grouped data into four categories with various metrics:

• Lifestyle (access to healthy food, arts, cultural and recreational venues, and amount of older adults involved physical activity and volunteerism).
• Cost of living (median monthly housing costs, regional prices for consumer items and services).
• Healthcare quality and cost (ratesof preventable hospital stays per 100,000 Medicare enrollees, if such stays might have been prevented by receiving outpatient treatment instead, and costs per Medicare beneficiary).
• Assisted-care availability and quality (jncluding number of home health service providers, continuing-care retirement communities, assisted-living facilities, and nursing-home beds per 100,000 residents, average quality of patient care star rating for home health agencies

While Seattle fared poorly overall, all wasn’t bad: It has the third-lowest rate of preventable hospital stays, at 1,850 per 100,000 Medicare enrollees.

Good care is crucial, noted Matt Schulz, LendingTree’s chief credit analyst and author of “Ask Questions, Save Money, Make More: How to Take Control of Your Financial Life.”

“If you don’t have your health, everything gets exponentially more challenging, no matter how old you are,” Schulz said. “The more you’re able to preserve your health and steer clear of the need for hospital stays, the better. And that’s not just about your physical health. It’s about your finances, too. There’s little that’s more expensive than bad health.”

The study was limited to the 50 largest 50 metro areas. Sources of information for the total analysis include the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Census Bureau, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, and individual county health rankings around the country.

The full report is available at depositaccounts.com.

Source: LendingTree, an online loan marketplace and financial researcher.

(Pictured: People with severe or moderate dementia should never get behind the wheel. For early stages, it’s about driving performance.)

SAVVY SENIOR

By Jim Miller

Dear Savvy Senior,

When should someone with dementia stop driving? My 83-year-old father has some dementia issues but still drives himself around town pretty well.

Concerned Daughter

Dear Concerned,

Most doctors agree that people with moderate to severe dementia should never get behind the wheel, but in the early stages of Alzheimer’s or other types of dementia, driving performance should be the determining factor of when to stop driving, not the disease itself.

With that said, it’s also important to realize that as your dad’s driving skills deteriorate over time from the disease, he might not recognize he has a problem. So, it’s very important that you work closely with his doctor to monitor his driving and help him stop when it is no longer safe for him to drive. Here are some additional tips that can help you.

Watch for Warning Signs

The best way to keep tabs on your dad’s driving abilities is to take frequent rides with him and watch out for warning signs. For example: Does he have trouble remembering routes to familiar places? Does he drive at inappropriate speeds, tailgate, drift between lanes or fail to observe traffic signs? Does he react slowly or make poor driving decisions? Also, has your dad had any fender benders or tickets lately, or have you noticed any dents or scrapes on his vehicle? All of these are red flags.

If you need some assessment help, hire a driver rehabilitation specialist who’s trained to evaluate older drivers. See Myaota.aota.org/driver_search or Aded.net to locate one in your area.

Transition Tips

Through your assessments, if you believe it’s still safe for your dad to drive, you should start recommending some simple adjustments to ensure his safety, like driving only in daylight and on familiar routes, and avoiding busy roads and bad weather. Also, get him to sign a dementia “driving contract” that designates someone to tell him when it’s no longer safe to drive. Go to Alz.org/driving and click on the “Download” button to print one.

You may also want to consider getting a GPS car tracking device (like Bouncie.com or MotoSafety.com) to help you monitor him. These devices will let you track where he’s driving and allow you to set up zones and speed limits that will send you alerts to your smartphone when he exits an area, or if he’s driving too fast or braking harshly.

Time to Quit

When your dad’s driving gets to the point that he can no longer drive safely, you’ll need to talk to him. It’s best to start having these conversations in the early stages of the disease, before he needs to quit driving so he can prepare himself.

You also need to have a plan for alternative transportation (including a list of family, friends and local transportation options) that will help him get around after he stops driving.

For tips on how to talk to your dad, the Hartford Center for Mature Market Excellence offers a helpful guide called “At the Crossroads: Family Conversations About Alzheimer’s Disease, Dementia and Driving” that you can download at TheHartford.com/Publications-on-Aging.

Refuses to Quit

If your dad refuses to quit, you have several options. First, suggest a visit to his doctor who can give him a medical evaluation, and prescribe that he stops driving. Older people will often listen to their doctor before they will listen to their own family.

If he still refuses, contact your local Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to see if they can help. Some states will automatically revoke a license when a person is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s or dementia, while many others require retaking a driving test.

If these fail, consider hiding his keys or you may need to take them away. You could also disable his vehicle by disconnecting the battery, park it in another location so he can’t see it or have access to it, or sell it.

Send your senior questions to: Savvy Senior, P.O. Box 5443, Norman, OK 73070, or visit SavvySenior.org. Jim Miller is a contributor to the NBC Today show and author of “The Savvy Senior” book.

If you live in King County and have a dog or cat named Luna, you’re in plenty of company.

In 2024, that was the most popular name for those kinds of pets licensed there, according to

Regional Animal Services of King County’s annual list of top names.

County residents last year registered 59,834 dogs and 26,532 cats with the Department of Records and Licensing Services. The most frequent names of the furry were:

• For dogs, in order, Luna, Lucy, Daisy, Bella, Charlie, Coco, Ruby, Max, Buddy, and Lola.
• For cats, 1 through 10, Luna, Milo, Lucy, Kitty, Loki, Mochi, Oliver, Pepper, Coco, and Daisy.

A most-popular list for Pierce County pets wasn’t available, at least not for last year. But nationally, the names people gave their dogs most often in 2024 are Luna for females and Milo for males, according to the American Kennel Club (AKC). Rounding out the top five on the female side are Bella, Daisy, Lucy and Willow, and on the male side, Max, Teddy, Charlie and Cooper.

“People put a great deal of thought into naming their dogs and often spend hours trying to pick the perfect name,” said Gina DiNardo, the AKC’s executive secretary.

In King County, officials say whether or not critters have popular monikers is secondary to them being licensed and thus having a much better chance of finding their way back home should they ever get lost.

“The pet license on a pet’s collar or a pet’s microchip registered in our system is the best way to ensure a quick ticket home,” said Norm Alberg, director of Records and Licensing.

If a licensed pet is lost, the finder can call the phone number on the pet’s tag – a service that is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week – to reunite them with their owner. Pets receive a free ride home the first time they’re found, allowing owners to skip a trip to the animal shelter. Pet licenses also help fund the shelter and rescue services, including animal neglect and cruelty investigations, a pet food bank, spay/neuter programs, and pet adoptions.

Pet licenses can be purchased online at kingcounty.gov/pets or at 70 convenient locations around the county, including QFC grocery stores and many city halls. The latter include Enumclaw’s, where Mayor Jan Molinaro notes “no appointment necessary” and wishes “everyone in your family, including pets, a safe and healthy 2025.”

(Pictured: The sitting area of  a deluxe room at the Fairmont Palliser in Calgary.)

By Carl Dombek

Calgary is a quick flight from our home in Seattle, and both Banff and Lake Louise are within easy driving distance of Calgary, so  with flights booked and rental car reserved, we started looking at hotels.

Home of the famed Calgary Stampede, the city has plenty of accommodations. Many of them are downtown, near the city’s landmark Calgary Tower and the major pedestrian mall, Stephen Avenue. The mall contains a high concentration of registered historic buildings. In fact, the street itself was declared a Canadian historic site in 2002. Today, it boasts a range of restaurants, bars and pubs, shops and stores from Dollarama to The Bay. It also abuts the Core Shopping Centre, which was formerly Calgary Eaton Centre/TD Square.

Wanting an up-market hotel close to restaurants and bars that would offer alternatives to whatever our hotel offered, we chose the Fairmont Palliser. We could not have been happier.
As with all the Fairmonts at which we’ve stayed over the years, staff represented the epitome of hospitality: Polished, professional and gracious. For example, after our first interaction, the hotel valet/doorman remembered – and used – our name every time we left or returned. Every. Time. Talk about making someone feel special!

While we’d booked a Deluxe room, we were upgraded to a larger Signature room upon check-in. The room on the hotel’s ninth floor was very spacious, measuring about 320 square feet. Ten-foot ceilings made it feel even more grand. The room had a king bed with a bench seat at the end, a sofa with coffee table, an easy chair with an ottoman, and a desk equipped with delightful old-school touches like stationery and mailing envelopes.

A flat-screen TV sat on a bureau which contained coffee and tea service, glassware for coffee, tea, or wine, and a minibar with wine, spirits, and snacks.

A safe, iron and board, and robes and slippers awaited in the closet, while the bath was equipped with high-end amenities, a hair dryer, and an increasingly important magnifying mirror over the vanity.  The bath had its own radiator on a separate thermostat from the room so guests could take the chill off before getting into the shower. Both the closet and the bathrooms were smaller than at more modern hotels, though given the hotel’s history it was understandable.

The Palliser first opened in June 1914. With the Canadian Pacific Railway as the original owner, the hotel was an outgrowth of the railroad’s intent on pushing westward. The hotel is connected to what used to be a CPR station, though it is now sealed and inaccessible. Tracks that run behind the hotel now carry freight trains almost exclusively. Passenger trains are increasingly rare.

The on-site restaurant and lounge, The Hawthorn, offered food and beverages from breakfast all the way to the nightcap. After rising very early the first day to catch our early-morning flight, we lacked the energy to do much exploring, so chose to enjoy wine and small plates before turning in. They were well-prepared and delicious, brought by servers who clearly understand what hospitality means.
The Palliser is a popular conference destination, and there were at least three there during our stay. That meant the lobby and the restaurant were quite busy – and noisy – at times, though staff handled everything with aplomb. Importantly, little of the noise made its way to our guestroom.
The hotel has an on-site spa on the bottom floor, with prices you would expect for spa treatments in a resort setting. There are also an indoor swimming pool and fitness center.
One thing the Palliser doesn’t have is an on-site shop with Fairmont merchandise. However, products are available online at us.fairmontstore.com and at the Fairmont Banff Springs, just about an hour’s drive up the Trans-Canada Highway.
We left reluctantly, feeling quite pampered and looking forward to what we trust will be a similar experience at our next yet-to-be-discovered Fairmont.

Carl Dombek, who lives in Seattle, is a retired journalist and a travel blogger. His website, thetravelpro.com, has news, reviews, and personal observations on upmarket travel.