If you’re like the majority of people, it’s a conversation you’ve likely avoided. Most of us try to steer clear of contemplating what the future may entail, much less plan ahead and take specific actions in response to what we can anticipate. It’s not a particularly uplifting conversation to consider the limitations, deterioration or even incapacity that might accompany our later years (though of course there are powerful arguments that such “advance planning” can be empowering and even comforting.) But if we’re honest, our own aging is likely not a situation we’ll experience in isolation. Our children, other loved ones, and even our wider circle of friends and associates may all have a part to play. But unless they know what to anticipate- or know what your wishes are- it may become an awful mess rather than an orchestrated transition.

Thankfully, some engaging and enlightening help is on the way. PBS, in coordination with the website Next Avenue, and with the support of such funders as the John A. Hartford Foundation, has produced a new one-hour documentary entitled “Fast Forward” which premiered last evening and will be available for viewing and group screenings over the coming months. The film follows four sets of millennial adult children and their aging adult parents as they participate in a one-week “aging boot camp” designed to give them the feel and experience of what it will be like for the parents, and their adult children, as the years take their toll. Using the AGNES “aging suit” developed by the MIT AgeLab, these parents and adult children experience the mobility and vision impairments common with aging along with a make-up aging process to give a visualization of how aging affects physical appearance. The goal is to provoke intergenerational conversation and stimulate the challenging discussions that need to take place, so that parent and child can both take control and face whatever life brings in the coming years.

In collaboration with the documentary, Next Avenue has created a rich array of reading guides and resources designed to instruct and guide you through such planning concerns as housing, identification and creation of support systems, and completion of such advance planning documents as living wills and powers of attorney. Included among these resources is a 14 page downloadable “Master Checklist” for documenting all of the details necessary to create a comprehensive and individually-suited plan.

With additional experts partnering around such issues as music, healthy eating, and living wills, the movie tries to get you to think, “If you knew now, what you’ll know then, would you change anything?” It’s a provocative question, one that Fast Forward tries to help you answer as it hopes to put you- and your loved ones- on a path to a better aging experience.