It is Monday and time for news that puts smiles on our faces. This week, the New York Times has an article with the title Japan’s New Care Workers: Bodybuilders, Wrestlers and M.M.A. Fighters.” The photos alone are worth the visit to the article. You can see the older men getting inspiration to pump a little iron and everyone smiling broadly at the physiques of mixed martial arts fighters, sumo wrestlers (especially the young ones!), and body builders. The jobs involve both helping and inspiring their clients in multiple ways.

Photo of Katherine C. Pearson Katherine C. Pearson

Katherine C. Pearson is a Professor of Law and the Arthur L. and Sandra S. Piccone Faculty Scholar at Penn State Dickinson Law in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Her scholarship focuses on laws and policies connected to aging and she has frequently included age-related issues…

Katherine C. Pearson is a Professor of Law and the Arthur L. and Sandra S. Piccone Faculty Scholar at Penn State Dickinson Law in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Her scholarship focuses on laws and policies connected to aging and she has frequently included age-related issues in her teaching of courses on contract law, conflicts of law and nonprofit organizations law.  She is a regular speaker for continuing education programs, both for consumers and lawyers, to address cutting edge concerns in consumer protection for older adults.  She is the author of articles and chapters on access to justice, senior living options including continuing care and life plan communities, long-term care financing and filial obligations, and is the co-author of a treatise, The Law of Financial Abuse and Exploitation (Bisel 2011).

She authored chapters for the Research Handbook on Law, Society and Ageing, published in 2024 as part of a series on law and society handbooks offered by international publisher Edward Elgar. She is a 2024-2025 Fulbright Scholar in Canada and was in residence at the University of Ottawa in the Fall of 2024 as the Research Chair in Health Law, Policy and Ethics.  Her earlier experience as a U.S. Fulbright Scholar (based at the Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland, and working in Ireland, Portugal, and the U.K. in 2009-10), resulted in publications, including an article with an international, historical perspective on ethical concerns for attorneys representing older adults, entitled “The Lesson of the Irish Family Pub,” published by Stetson Law Review.