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how many of you in here raise your hand
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can easily recognize a 2-year-old raise
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your
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hand all right now how many of you in
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here could easily recognize an
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85-year-old raise your
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hand this is the topic of my talk today
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I'm going to talk about caring for the
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late life Elder and taking the stress
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out of
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it and I appreciate your time and
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attention all of us do here today thank
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you it means a
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lot I have a master's degree in public
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health administration and I have a
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master's degree in gerentology and I've
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worked with older adults for 30
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years but most
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importantly I love working with older
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people I love it the first job I had out
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of college I was 21 years old I was the
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assistant activity director in a 21-bed
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nursing
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home and every day I'd walk down the
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hall and I'd go into Amelia's
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room that's Amelia with an
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E she would say that every
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day I'd walk in the room and I would say
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Amelia it's time to go to
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bingo More arts and
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crafts and she would say
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honey I want to
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die
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and I would
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say if that's not going to happen in the
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next few minutes would you consider
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going to
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Bingo and she would laugh and she hit me
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on the arm and off we'd
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go I was
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hooked so in thinking about this topic
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lowering stress caring for old
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adults I've come up with three areas
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that I think deserve
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attention one is the denial of
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reality the second is knowing some Basic
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Ground
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rules and the third is accepting it as a
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lifestyle
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change now I have
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children that say to
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me you know I didn't expect
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this this has been a rude awakening I
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just didn't expect this this is a lot of
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stress their parents are 85 and I I
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think with my 30 years why are you
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surprised why how is that
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surprising but when I stopped and
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thought about
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it we live in a youth obsessed
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culture we're youth obsessed
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we've got anti-aging creams we've got
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surgeries you know what I'm talking
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about we love to read stories in the
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paper about 85 year olds that graduate
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from college and 100-year-old that
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climbs Mount
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Everest well you know condalisa rice was
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offered the position of Secretary of
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State and she almost turned that job
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down you know why cuz her father had had
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a stroke
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and she didn't know if she could do that
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job and take care of her
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father and I do believe that's not
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widely
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known Hillary and Bill Clinton we all
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know
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Chelsea we watched Chelsea grow up we
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watched her go to college we certainly
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watched her get
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married Hillary lost her mother when her
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mother was 92 years
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old and when I read that in the paper I
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ate for Hillary Hillary has said
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publicly that her mother was the most
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influential person in her life and here
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Hillary was in the public eye caring for
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her mother and we didn't know it it
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wasn't written
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about why is
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that we're
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scared we're
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afraid we're afraid of death you know
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what the number one fear in this country
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is it's public
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speaking true statement that's a true
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statement second is fear of
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death we're afraid of
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endings we're afraid of seeing our
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parents grow smaller do you know you
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lose 5
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Ines yes you do the little old lady
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that's a real
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thing we're afraid of seeing our parents
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get smaller more diminished shaky
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judgment walking slower we're scared so
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we deny it we pretend it's not there we
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don't want to face
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it
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second is knowing some ground rules now
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this picture is lousy it's very grainy
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very grainy but I kept it up here
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because the woman Doris used to work for
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me and Richard Works in our office and
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we had them stage the picture
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as roll
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reversal ground rule number one roll
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reversal get this in your mind three
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words you ready
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big fat
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lie roll reversal never should happen we
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never become our parents parents and if
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you
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try you won't do so
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well try it
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go
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ahead so Doris is sitting here and we're
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we're doing this shot in my office and
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Doris is squirming and she's mad and I
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think she's really getting into this
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like it's a role play or something she's
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she's into
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it we get halfway through the shot and
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she's really mad and she
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says my daughter Connie talks to me that
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way and I can't stand it
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wow I wouldn't want to be
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Connie so a few weeks later I get a call
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from
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Connie Connie says thank you for the
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experience you gave my mother at your
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office she called me up and she said
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Connie you give me so
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much you help me so much
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but I don't like how you talk to me I
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don't like it you boss me around and
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Connie heard her she
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said thank you I know I do it and I'm
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going to work on it and the two of them
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are forging a new way of relating at
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this time of life and I felt so happy
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for
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them my friend Carol who has an
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8-year-old and a
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six-year-old and parents father with
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Alzheimer's and a mother with mental
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illness says Amy you're that's not right
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I do tell my parents what to
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do I said no Carol you don't you don't
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you are responsible for them but you
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have worked on a way of
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communicating to help them manage this
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time of life without insulting them by
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telling them what to do and it takes
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some work ground rule number
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two I know there's people from the
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hospital in this audience today and I
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know that you will agree with me older
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people in hospitals don't always get
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along when you're a fra older person
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you're you it's like an
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echosystem one thing goes
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wrong it can be
00:08:24
calamitus so going into the hospital for
00:08:27
an older adult is a major decision
00:08:30
don't minimize it they go into the
00:08:33
hospital hospitals are fast they're
00:08:36
bright staff running in and out and an
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older person moves
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slowly thinks slowly and they can
00:08:44
Collide so your the question you should
00:08:47
ask yourself is number one if they're
00:08:50
going to have all these tests and not do
00:08:52
the surgery as a result of all these
00:08:54
tests get them
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out
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I just love the slide that's why it's up
00:09:03
there it's called innocence in
00:09:06
experience the last ground
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rule is that aging is a one-way
00:09:14
transition it's one
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way I met with a a daughter and her
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mother in my
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office my office is at the far end of
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the
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hall and the mother is spinal stenosis
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on a walker she took a long time to get
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to my office we got down there and sat
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down I let the daughter go
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first and the daughter starts talking
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about what she would want and in some of
00:09:46
the things she was saying she said I
00:09:48
want my mother to go to the gym 5 days a
00:09:55
week and I feel like going like this cuz
00:09:58
I can tell the mother's like
00:10:00
rage you know the
00:10:05
gym so I'm I'm looking at the the
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daughter and I look over at the mother
00:10:10
and I know that this daughter cannot
00:10:13
face the fact that her mother is where
00:10:15
her mother is she's not going
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backwards kids want the parents to go
00:10:21
backwards they want them to get to where
00:10:23
they were and they miss where they
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are so I look over at the mother and I
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said well I can tell you kind of got you
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mad what is it that you want she
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says I'd like to go to the
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movies so I think we can arrange
00:10:45
that so there's a famous author that
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wrote when her mother was
00:10:50
sick she says I wish someone had told me
00:10:55
that I would have all these decisions to
00:10:58
make
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and none of those decisions would affect
00:11:03
the outcome none of them and that the
00:11:06
most important thing for me is to be
00:11:10
there is to be
00:11:14
there so the ground rule is aging is a
00:11:17
one-way transition and
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lastly the last thought I will leave you
00:11:23
with is this is a lifestyle change
00:11:26
having Elder parents is a lifestyle
00:11:28
change
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you have a child and you hopefully in 18
00:11:33
to 22 years you raise them and they go
00:11:35
out the door
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hopefully I won't go in that direction
00:11:41
I'll stay with what I'm talking
00:11:44
about
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so then you got about 10 years
00:11:49
off 10 years of Freedom if you will then
00:11:53
becomes the responsibility for your
00:11:55
parents whether they live in the same
00:11:57
town as you the responsib ability begins
00:12:01
and the kids that have actually less
00:12:03
stress are the ones that have accepted
00:12:08
it you know we live in such a fastpaced
00:12:13
society now don't we I mean we just go
00:12:16
go
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go being with an older
00:12:20
person is really an opportunity to slow
00:12:24
down try to try to rush an older
00:12:27
person try it you you can't do it so you
00:12:31
have to be
00:12:33
there you have to slow down I kind of
00:12:36
think about it like a form of
00:12:42
meditation so I was walking up to
00:12:45
Helen's
00:12:46
house Helen's 100 I walk up the steps I
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walk into the kitchen she's in a
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kitchen
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she's seated and I walk in and I sit
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down and I said hi nice to meet you and
00:13:01
she leans forward and she's got this big
00:13:04
beautiful face but it's big and she's
00:13:06
got white swept up
00:13:09
hair kind of like a Q-tip let's
00:13:13
stop she says to me what is it you think
00:13:17
you can do for
00:13:18
me said I just got here I I don't
00:13:22
know she leans back in her
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chair and she
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says
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I don't know why I'm still
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here and
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I my heart
00:13:40
just and I said maybe maybe you're here
00:13:44
because I needed to meet
00:13:47
you maybe you're here because I needed
00:13:50
to see and experience
00:13:53
you and she leaned forward and she took
00:13:56
her
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hand and that moment is still with
00:14:02
me so I would say to you this is a rare
00:14:07
opportunity a very very rare opportunity
00:14:10
don't miss
00:14:12
it thank
00:14:14
[Applause]
00:14:26
[Music]
00:14:28
you
