| A
friend passed this along.Thought it too good not
to share. |
| |
| AGING AND CARING |
| |
| I
was invited to present a lecture to a class of
graduate nurses who |
| were
studying the "Psychosocial Aspects of
Aging". |
| I
started my lecture with the following case
presentation: |
| The
patient is a white female who appears her
reported age. |
| She
neither speaks nor comprehends the spoken word. |
| Sometimes
she babbles incoherently for hours on end. |
| She
is disoriented about person, place and time. She
does, however, |
| seem
to recognize her own name. I have worked |
| with
her for the past 6 months, but she still does not
recognize me. |
| She
shows complete disregard for her physical
appearance and makes no |
| effort
whatsoever to assist in her own care. She
must be fed, bathed, |
| and
clothed by others. Because she is
edentulous, her food must be pureed, |
| and
because she is incontinent of both urine and
stool, |
| she
must be changed and bathed often. |
| Her
shirt is generally soiled from almost incessant
drooling. |
| She
does not walk. Her sleep pattern is
erratic. Often she awakens |
| in
the middle of the night, and her screaming
awakens others. |
| Most
of the time she is friendly and happy. |
| However,
several times a day she gets quite agitated
without apparent cause. |
| Then
she screams loudly until someone comes to comfort
her. |
| After
the case presentation, I asked the nurses how
they would feel |
| about
taking care of a patient such as the one
described. |
| They
used words such as "frustrated",
hopeless", "depressed", and
"annoyed" to |
| describe
how they would feel. When I stated that I enjoyed
taking |
| care
of her and that I thought they would, too, the
class looked at me in disbelief. |
| I
then passed around a picture of the
patient: my 6-month-old daughter. |
| After
the laughter had subsided, I asked why it was so
much |
| more
difficult to care for a 90-year-old than a
6-month-old with |
| identical
symptoms. We all agreed that it is physically
easier to take care |
| of
a helpless baby weighing 15 pounds than a
helpless adult weighing 100, |
| but
the answer seemed to go deeper than that. |
| The
infant, we all agreed, represents a new life,
hope, and almost |
| infinite
potential. The demented senior citizen, on the
other hand, |
| represents
the end of life, with little potential for
growth. |
| We
need to change our perspective. |
| The
aged patient is just as lovable as the child. |
| Those
who are ending their lives in the helplessness of
old age deserve |
| the
same care and attention as those who are
beginning their lives |
| in
the helplessness of infancy. |
©1997,1998,1999