Ageism - Blog Post # 13

I think the cause of ageism is often related to our society’s general impatience while living in the fast lane. Everyone has their busy schedule and is in a hurry to get somewhere. When an elder person, in one way or another, forces us to slow down, we get impatient and see elders as a nuisance. Similar to our society’s way of underestimating those with disabilities, we often assume elders are incompetent, forgetful, and completely dependant. I don’t generally think of myself as an ageist, however I’ll admit I sometimes get frustrated while driving if I’m behind an elder person who is doing less than the speed limit or if they’re not driving correctly. This frustrates me only because they can become a danger to themselves as well as others on the road. Many of my friends agree, and have even said that people over 60 should have to re-take their driving test. I laugh when they say this because my mom is 62, extremely fit and mentally sharp, and still very much capable of safely operating a vehicle. Everyone ages differently, but our society is quick to assume that an elder person is senile and unable to handle him or herself.

I think this particular “-ism” is seldom talked about in our society because many of us fear the thought of getting old. It’s something we’d rather not talk about than address and properly plan for. Like in the video Once We Were Young, the old woman thinks back to when she was younger and just married and tried to approach her husband about helping out with the bills incase anything happened. He kind of brushed her off and assured her that nothing was going to happen. Unfortunately he died of heart failure and she was left living alone in poverty. This video nearly made me cry because I seem to have a soft spot for elders because I can’t imagine how frustrating it must be to not be able to take care of yourself because of your deteriorating physical state, but be mentally all there. It must be so degrading to be talked to and treated like a child because you have become dependent. In the last few years of my grandfather’s life, he suffered a severe stroke that caused him to lose a lot of his muscular function in his mouth and throat. He could no longer swallow, and had to have a feeding tube in his side. Additionally, he lost most of his ability to annunciate words, making it very hard to decipher what he was trying to say. Everything sounded like a mumble, but you could see the frustration in his face that although he knew exactly what he was trying to say, he just couldn’t manage to form the words. A lot of the time he would just give up and close his eyes, pretending to sleep so he wouldn’t have to try to communicate with us anymore.

The video Living Old is a major wake up call regarding the growing population of geriatric patients, and the insufficient number of trained doctors to treat them. Presently, elders are living longer because they are no longer dying of infectious diseases, but rather chronic diseases such as hypertension and diabetes. Because people are living longer with conditions that are extremely needy, pressure is put on our society to have people available to take care of these elders 24 hours a day. Many of us do not want to institutionalize our loved ones, so the elder’s child or children take on the job of 24 hour care. However, what about adults who don’t have children? Who will take care of them when they are old? Additionally, I learned in my HMP class 2 semesters ago that family members who take on the role of providing 24 hour care at home are at a much higher risk of their health deteriorating and being diagnosed with a chronic diseases due to the stress of caring for their elder.

I agree with one of the doctors in the video that explained that many of us are unwilling to allow our elders to die of diseases related to old age. We often want to take every measure to keep our elders alive even if it means always having them connected to machines because they cannot maintain regulatory body function on their own. There is definitely a grey area between whether keeping our loved ones alive like this is what they want or if it’s just cruel. Personally, I would like to live my life to the fullest while I am physically able, and if I’m diagnosed with a terminal illness and get to the point where I can’t even get out of bed, can’t talk, and am barely there mentally, I don’t want to be hooked up to machines just to keep me breathing. I can’t imagine how life can be at all enjoyable at that state.

Ultimately, I think our society needs to be more empathetic of elders, because we will all grow old one day. I think it’s important for our generation to discuss with our parents the logistics of them getting old and how they wish to be cared for. Ageism, along with the growing geriatric population is a pressing issue in our society that needs immediate attention.