What Do Our Elders Fear?

What do our elders fear?  A fictional Tom Booker in “Horse Whisperer” replied “Getting old and getting useless.” But we know there is more.  Much more.  Professor Alan S. Wolkenstein has spent the last thirty years treating and mentoring elders with physical and emotional losses, written and published about them, researched, reflected, and thought with them.

 As we age, we are prone to lose: loss of connections with loved ones, family, friends, important social and cultural roles, changes in health status, and especially a loss of continuity of beliefs and values. Such loses create sadness, grieving, and lamentations that  affect how elders  make their  way in the world, their expectations, their beliefs about spirituality and sometimes even about God. So many that I have worked with suffer from such deep emotional pain that fulfilling their goals and dreams seems to be for them no longer possible.  Assessing these loss-grieving and eventual journeys to eventual transformation through newly designed “Quality of Life” parameters can offer us an in-depth lens to more meaningfully understand them, more wisely engage with them, and more keenly impact our clinical and direct services with them.

Elders need people they can rely on, trust, and believe in. They need professional caregivers they can rely on, trust, and believe in. How can we best train ourselves and our learners and students to be such people for them? Since our work with geriatric populations is difficult and very important, let us continue to seek the knowledge, skills, and intention to be of service to those entrusted to our care.

Come along as we explore the journey of elders to better understand them and enhance their efforts to cope with their emotional challenges and physical obstacles.  A society is oftentimes measured by how it treats its very young and very old; the challenge to care for them and care for ourselves is a worthy challenge.