klaus
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Mar 27, 2007, 9:30 AM
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Social care for seniors needs to find a heart
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I read a sad story recently: an elderly couple who had been married for nearly 60 years had to sell their home and move because the husband, who had Parkinson’s disease could no longer care for his wife who had Alzheimer’s. Seeing how the couple was not particularly well off, they had to resort to social programs to get the care they needed.
As a result the wife was moved into a state-run nursing home and the husband moved into a retirement residence some six miles away. Since the husband was unable to drive a car due to his illness, he went to visit his wife on a daily basis on a bicycle. Needless to say this arrangement worked reasonably well in good weather, but wasn’t the best in inclement weather and it put the 85-year old man at risk of an accident.
In the same article I read about another couple that were similarly separated with the husband requiring continuous care, while the wife was reasonably healthy. He was put into a nursing home where he could get the care he required while she was found accommodations in a retirement residence in a neighboring town. Within six weeks of this arrangement being instituted, the two passed away within days of each other.
Given that we are witnessing the most radical demographic shift in our history, it would make sense that social services provided by the government take into account the human dimension essential to care. As the number of older individuals increases and as people are now tending on average to live longer, we need to think about providing proper care that takes into account more than just the physical needs of older people. Providing quality care entails more than having RNs making the rounds to give people their medications. We must be cognizant of the emotional impact that changes such as those described above have on the people involved.
While separating older couples to meet the care needs of one may be financially expedient, it is destructive to the wellness of those on the receiving end. It’s difficult to imagine the effect that being isolated from one’s mate of more than five decades has on healthy people, but it’s devastating to those in need of care.
Culturally we pride ourselves on how we care for those less fortunate members of our society. We have welfare programs to keep families afloat during tough times. We take in refugees from around the world and care for all their needs until they are able to establish themselves as productive members of society. We provide assistance to women who choose to have children on their own, what’s so difficult about providing proper care for our elders? After all, they have for the most part made our society what it is today, as they have contributed through taxes all their lives.
We should be thinking about long-term care facilities that are family friendly and that provide as much support as possible for geriatric couples to enable them to live out the remainder of their lives together with as little disruption and as much care as possible.
Separating individuals at that age because their needs differ is a travesty and exposes our society’s generosity as a conceit. If enough people voice their disapproval of this practice it will end and provisions will be made to provide the care necessary to be conducive to our elders’ well being. Our seniors deserve nothing less.
Klaus Rohrich is President and Creative Director of Taylor/Rohrich Associates Inc., a marketing and advertising firm that specializes in niche marketing retirement real estate developments http://www.maturitymarketing.com.
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