In a youth-oriented culture obsessed with Botox, plastic surgery, and age-defying cosmetic products, old tends to be synonymous with decrepit, stinky, cranky, and any number of negative stereotypes. Certainly, many older patients are frail and very close to the end of life.
But the clinicians who work with older adults take great joy in the experience—and when they describe some of their patients, you realize that with their spunk and wisdom, these seniors could teach younger generations a thing or two.
In the independent living community where she provides care, Barbara Resnick, PhD, CRNP, FAAN, FAANP, a Professor at the University of Maryland School of Nursing and the Secretary of the Board of Directors of the American Geriatrics Society, has a 101-year-old patient with acute angina who is a big fan of physical activity. “She’ll say to me, ‘Barbara, you’re not making me go to the hospital today. I really want to go down and exercise,’” Resnick says. “She feels better after she does it.”
For Debra Bakerjian, PhD, MSN, FNP, President of the Gerontological Advanced Practice Nurses Association, one memorable patient is the perfectly cognizant 99-year-old woman “who has a little attitude because her CNA is off and she had to have another CNA do her hair, and she can’t do hair as well. And I get to sit and listen to the stories that she tells about when she was in her 20s … and 30s … and 40s, sharing her experiences at a time that was well before I was born. It’s wonderful.”
Freddi I. Segal-Gidan, PA, PhD, Co-Director of the Alzheimer’s Research Center of California at Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center, also speaks warmly of her patients’ willingness to share. “The attraction for me in geriatrics is that I get to time-travel,” she says. “I get to meet people at the end of their lives and get to know all about them. And they lived in a time and a place that I didn’t—but I get to have that experience.”
Kathy Kemle, PA-C, who cofounded the Society of PAs Caring for the Elderly with Segal-Gidan and who is President of the Georgia Geriatrics Society, learned early to appreciate older people. “I had the good fortune to grow up in a community where I was the only person younger than 50—and I was spoiled rotten,” she says. “So I grew to enjoy being around older adults. They’re just fun people, and you can learn fascinating things.”
And for a clinician, some of them can be dream patients. “As a group, they are the most compliant patients you will meet,” Kemle says with a laugh. “That may change, of course. As my generation gets in there, I’m sure I’ll be as noncompliant as the next one. But the current cohort of older adults are very compliant and very appreciative.”
All four geriatric clinicians interviewed also noted that little things can make a big difference. “Just reducing somebody’s medication can make them less confused,” Segal-Gidan says. “Or putting grab bars in their bathroom can help them to be independent in toileting. You don’t have to do major surgery to make a difference.”