Providence Women

Death doula: A midwife for the end of life

2011-12-27T10:41:00.000-08:00

This brief article from today’s L.A. Times describes an advocate’s perspective on companioning another during his/her dying. This one sentence reflects the nobility and sacredness of the task Ana takes on as a death doula: “If I'm assisting in a death passing, what I'm really doing is assisting the soul to birth its new life. And that's such an honorable, necessary thing." Ana Blechschmidt

The entire article can be accessed at this link: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-death-doula-20111227,0,1874185.story

But my bathroom has always been steps away from the foot of my bed!"

2011-10-31T06:23:00.000-07:00

A week ago I moved to a new (for me) home in a new city in a new State along with fellow community member, Sister Bernie Galvin. Three days after arriving, I commented to Sister Bernie on how puzzled I was that in going from the kitchen to the basement, I automatically headed for the door which is a closet, instead of the door on the other side of the room which leads to the basement. I visualized the previous house I had lived in and realized the path I instinctively took WOULD have led me to the basement in the "old"house. When I shared that revelation with Bernie, she told me that she had a similar experience. In leaving her bedroom to go to the bathroom in this new location, she instinctively attempted a left turn into the hallway which was the “route” in the previous house.

Patterns and routines run deep. We both have adjusted pretty well to learning new patterns, but this reality of following learned routines rather spontaneously caused me to think of consequences for elders when they are hospitalized, or when they first move to a nursing home.

That same pattern of following a familiar “path” to the bathroom, the first few nights that an elder is in the hospital or is new to a nursing home often results in falls. These falls can have serious and sometimes fatal consequences.

Hospitals are taking more notice of falls because Medicare no longer reimburses the cost of care due to an in-hospital fall-related injury. The “solution” to preventing falls, whether in hospitals or nursing homes is NOT the use of physical restraints or those ever-increasingly-used but proven-to-be ineffective chair alarms. Evidence of this is not only common sense, but ongoing research.

Lack of mobility adversely affects every ---- every --- system in the body. When one doesn’t move, one loses muscle strength and balance – just for starters.

An article in “Medical News Today” describes an in-hospital study which concludes that falls are not related to activity (number of steps taken). An analysis of in-hospital falls during this study found that all of the falls took place at night, and that 60% of these falls were related to visits to the bathroom.

Patterns and routines run deep.

To read this short article, click on the link below.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/236797.php

Real Food VS. Oral Nutritional Supplements

2011-05-02T22:01:00.000-07:00

Michael Pollan is a journalist who, in doing some investigative journalism work about our food supply and the way we Americans eat, has written some very good books. In fact, Pollan is recognized as a foremost authority in the conversation about real food and what he calls “food-like” food. The latter he defines as processed and pre-prepared foods.

I wish Michael had been with me at a conference session (Aging in America) that I attended last week. Two national organizations focusing on aging cosponsored their national conference here in San Francisco so I took advantage of what I had judged to be worthwhile sessions. This one was entitled something about the role of malnutrition in older adults in loss of independence.

Without going into their entire presentation, I present this brief summary: A fine doctor (internist, geriatrician, certified medical director at two teaching nursing homes, and researcher) presented data showing how older adults are at risk for malnutrition and all the ills that can result from malnutrition.

Then two registered dietitians (RD) took over the rest of the session. In the interests of full disclosure, they both stated that they were consultants for Nestle Nutrition Institute. (Oooohhhhh!) I hate it when I get caught in a corporate “paid programming” session especially when it happens at a conference that advertises itself as a professional conference.

Now the first purpose of any corporation that intends to stay in existence is to make money. Good capitalistic principle. Not an evil concept when the reach for profit is kept in its place.

So these RDs showed us many charts with all the good results reflecting the benefits for a person who is malnourished or is at risk for being malnourished when s/he is provided oral nutritional supplements (ONS). I don’t question their results.

This is what I questioned at the session: Are there studies that reflect that when real food is provided to elders (Meals on Wheels, Senior Centers, PACE Centers, retirement settings and nursing homes) that the need for ONSs decreases? Are there studies that indicate that when residents of nursing homes are allowed to come to the dining room (or kitchen in a household nursing home) for meals when they are ready to eat, that the need for ONSs decreases? Believe it or not, not even the doctor was aware of any such studies.

I also had to explain what I meant by “real food.” When food is prepared for any of the congregate settings mentioned above, the typical approach is to buy foods from an institutional food service. The food is already seasoned (high in sodium) and cooked. All that is required of the staff is to open and heat. Even the cakes and other desserts are all pre-cooked and just have to be thawed and served. By and large that is what elders who do not live at home, or who live at home and can no longer prepare their meals, are subject too.

In fact the studies I asked about have been done. And in every study, the need for ONSs decreased; there was less wasted food within the institution and the outcome was an increase of weight for the elders who were malnourished or at risk for being malnourished.

There’s also the whole world of smells when food is “cooked from scratch.” Don’t we all know that experience of the simultaneous sense of aroma from the kitchen and a sense of, “I want to eat!” Let’s not deprive our elders of that experience – the pleasure of eating “real food” and all the healthy benefits it provides.

Michael Pollan summarizes a healthy diet in his book: “In Defense of Food” this way: Eat real food, not too much, mostly plants." I say let’s provide that for our elders!

P.S. I know there are situations in which only ONSs will provide the needed results. But those ONSs should be tried only after there is no response to “real food” provided in an environment of HOME.

Quality of life, Falls and Vitamin D

2011-04-20T09:46:00.000-07:00

When researchers examine the quality of life that residents of nursing homes experience, one of the questions in determining a good or poor quality of life is, “How often do you get outdoors?” We certainly don’t need esoteric research to convince us that getting outdoors is a good thing. Our experience tells us that. Perhaps it is that first walk in the morning around the yard to see what has appeared since yesterday. Or it may be that cherished walk in the early morning or late afternoon that is a ritual for us, after which we feel a new energy in our steps. What can compare with the brush of a soft spring breeze on our cheek? What delight do we not experience at the sight and sound of a bird winging its way with obvious delight, also, in the new day?

If a person is not living independently at home, that access to the outdoors may be totally dependent on her caregivers. How many retirement settings have priorities and stated programmatic policies about assuring that residents in their retirement community get outdoors when the weather permits? Are activities ever planned that involve an outdoor experience? Are spaces intentionally developed that invite elders outdoors?

Now apart from the gift to the soul that being outdoors provides, there is also an aspect of physical health. We all know that exposure to sunlight produces Vitamin D in our bodies. Amazing, isn’t it! Twenty minutes outdoors when the UV index is 3 or greater will do it!

Here’s what a noted doctor says about Vitamin D and older adults:

According to Elizabeth Sykes, MD, vice chief of clinical pathology at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Mich., older adults with vitamin D deficiency also have an increased risk of muscle weakness and bone diseases such as osteomalacia (softening of the bones) or osteoporosis (reduced bone density) as well as an increased risk of rheumatoid arthritis and type 1 diabetes (http://www.agingwellmag.com/news/ex_012511_02.shtml accessed April 20, 2011)

Falls among elders are serious matters. One in three persons over the age of 65 experiences a fall over the course of a year. These falls can lead to hospitalization, admission to a long-term care setting, or even death.

Studies of elders show a relationship between falls and Vitamin D levels in the body. Vitamin D is needed by the body to improve muscle strength and contraction.

Medical professionals encourage Vitamin D supplements among elders if needed when exposure to sunlight is not sufficient, or if their diet does not provide this vitamin adequately. So in those climates and at those times of the year when our friends and/or family members living in retirement settings can get outdoors, let’s get them outdoors! When sunlight exposure is not practical because of the weather, a healthy diet and, if needed, the Vitamin D supplements should be used.

Oh, and one other thing: an analysis at Rush University Medical Center of several studies among older adults with Alzheimer’s showed a relationship between the presence of this dreaded disorder and “a constricted life space.” That constricted life space was defined in the study as: “Specifically, those with a life space restricted to their immediate home environment.” Older adults in a “constricted life space” were twice as likely to develop Alzheimer’s as elders whose life space extended beyond this immediate home environment.

Anybody for a walk – for its gift to the body, mind and spirit?

Avoiding Falls in Our Later Years

2010-09-16T17:46:00.000-07:00

© September 16, 2010 by Imelda Maurer, cdp

Corporations bag billions in profits each year with “anti-aging” solutions – creams, oils, supplements, surgery , books – successfully playing to American’s fear and denial of aging.

While we cannot avoid aging, and while there are no true “anti aging “ solutions, an article in the New York Times describes how the skill of balance CAN BE ENHANCED with appropriate exercise! Why is this so important?

“Unintentional falls among those 65 and older are responsible for more than 18,000 deaths and nearly 450,000 hospitalizations annually in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Most of these falls are caused by a decline in that complex and multidimensional human skill known as balance.

To remain upright and sure-footed, explained Dr. David Thurman, a neurologist with the center and a spokesman for the American Academy of Neurology, “there are several components of the nervous system, as well as motor or movement functions that need to be intact.” These include the vestibular system of the inner ear, vision and proprioception, the ability to sense where one’s arms, legs or other parts of the body are without looking at them, as well as the strength and flexibility of bones and soft tissue.

“All of these,” Dr. Thurman said, “tend to degrade with age, particularly as people move into their seventh and eighth decades.”

Yet, unlike many effects of aging, balance can be improved, and the age-related declines can be delayed or minimized with proper training.

“The preponderance of evidence,” Dr. Thurman said, “shows fairly convincingly that strength and balance training can reduce the rate of falls by up to about 50 percent.”
To read about the types of exercise that can enhance the skill of balance without hiring a personal trainer, go to the NY Times article by clicking on the title of the blog entry.

Making it OK to Sleep Late

2010-09-14T11:19:00.000-07:00

© September 14, 2010 by Imelda Maurer, cdp

My sister and her husband have, for the last few years, enjoyed socializing at a neighborhood senior center. Their custom is to go once or twice a week. Not long ago during a telephone visit, I asked my sister if they enjoyed lunch at the center. “No,” she said, “they serve lunch at 11:30. We are late sleepers and when we get up and take our time in the mornings, we don’t usually make it in time for lunch.”

Nothing unusual in that remark. After many years of hard work, this retired couple can now manage their daily schedule according to their own likes. They share long evenings, get to bed late and like to sleep late in the morning. Fair enough. They deserve it!

In too many nursing homes, for those adults who have to live in one, there is a schedule: breakfast served at particular time as is lunch and dinner. That means that staff members are required to have the residents up and dressed in order to be “on time” for the institutionally scheduled breakfast time.

Lots of problems with this kind of living for years on end. It’s institutional. It’s NOT home. For elders with even minimal cognitive impairment, being awakened and helped with dressing and grooming before they are ready to do so may result in notes in that elder’s chart claiming there was “combative behavior” or that the resident “was uncooperative with a.m. care.” That’s a topic for another entry.

However, the good news in all this is that THE TIMES THEY ARE A CHANGIN’! Progressive nursing homes are “making it ok to sleep late.” An article in The Chicago Tribune highlights a nursing home which is making the move from institution to home.

Note the advantages that are evident: quality of life for the residents; enhanced employee satisfaction; lower costs for the provider.

“Nursing homes that embrace the new philosophy are letting residents decide when to bathe, eat and sleep; allowing them to organize their own activities; and redesigning nursing units into small "households."

Advocates say residents in such homes are happier and healthier; the employees have more job satisfaction; and giving care this way even costs less.”

The administrator is quoted as saying that she doesn’t even like to speak of “allowing” residents to sleep late. "It's not for us to give them that freedom," she said. "They should have it."

There is an important corollary to this story: consumers -- that’s US, the nursing home residents of the future -- must demand this kind of environment and person-centered living. The movement of transformative culture change in nursing homes is a fast-growing ripple. We advocates and consumers must change the ripples into waves!

GO, MAKE WAVES!

Click on the title of this post at the top of this page to be linked to the article from The Chicago Tribune. It is a short, enjoyable and informative piece

I Never Saw Your Wrinkles

2010-07-26T18:37:00.000-07:00

Another one of my favorites -- posted some time ago!

Friday, March 2, 2007
I Never Saw Your Wrinkles
© March 2 2007 by Imelda Maurer, cdp

Several years ago I fell in love with gardening. It was a kind of surprising transformation following a farm-life childhood, where the work seemed only drudgery. So averse was I to having to go on Saturday mornings to hoe the weeds out of the long rows in the grape vineyard or from around the young corn plants, or to pick the field peas, that I cultivated the habit of praying for rain every weekend.

When I was in my mid-30s, I found myself living in rural southern Louisiana with an ample yard of beautiful, dark, delta soil beneath the lawn. I decided to attempt a small organic vegetable garden and cultivated a patch that was probably 20 feet by 12 feet. I was astounded at the delight I took in seeing the small seedlings take hold and flourish, at the beauty of the different shades of green against the dark, black soil. I looked forward to the time I would be able to spend in my garden, a time that became richly reflective and meditative, as well as emotionally fulfilling.

As that first spring progressed, the tomato plants grew almost shoulder height, producing tomatoes for me and many of my neighbors. After the growing season, I removed the dead plants and added them to the compost pile where, during the still winter season, they turned into rich dirt. That compost, added to the garden, nourished the next season's young plants. I had an experiential awareness of the universal cycle of life, death and subsequent new life, as I had observed my garden plants mature, provide fruit and later yield to death.

There is a distinct beauty in a young, maturing plant. A pepper plant, for example grows so straight with wondrous, dark, shiny, green leaves. Its stems strengthen and become almost woody, enabling it to support the proliferation of beautiful, glossy, waxy peppers. In doing so, the plant loses its youthful appearance and gains the beauty of maturity.

I began to understand not only that the appearance of the pepper plants in each stage of growth and development held its own beauty, but that there was a certain rightness and appropriateness in the beauty of each stage of that pepper plant's life. The reflective time in the garden provided the recognition of a connection between the stages of life in the plants I loved and nurtured and the stages in my own life. I recognized in a new and profound way that there is a beauty, a rightness, an appropriateness in who we are and how we appear at whatever age.

I've believed for many years that as we age our beauty deepens. The face and eyes of older persons reflect the richness of their life experiences and the wisdom that comes from their life's journey of intermingled pain and joy. It is this inner self, wonderfully manifested in some way in our physical being, that is who we really are. Robert Redford alluded to this perspective in an interview in which he spoke of a personal rejection of having plastic surgery because he believes that in that process, "something of your soul in your face goes away."
We all know at some level that, when we look at someone, or when we call a person's image to mind, that we are seeing the person as he or she really is -- something of the inner self. This was exquisitely voiced by a woman in a news story that ran recently on "Good Morning America.” The story cited growing numbers of adults older than 65 who are choosing plastic surgery. Featured was an 80-year-old woman who had recently had a face lift, tummy tuck and breast augmentation. She was shown sitting around a table with women of her own age group, obviously friends and acquaintances. One in the group asked why she underwent plastic surgery. The subject of the interview answered, touching her smooth, wrinkle-free face: "Look how smooth my face is. Don't you remember how wrinkled it was?" To which her friend replied in a soft-spoken voice, "I never saw your wrinkles."
Posted by Imelda Maurer, cdp at 8:14 AM

I'm Not A Young Woman

2010-07-26T18:00:00.000-07:00

© March 26, 2007 by Imelda Maurer, cdp

This is one of my first entries on my blog, which you can tell from the date. However, it's one of my favorites. I want to share it again.

Lowe’s had a large selection of vacuum cleaners, and I needed one. I had just moved to begin a new ministry and was shopping that Saturday afternoon for some basics for the small house I was renting. The salesman was helping another woman when I walked up. I was there only a moment or two before he looked at me and said, “I’ll be with you in a minute, young woman.” To which I responded politely, “I’m not a young woman.” The woman he was helping was probably embarrassed at my apparent lack of social sensitivity to this well-meaning salesman. She turned to me and said, “He’s trying to make you feel good.” “I know,” I said, “but I’ve lived 63 years to look like this, and I don’t want any of those years or experiences disregarded.”

How many of us have not had that experience at least once since we passed 55 or 60 years of age? How did we really feel about such a remark? A good feeling because maybe we really don’t look as old as we really are? Maybe ‘they’ really think I am still young. And am I happy that I am seen as still young?

Our western society is so terribly ageist. The state of youthfulness is worshipped and sought after to the tune of billions of dollars raked in by the cosmetic and anti-aging industry here in the United States alone. On the other hand, birthday cards for anyone 30 or older make degrading joke after degrading joke about one’s age. What a shame.

Dr. Andrew Weil, in his recent book, HEALTHY AGING addresses this concept of our society’s abhorrence of aging. He concludes by saying that no matter how much we spend on hormonal supplements, plastic surgery or anti-aging cosmetics, we cannot stop the aging process, and we should “accept” our aging. No, Dr. Weil, we should not “accept” our aging, we should CHERISH and HONOR our aging. It is a sacred part of our life journey.

For me as a Sister of Divine Providence, it is another wonderful and good aspect of God’s Providential love and care. For me, aging is an adventure. I’ve never been this old before! Who will I be as an old(er) person? How will the experiences of my life, both inner and outer experiences, show themselves in my face, in my body?

Aging can hold much pain for some of us. I don’t deny that. Many older adults suffer complex health problems. But that is not a universal experience. Each of us has some control over how our older years will be lived based on our inherited genes and by the way we live each day now: healthy diet, at least a 30-minute walk, positive attitudes, and informed, regular care of body, mind and spirit.

If we each fought ageism every time we encountered it, whether it is public policy or a well-meaning sales clerk, wouldn’t we individually be a lot more psychologically healthier? Wouldn’t our entire society be a lot healthier?

Can you look at yourself in the mirror and smile with gratitude for the life’s journey that has been yours so far, and that reveals itself in that face you see in the mirror?

"When I Grow Up . . . "

2010-07-26T16:52:00.001-07:00

© by Imelda Maurer, cdp July 26, 2010

AARP has an ad that I believe is absolutely wonderful and absolutely on target. The message seeks ultimately to recruit members to their organization. But the line used over and over again by the middle aged actors in the ad is this: "When I grow up . . . " It ends with a voiceover saying, "At AARP we believe you're never done growing." What an attitude toward aging! And it's true! We have the potential for growth and development until we draw our dying breath.

The ad is on the web and you can access it by clicking on the title of this post. It's only 30 seconds long. Enjoy it!

http://homadge.blogspot.com/2010/04/aarp-when-i-grow-up.html

The Real Story of Aging: As Experienced and as Ministry To the Other

2010-04-28T19:44:00.000-07:00

The following letter was sent earlier this week to all members of the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging (AAHSA) by Larry Minnix, our AAHSA President, who is also a Methodist minister. Larry can talk the statistical, bottom line, give a surpass-the-competition kind of talk with a valid and assured competence. Larry also “gets it” about the real mission of serving our elders, and always communicates that mission in messages such as these to the membership.
In this letter, Larry writes about a woman who, incidentally, lived and died at a Continuing Care Retirement Center here in San Francisco: The Sequoias, a Presbyterian-sponsored ministry.

The letter is worthy of broad distribution for these reasons:
Larry dismisses the myths of aging often portrayed in the public media; he also rejects the botox-using, aging-denying efforts all too prevalent in our American society.

He shows how Jean Wright and those of her ilk, lived her life to the fullest. She embraced her aging as part of the “fulfilling process of the life cycle.”
Larry observed that Jean “lived fully until she died. She trusted in the grace of it all. She reminded us that our mission together is about the people we serve.”
I share this letter with the hope that it will stir reflections among each of us about honoring our own aging and those among us, that it will draw us to a deeper consciousness of the sacredness of this “Third Act” -- our own and those we love -- and the profound implications therein.

Jean Wright: The Real Story of Aging
By Larry Minnix
May is dedicated to older Americans. Maybe it's because I'm becoming one. Maybe it's because a great one, Jean Wright of The Sequoias, recently passed. But lately I have been giving a lot of thought to the real story of aging in our society.

Older Americans Month is a great opportunity to reflect on aging and role models of successful aging. Throughout May (Yes, I'm starting early), I plan to present role models I have known.

The media often portrays aging as either comedic characters who can get away with edgy comments because of age or, more recently, the once beautiful or handsome movie star who has been retreaded with botox and cosmetic surgical work to become the “70 year old who’s the new 40” kind of image.

Don’t get me wrong, I like edgy "senior" comedy. There is an outrageous quality about some of it that I find fun, and I think Raquel Welch was gorgeous at 29 and looks good at 69. No value judgment about either.

It’s just that, well, those role models are not the real story of aging. But Jean Wright is. And I do not believe our society and culture will ever fully embrace aging as a part of the fulfilling process of the life cycle until we understand and appreciate people like Jean.
On Feb. 7, 2010, at the age of 86, Jean died at The Sequoias, a storied AAHSA member, where she lived with her husband for 28 years. Jean’s daughter, Deborah, said Jean was “…surrounded in death by her husband and children.” Reminds me of Abraham and Sarah’s passing in the Old Testament. They died “a good old age.”

Jean was a “powerful lady,” says Ramona Davies, a friend of Jean and a Northern California Presbyterian Homes and Services leader. Jean was elected to the Aging Services of California board, the AAHSA House of Delegates, and was the first resident to serve on AAHSA’s Board of Directors.

Ramona stated it well: In every session Jean attended, she would remind providers and residents alike who we are supposed to be serving. She could make us uncomfortable in doing so, but you always knew that Jean was one of our biggest fans.

I admired her tenacity as her body steadily betrayed her. She rarely missed our AAHSA board meeting, traveling across country to attend. On two occasions, we had to call 911 because she had fallen at a hotel event. She didn’t like the fuss and didn’t miss the meetings.

There were special intangibles about Jean. She exuded integrity, hope, disciplined thought, and principles. She inspired confidence and trust. One time, my wife and I hosted an informal dinner for the AAHSA board at our home. We had a skittish border collie mix named Bear. Bear really only loved his family and barked at other people. Jean came into our home, sat on our couch, and Bear immediately bonded with her. Jean faithfully asked about Bear when we’d correspond.

Deborah, Jean's daughter, referred to Jean’s Sequoias/ASC/AAHSA years as “Act Three” of Jean’s life. What a concept! In the latter days of Act Three, Jean taught us one of the most valuable lessons that can be taught: How to recognize the near end of life and how to accept the inevitability of it.

After steady deterioration of body, Jean asked to be part of “Comfort Care” status. She had “…long been an advocate of compassionate choices related to end-of-life care,” wrote Deborah. Jean “graciously accepts the path she has chosen.”

O, death, where is thy sting?

Deborah asked Jean what message she wanted us to receive from her. Teacher and purveyor of wisdom to the very end, Jean replied, “Tell them that I’ve had a good, good life and that I am grateful for the role each of them has played in that life. No regrets!”
Jean Wright‘s life, dying, and death are the real story of aging in a healthy way. She lived fully until she died. She trusted in the grace of it all.

She reminded us that our mission together is about the people we serve, and that, like the Sequoias obviously knows, you and I are in the “No regrets” business during the “Act Three” of people’s lives.

People like Jean give all of us confidence about the life cycle. We trusted her. We can trust beyond ourselves. Even Bear, my mistrusting dog, sensed it. Jean, we already miss you!

Let’s celebrate people like Jean in May.

Catholic Sisters: Strong, courageous, nurturing compassion

2010-03-23T16:19:00.000-07:00

© Imelda Maurer, cdp March 23, 2010

On September 10, 1950 our family was on our way to 7:30 a.m. Sunday Mass. Within blocks of church a woman ran a red light and hit us broadside. My younger sister and oldest sister sustained serious injuries which resulted in a week’s stay in the hospital for each of them. My oldest sister was knocked unconscious and was also bleeding profusely from the neck. My mother feared an artery had been severed and applied pressure at the laceration – not taking time to remove her Sunday gloves.

After the ambulance arrived and the paramedics had provided emergency First Aid, my mother, of course, accompanied my sisters in the ambulance to the hospital. Mother told the ambulance driver to take her to St. Paul’s Hospital. This request came from my mother’s deep love for the Church and her trust that the Sisters in a Catholic hospital would provide the best physical and spiritual care possible. The ambulance driver told her that St. Paul's Emergency Room was not open on Sunday; he was going to the county hospital. My mother’s response to this was to beat on his shoulder – bloodied gloves ---- and tell him: "You take me to St. Paul’s. The Sisters will let me in.”

The driver pulled up to the front entrance of St. Paul’s hospital. This was well before 8:00 on a Sunday morning. My mother dashed to the staired front entrance leading to the administrative offices. She had gone no more than two or three steps when she saw a Daughter of Charity of St. Vincent DePaul rushing toward her down the steps. arms open and embracing her when they met. Sister’s response to my mother’s reporting that she was told the Emergency Room was not open on Sunday was, “Of course we’re here for you.”

No matter how many times I remember that story, it is still a very emotional experience for me: recalling my mother’s unquestioning trust in and love for everything connected with the Church, and the human, immediate, effective compassion that wonderful Daughter of Charity showed my mother. (How many hospital administrators are in their office at 8:00 on a Sunday morning?) The story is true in fact and deeply symbolic of the commitment and compassion Sisters have shown those in need throughout our more than 200 years in this country. Sisters nurtured the orphans, taught poor immigrant children, nursed soldiers from the North and the South during the Civil War. All this was often done without pay and at times under oppressive conditions within the hierarchical Catholic Church Institution. Sisters marched in Selma. Sisters have worked for women’s rights. Today Sisters are found beyond the hospital and classroom, though there too. Sisters are answering unmet needs – in metropolitan areas, in hamlets and in inner cities – needs that would continue to go unmet without the involvement of Sisters.

Most recently Sisters acted with strong, courageous, nurturing compassion, this time publicly and corporately. Prominent women religious leaders concluded after a careful study of the pending health care bill that “the reform law does not allow federal funding of abortion and that it keeps in place important conscience protections for caregivers and institutions alike. We are also pleased that the bill includes $250 million to fund counseling, education, job training and housing for vulnerable women who are pregnant or parenting.” (Sister Carol Keehan, CEO of CHA)

On March 15, Sister Carol Keehan, A Daughter of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul and CEO of the Catholic Health Association issued a statement of support for the pending health care bill. The statement reflected that the bill goes beyond the requirements of the Hyde amendment and said “the time is now for health reform.”

Two days later, Network, (www.networklobby.org) a national Catholic Social Justice Lobby, sent a letter to every member of the House of Representatives saying: “We write to urge you to cast a life-affirming yes vote when the Senate health care bill (H.R. 3590) comes to the floor of the House for a vote.” The letter was signed by Sister Marlene Weisenbeck, FSPA, President of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. That organization represents 95% of Catholic Sisters in our country. Sister Marlene signed a second time as President of her Congregation, along with more than 50 other Sisters in various capacities of elected leadership within their congregations. I have every certainty that many more congregations would have been represented in that letter had it not been for the necessity of a very close deadline.

In these public actions, I believe, Catholic Sisters were caring in ways we have cared since our beginnings in this country. In the words of Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, “They care for the least, the last and the lost.”

This public, corporate stance for those most marginalized in our society is a source of great pride for me. This is “us” at our best! Strong, nurturing, courageous, passionate! What a gift to be within this circle of women!

"A story is difficult, if not impossible to read in an electronic medical record."

2010-01-25T18:12:00.000-08:00

© Imelda Maurer, cdp January 25, 2010

Today's mail included the current issue of the publication, "Caring for the Ages." It is a journal of the American Medical Directors Association. Medical directors are physicians who, in addition to possibly attending some of the residents in a nursing home, are responsible for developing and implementing medical care policies and procedures that are based on current standards of practice. The Medical Director is also responsible, if requested by the nursing home, for supervising the care other physicians in the nursing home provide their residents to see that all medical care policies are implemented.

I was excited to see the debut of a column by Dr. Jerald Winakur and skipped quickly to that page. Dr. Winakur is a practicing geriatrician and a faculty member of the University of Texas Health Sciences Center in San Antonio,TX. About this time last year he published a remarkable, moving memoir, "Memory Lessons", in which he tells his life story through the narrative of his father's stages of dementia and finally death. Each chapter is a well-told story wrapped in his professional and humanitarian understanding of the aging process and his manner of honoring that process in each of his patients and in his dad.

In this column, Dr. Winakur relates his experiences as a practitioner in the context of stories. Each person, he relates, brings a story. The doctor's task is to listen to that story. Winakur has learned to ask a few questions, he says. He believes that the "forged ability to listen" is the 'art' of medicine. "By listening to our patients' stories, good doctors glean most of the information they need not only to treat ailing bodies but also to care for our fellow humans as unique beings. He continues, "It is not necessarily what patients tell me but what they don't tell me -- what I observe from years of being alert to nonverbal cues -- that is often even more important than words."

The intent of his initial column is to highlight the relational aspect of 'doctoring.' He chides those physicians who become "mere technicians" in our procedure-oriented world." Referring to the current health care 'debate,' Winakur pleads that people making public policy set in place policies that will provide reimbursement for both narrative and statistics. Otherwise, he says, "if the oft-tortured thread of a story is absent in the debate of policy makers . . . . our health care system will be sterile, unresponsive, bureaucratic, inflexible and undignified for patient and practitioner alike."

While reading this column, I was again reminded of how fortunate Dr. Winakur's patients are to have him as their primary care provider. I have a few friends in San Antonio who fit that description, and not one of them expresses less than a huge, grateful smile when this relationship is mentioned.

I was also reminded of a recent telephone conversation with my sister who lives in another city. In response to a question about her health, she told me that she and my brother-in-law are just fine. "We've changed doctors." Their previous, doctor, in their estimation, had gotten to the point that "he thought he knew more about us then we did." In other words, this 'other doctor' didn't listen to their stories. He didn't honor their narratives. My response was totally supportive. "You go, girl!"

If your primary care provider isn't listening to your verbal and nonverbal messages, is too rushed to listen or to question, writes a prescription at the first mention of a symptom --- maybe a change should be in store in your future!

Aging, Wisdom, Companioning, Spirituality

2009-10-08T10:53:00.000-07:00

© Imelda Maurer, cdp October 8, 2009

Harry Moody publishes an e-newsletter on Human Values in Aging. His latest issue included poetry about aging.

The first poem is entitled “Alzheimer’s Patient.” Reading it we see some of the anguish of Alzheimer’s. We also see the call for those of us who know such individuals to companion them, to know that they are “ill and not insane.”

ALZHEIMER’S PATIENT
Oh, how can this be?

You and I are losing me

Some day soon

May be morning

May be noon

I will no longer be the me

You and I know as me,

And the answer seems to be

Words, and thoughts, frequently scramble

And my conversations seem to ramble.
Oh, how can this be?

You and I are losing me.

What do I see when I look into your eyes?

And neighbors come just to pry?

Confusion, hurt, pity, and pain?

For I am ill and not insane.
Oh, how can this be?

You and I are losing me?

Oh, help me pray,

"Lord, please come to me and take me Home with you for all eternity.

"What can we do to keep from losing me?

"Nothing," say the experts.
Oh, how can this be?

You and I are losing me?

But in my confused and foggy state,

To You I plea,"Love me--Remember me--Help meTo be--

For as long as I can be

The me we know as me."

“The Journey” is a plea from the Alzheimer’s patient for ongoing recognition of his/her dignity and a plea that we identify them in terms of their strengths instead of their losses.

THE JOURNEY
My journey began as a child

I was told what to do"GO TO BED""DRINK YOUR MILK"

I was learning to maneuver my broad wings

Trying to soar over the world below

Dependent for my life

My journey continued through adult life

I as doing as I wanted to do

FLYING

I was in control of my wings

Independent. Living my life.

Now my journey begins as an aged woman

I still feel I can do as I wish

But now you tell me what to do

"YOU NEED YOUR REST"

"DRINK YOUR FLUIDS"

My feathers are being plucked, slowly.

One by one

You limit my flight day by day.

Look upon me carefully

See me living

See my wings spread wider than ever before

Do not end my journey

It is not time

"I CAN FLY"

"I CAN FLY"

“Oak Tree" speaks so eloquently of the deep need for companionship, relationships, even among those who can no longer relate as they used to. At some deep, unarticulate-able level, this companioning tells them, with great joy, that they are not alone.

OAK TREE
I stand Alone

A strong Oak Tree

My Sturdy Limbs spread Wide

My leaves are Steadily Falling

A Child comes to Climb

Happiness

I am no longer Alone

What Nursing Home Residents Talk About With Their Therapists

2009-09-28T11:57:00.000-07:00

© Imelda Maurer, cdp September 29, 2009
The following is taken from a blog: http://www.mybetternursinghome.blogspot.com/ and was posted on September 10, 2009. The blogger is a psychotherapist.

What struck me about these topics shared with a therapist is that these topics are the stuff of ordinary life. Do nursing home residents need a therapist because they have no one else to talk with? Is there any intent anywhere within the nursing home organizational structure to create community? Carter Catlett Williams, noted advocate and social worker, tells us in her book “The Red Book”: relationships are not only the heart of long-term care, they are the heart of life. And life ought to continue, wherever we live.

Have you ever wondered what nursing home residents discuss with their shrinks behind closed doors? Here I solve the mystery, revealing the types of conversations I've had with residents over the years.

Feelings about leaving home and being ill.
Issues around loss of control and being dependent on other people, with a focus on gaining control over what they can.
Ways to work with the staff to get their needs met.
Roommates, and how to cope with them.
The reaction of family members to their placement and illness, including ways to help adult children understand that Mom or Dad can't be there for them in the same way because Mom or Dad is sick and needs help themselves, and ways to help adult children understand that just because Mom or Dad is sick, it doesn't mean they can't go off campus every once in a while.
Issues around dying, including concerns about the afterlife and worries about how the family will get along without them.
Ways of making the most of the time they have left, including getting more involved in nursing home activities and the life of the nursing home community.
Their lives, choices, accomplishments, and regrets.
Stuff that interests them that they don't get to talk about with anyone else, just to be their regular selves again instead of being a patient.

Personal P.S.

People who live in nursing homes are not patients. They are residents. Words reflects our concepts and they also shape our concepts. If a person is described as a patient, are we not defining him/her solely in terms of some phyiscal illness or limitation? If physical needs are the only concerns being dealt with in a nursing home, it will be a dreadful experience for the resident and for the staff.

An analysis of the Five Star Nursing Home Rating System

2009-09-28T08:01:00.000-07:00

© Imelda Maurer, cdp September 28, 2009

When a nursing home touts its five-star rating, it may mean something positive – or not. A five star rating may indicate that the nursing home really is a place where the residents are provided good holistic care, live in a home environment, experience person-centered care, make choices about significant issues in their day and in their care – when they get up and when they go to bed, when and how they are bathed, etc. -- and where staff are empowered and happy in their work.

That same five star rating may not reflect the reality of perhaps, institutionalization with its depersonalization of residents and staff, high turnover with its implications for continuity of good care, poor staff morale with implications for residents, etc.

The government website itself states the limitations of the rating system. (http://www.medicare.gov/NHCompare/static/tabHelp.asp?activeTab=6) noting that the information is for one point in time (snap shot ), that it is self-reported and that the Quality Measures and Quality Indicators measure only a few of the many aspects of care.

An article in today’s Los Angeles Times states, “Although the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services created a website called Nursing Home Compare in 1998 . . . the site's usefulness has been criticized since its inception. “
The entire article can be read at: http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-he-nursing-homes28-2009sep28,0,5321203.story

Nationally, this article reports, 40% of persons over the age of 65 can expect to spend some time in a nursing home. Our own self-interest pushes us to learn more about these issues and to advocate for those living in nursing homes and --- for ourselves.

Drugs and Dementia Care: Unnecessary, Ineffective and Costly

2009-09-25T08:33:00.000-07:00

© Imelda Maurer, cdp September 25, 2009

Isn’t it amazing how often compassion and common sense aren’t validated until there is an official study or series of studies that address the issue involved.

Within the past year or so there has been one news report after another indicating the prevalence of nursing home residents with dementia being prescribed anti-psychotics. This exists in the face of Black Box Warnings by the FDA indicating that elderly residents with dementia are at an increased risk of death when certain anti-psychotics (Seroquel is a big one) are part of the drug regimen.

Recent Research
A study in Australia was reported in the September issue of Caring for the Ages. The residents in that study all had progressive dementia “with persistent behaviors that made it difficult for staff to care for them.” One group of caregivers was provided two-day training in person-centered care with dementia residents. The residents were tested with scientifically valid check lists to indicate their level of agitation at the beginning of the study and then at four and at eight months after the beginning of the study.

Results
After four months, those residents with dementia receiving “usual care” showed an increase of agitation of almost 9 points on the scales that were used. By contrast, those residents who were cared for in the person-centered care model, showed a decrease of 9 points on the same agitation scale.

So there’s the scientific proof --- medical professionals refer to it as “evidence-based” approach to care –

Drugs prescribed for patients with dementia are not always unnecessary. But it is clear that reaching for a prescription pad the moment a symptom is noted is not good medicine even though it is a prevalent practice in too many nursing homes. Dr. Al Power is a geriatrician and certified medical director who practiced at St. John’s Home in Rochester, NY. He has a book that will be published in the early part of 2010 on this very topic of non-pharmacological approach to dementia care. In his own nursing home practice, Dr. Power told me, an average of 6% of his dementia patients at St. John’s were on anti-psychotics. That’s a wonderful contrast to the national average among nursing home residents with dementia of 28%

The call to liberate our elders
When this evidence-based, person-centered approach is used, these elderly residents have been set free from the shackles of unnecessary drugs. Let the work go on!

News from the Front: Culture Change in Action

2009-08-10T08:01:00.000-07:00

© Imelda Maurer, cdp August 10, 2009

My work day started on a great note and I want to provide you the same delight.

Across the country Coalitions on Culture Change are deepening and broadening the involvement of nursing homes in transformational culture change within their State. The link I’m sharing this morning is from the Louisiana Coalition Newsletter, Leader.

KaraLe Causey, President of LEADER (Louisiana Enhancing Aging with Dignity Through Empowerment and Respect) writes on page 1 about the place and importance of choice in her life and how this translates to elders in long-term care settings. You will find the article stimulating and motivating. KaraLe would be as great a novelist as she is administrator. You'll enjoy the article!

On page 2, a Certified Medical Director writes about meaningful and effective activities with residents with dementia.

Page 3 includes descriptions of how some nursing home communities honor the death and dying experience of a resident and the resident’s family by particular practices and rituals. One ritual noted includes leaving a single rose on the bed for 24 hours following the death of a resident. How touching that is, in contrast to the traditional, institutional model in which the bed and room are stripped as soon as the body is removed.

Full disclosure: I have been gifted to know KaraLe since August, 2005 when I volunteered time in her nursing home following Katrina. KaraLe opened a vacant wing at Haven Nursing Center to receive 44 residents from a nursing home in New Orleans. Many of these residents lived at Haven for three or more months before they were able to return to their nursing home in New Orleans.

Thanks, KaraLe, for the wonderful work you and the Louisiana Coalition are doing! See you soon at the Pioneer Network Conference!

Here’s the link. Enjoy!

http://laculturechangecoalition.org/userfiles/Newsletters/2009%20August.pdf

"I am richer being able to be with them and serve them."

2009-07-15T09:19:00.000-07:00

© Imelda Maurer, cdp July 15, 2009

Yesterday I wrote to Sister Mary Lou Mitchell, President of the Sisters of St. Joseph, Rochester, NY regarding the July 9th article in The New York Times featuring their Sisters living in their retirement setting. Below is the response I received from Sister Mary Lou, printed here with her permission.

Dear Sr. Imelda,

Thanks for your note and the wonderful piece you did on your blog. This has truly been a humbling experience for me and for the Congregation. Health promotion across the life span and gerontology has been a passion of mine for many years and I am grateful that the community has allowed me to work on improving the quality of care for our elders. They are such wonderful beautiful women and I am richer being able to be with them and serve them in this fashion.

Let us pray that together we can continue to help our culture know that our elderly are a gift to us and not a burden.

In peace,
Mary Lou

Indeed, we are all and always gift to one another. That reality does not become invalid because of chronological age and/or frailty. All of us who are care-ers for others, through a formal workplace position or from the relationship of sisterhood or friendship can validate Sister Mary Lou’s experience of being “richer” because we are “able to be with them and serve them.”

To all those who, by your conscious and intentional actions, honor our aging members by your care and service – blessings to you. You are the joyfully visible sign of God’s Providential love for all of creation.

New York Times July 9 2009

2009-07-14T11:24:00.000-07:00

© Imelda Maurer, cdp July 14, 2009

On July 9th there was a lead article in the New York Times by Jane Gross entitled, “Sisters Face Death with Dignity and Reverence.” I have attempted a blog entry about this outstanding article twice since I read the article but the writing has always fallen flat.

Immediately after reading the article online, I called the Sisters of St. Joseph of Rochester, New York to express my gratitude to Sister Mary Lou Mitchell, President, who was quoted in the article. In addition to the print article, there is a slide show on the website which shows in the course of its own story Sister Mary Lou in a couple of pictures expressing warmth, affection and compassion to her elderly Sisters. I did not sense that this woman in congregational leadership was ‘panning for the camera.’ I sensed a woman familiar with and comfortable with expressing those human emotions with her own. A gift to her Sisters and to the world.

This morning I sent an e-mail to another Sister and I included the URL to that July 9th article. When I remembered a quotation from the article of one of the Sisters living in the retirement center, tears came to my eyes. I thought then: “This is what I should write about.”

This is the quotation: Sister Marie, a 77-year-old Sister who lives at the retirement center and who visits the community nursing home frequently is quoted as saying, “We won’t let anyone go alone on the last journey.”

These Sisters of St. Joseph companion their Sisters. These Sisters honor death as a part of living, as the doorway to the fullness of life. They live out the words of Bill Moyer: “Death must be witnessed and attended to.”

Integral to this faith-based vision is the reality that this earthly life is a gift, a precious gift. In the context of these faith values, namely, that life is a gift and that this physical life is for a limited time only, the Sisters of St. Joseph have intentionally provided an environment where life could be lived to the fullest, where appropriate services could be provided, and where these Sisters would “die with dignity and die well.” These values are expressed in an environment which intentionally promotes the services the Sisters want for their frail elderly. It is expressed in recruiting and hiring well-qualified personnel – a geriatrician-physician as the primary care provider for many of the Sisters, and a nurse practitioner on staff in the nursing home. By definition, these are professionals with pertinent and excellent knowledge and skills related to aging and the care of the aging.

A nationally known social worker, Carter Catlett Williams, in speaking of typical nursing homes, reminds us that all too often we absorb the values of our culture. Not so with these Sisters. They have consciously chosen the environment and the services which will result in a higher quality of life for their own and which will allow them a “good death” in the end, in the company of their Sisters.

I am reminded of a piece of poetry/prose that I share with the readers of this blog:

"I will not die an unlived life. I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire.

I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me, to make me less afraid, more accessible, to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise.

I choose to risk my significance; to live so that which comes to me as seed goes to the next as blossom and that which comes to me as blossom, goes on as fruit."

Dawna Markova
Author of Open Mind.

To read Jane Gross’ article, go to:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/09/health/09sisters.html

There’s no place like home

2009-07-06T16:12:00.000-07:00

© Imelda Maurer, cdp July 6, 2009

Bill Thomas, M.D. has patented a particular approach to culture change in long-term care. The name given to facilities that follow Thomas’ guidelines is “Green House.”

This particular approach is only one way in which culture change is being implemented in long-term care. There are other models. What they hold in common is that they center on the same values and principles: resident-directed environment. Such approaches result in: HOME as opposed to INSTITUTION; autonomy, dignity, individuality, spontaneity in a nursing home resident’s day; more positive outcomes for nursing home residents; and higher morale and lower turnover among nursing home staff. The whole thing, according to well documented research is budget-neutral, though I suspect, in light of greater resident AND employee satisfaction that there is an overall savings in employee training and in medical costs when a nursing home is HOME and not an INSTITUTION.

The Rochester, NY daily newspaper carried an article on July 6th about one such nursing home in that city. You can access it by clicking on the URL below.

Some particularly pertinent statements from the article include these:

It is imperative that there is a change in the organization’s culture if the “model” is to work, if there is to be real change.

“The movement is also prodded by recognition that people treated like parts on an assembly line fail to thrive.”

“Cottage Grove administrator Cathy Allen, a registered nurse who lives in Honeoye Falls, appreciates the close relationships that can form between staff and residents. Allen recently took Chambers (a nursing home resident with some dementia) to buy prizes for games. On the short trip, Chambers repeatedly asked Allen how she had slept and how her day had been, and Allen said she answered cheerfully, again and again. Then at one point Chambers said, "I like being with you."”

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20090706/NEWS01/907060321/1002/NEWS

Is Your Loved One in a Long Term Care Facility at Risk for the H1N1 Flu?

2009-04-30T14:38:00.000-07:00

The following article is taken directly from the April 30th issue of the weekly e-newsletter of the American Medical Directors Association: "Weekly Round Up."

The H1N1 Flu (first called the Swine flu), is spreading throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. There is lots of talk about this moving into a pandemic—an epidemic of an infectious disease—in the U.S. Daily, the government’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is reporting increasing numbers of cases of this flu. As of April 28th, it is confirmed in 10 states in this country, in Canada and several areas in Europe, with Germany as the latest site.

Of course, it is natural to worry about your loved one in a long term care (LTC) facility. LTC facilities have processes in place to try to keep infectious diseases such as flu from coming in and making patients/residents sick. For example, they will request that employees or visitors who have a fever or other signs of illness stay home. Also, they will monitor that staff is washing their hands, not touching or breathing on food, and wearing masks and gloves around someone who is sick. Normally the facility will make sure those patients/residents who are well enough get flu shots and other preventive care. However, there is no flu shot at this time to prevent H1N1 flu.

What are the signs of H1N1 flu? People with the condition usually have the same complaints as people with any flu-like virus, except some people with the H1N1 virus are reporting some nausea and diarrhea. Suspect that someone has H1N1 if he/she has respiratory illness with fever within seven days of close contact with a person who has the illness or within seven days of travel to someplace where people have the H1N1 illness; or they live in a community (like a LTC facility) where people have been proven to have H1N1. Like seasonal flu, H1N1 flu may cause other medical problems to get worse.

Eating pork products does not cause the illness (although it is best to avoid exposure to pigs from Mexico), so you don’t have to worry if the facility is serving ham for lunch.

The medical director makes sure that the facility has flu control practices and policies that go beyond a vaccination program. Such a program is the first step in preventing flu outbreaks, but other steps are needed; and the medical director and his team will make sure that these steps are taken. Facilities have ways to prevent flu illness from spreading if someone gets it. This is often called infection control or outbreak control measures. The facility’s first goal is to protect your loved one and keep him/her safe. So take heart. Doctors, nurses, and others are on alert when there is flu like this going around, and they take steps to try to prevent everyone from getting sick.

Your physician can tell you what you can do to prevent bringing an illness into the facility and how to keep from getting sick if you visit a loved one in a facility where people have or have had the flu. In the meantime, fighting illnesses like H1N1 flu starts with common sense. If you don’t have to go somewhere, don’t—especially if you are sick. Avoid close contact with people who are sick, and wash your hands several times during the day.

Questions to Ask Your Physician:
• What will happen if there is an outbreak in the facility? What outbreak control means will be used?
• How will family members be notified if there is a case or outbreak of H1N1 flu at the facility?
• How will my loved one be treated if he/she gets H1N1 flu? Will he/she have to go to the hospital?
• How will my loved one be protected from getting H1N1 flu if others in the facility have it?
• How can I help prevent the spread of H1N1 flu?
• What will happen if there is a pandemic? Will the facility be closed to the public?
• If a vaccination for H1N1 flu becomes available, will my loved one get this?
• What else will the facility do to prevent patients/residents from getting the flu?

What You Can Do:
• Don’t visit your loved one if you are sick or feel like you are getting sick.
• Wash your hands often.
• Cover your face if you cough or sneeze and then wash your hands.
• Don’t bring small children to visit your loved one if they have been exposed to the flu at school or in the community.
• Let the facility know if you recently visited a country (such as Mexico) connected with a flu outbreak or outbreak of other infectious illness.
• Urge your loved one to tell a nurse if he/she has any signs of the flu.
• Urge your loved one to avoid close contact with others during flu season or outbreaks.

How much did the Smithfield Easter Ham Really Cost?

2009-04-28T08:34:00.000-07:00

© Imelda Maurer, cdp April 28, 2009

For several weeks I’ve wanted to use my blog to write about food. It’s an issue that, for the last couple of years, has stayed with me and it won’t let go. Since the original purpose of this blog included reflections on healthy aging and quality of life in later years, the topic of food is quite apt. The issue goes far beyond issues of the individual, however, because our food choices also impact the animals raised as commodities on factory farms, the environment, the economy, the viability of family farmers, and public health.

Last week I finished listening to the audio version of the book, “The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter” by Peter Springer and Jim Mason. Just a few days later, news of the swine flu and its potential to become a pandemic hit the airwaves.

The mainstream media has only addressed the number and location of diagnosed cases of swine flu, number of deaths, the actions of public health officials, etc. None has addressed the cause. Web sites such as The Huffington Post, The Environmentalist, Farmers Weekly, Marion Nestle, however, do clearly make the connection between this global wave of swine flu and factory hog farming. Specifically, Smithfield Foods is mentioned as being the source.

Smithfield, an American-owned meat producer, owns confined animal feeding operations ‘CAFOs’ in Veracruz, México where the swine flu outbreak originated.

We Americans are accustomed to low-priced food. The hidden cost of our grocery bill is in subsidies to the factory farm owners --- corporations such as Smithfield, ConAgra, ADM, Cargill, etc.

One of the ways in which Smithfield is subsidized is by the fact that --- even here in the United States --- there are scant regulations directing the treatment of animal excrement in these CAFOs. A single farm may house (very inhumanely) tens of thousands of hogs. Their excrement far exceeds that produced by humans living in a city of up to 400,000 people. Human excrement is regulated and there is no environmental degradation as a result. On factory farms, excrement is held in ‘manure lagoons’. It is possible, according to several reports that I have read, that the carrier of the swine flu is a fly that reproduces in pig excrement. The fly can infect people by biting.

Smithfield does not have to pay for treating millions of tons of animal excrement. The result is an increase in air and water pollution, respiratory and other health problems of employees, early disability and shortened life spans of these underpaid workers. Think of the costs to city, state and federal agencies in this all-out effort to contain the spread of swine flu. Smithfield gets the break, the bigger corporate profits.

What was the REAL cost of that Easter ham?

What can each of us do to support sustainable farming, individuals and groups who practice humane and healthy farming methods?

When It Comes to Dementia, Forget the Drugs

2009-04-27T12:05:00.000-07:00

This article appeared in the Los Angeles Times, March 19, 2009

As Alzheimer's and similar diseases affect growing numbers of people, billions of dollars are being spent on the medications that offer marginal benefits. Instead, let's invest in the human touch.
By Ira Rosofsky
March 19, 2009

Pete Townshend of The Who concluded his baby boomer anthem, "My Generation," with these words: "I hope I die before I get old." And my boomer generation may well still wish for that.

I am 62 -- old enough to cash in my 401(k), too young for Medicare -- and standing with my peers on the edge of a dementia precipice.
Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia afflict up to 5 million people in the United States and about 26 million people worldwide. By 2050, there could be 13 million cases of Alzheimer's alone among U.S. baby boomers and the aging Generations X and Y, according to the National Institutes of Health. Some reports have the global prevalence of Alzheimer's growing to as many as 100 million people by midcentury. The U.S. comptroller general estimates that annual long-term care costs for the elderly -- which includes treatment for dementia -- could quadruple by 2050 to $379 billion.

How should President Obama and his healthcare policymakers, who are working to overhaul our system, prepare for my generation's future? Based on my experience, they can begin by finding a way to end the over-dependence on drugs in treating dementia.

As a psychologist who works in nursing homes, I am intimately aware of the large number of residents who take one or both of two FDA-approved drugs for dementia -- known generically as donepezil and memantine, which together account for more than 90% of the anti-dementia drug market. The most popular brand-name versions, Aricept and Namenda, make up 75% of the market.
I'm also aware of the huge and growing expenditures for these medications -- close to $3 billion annually worldwide for Aricept and more than $500 million for Namenda. Big Pharma spends as many billions of dollars on promotion as it does on research and development.

Examine the documents supporting the Food and Drug Administration's approval of Aricept, and you will see upon what a slim reed this drug's empire was built. Those taking the drug scored, on average, three points better on a 70-item cognitive assessment scale. That's about a 4% difference, mostly reflecting a slower decline rather than positive improvement. And the differences disappear when the drug is discontinued -- indicating that the drugs "do not represent a change in the underlying disease." At best, these effects may be only marginally more effective against dementia than garlic was against the Black Death in the 14th century.

What we do know today, from studies and observation, is that donepezil, memantine and drugs like them fall short on cure and comfort.

Even on Aricept's website, the claims are sketchy on the drug's effectiveness when it comes to cognition: "People who took Aricept did better on thinking tests than those who took a sugar pill."

How much better? The company doesn't say.

Many studies of the effects of drugs for dementia also speak about statistical significance, but statistical significance can be highly overrated if the differences aren't meaningful. Take my extremely nearsighted wife, for example. Suppose a drug enabled her to read the giant E at the top of an eye chart without her glasses, but none of the smaller letters. Her eyesight would show statistically significant enhancement, but -- despite her being a much better driver than me -- I'd still refuse to ride in a car she was driving if she wasn't wearing her glasses.

There are similar effects at play with anti-dementia drugs.

In 2004, Richard Gray of the University of Birmingham in Britain compared hundreds of patients with mild to moderate dementia who were taking Aricept or a placebo. The drug did improve mental functioning, but at disappointingly small levels -- about one point on a 60-point scale. More important, there was no delay in the dementia's progression or the rate of patients' institutionalization. And there were no significant differences in mood, behavior or cost of care.

Based on results such as these, the British National Institute for Clinical Excellence -- the functional equivalent of our FDA -- recommended in 2005 that Britain's National Health Service greatly restrict the use of drugs for dementia. Donepezil can be prescribed only by a psychiatrist or a neurologist, and its use is restricted to cases of mild to moderate -- not severe -- dementia. And memantine is restricted to clinical trials.

Could the thousands of dollars spent annually per patient and the billions overall be better directed?

Yes, says Gray: "Doctors and healthcare funders need to question whether it would be better to invest in more doctors and nurses and better social support rather than spending huge sums of money prescribing these expensive drugs."

A survey released in 2002 by the Kaiser Foundation found that the staffs in a typical nursing home spend a total of about two hours and 20 minutes a day with each resident. For the remaining 21 hours and 40 minutes, residents are left to their own -- mostly medicated -- devices.

Where is the comfort in that?

Some proponents of drug therapy argue that despite some disappointing results, the drugs do slow the worsening of symptoms for some people. But in our medicalized institutions for the frail and elderly, drugs are the first recourse for most problems. And often the second and third recourse.

In the United States, those over 65 consume 30% of the prescription drugs, according to a 2004 report. Dementia sufferers in nursing homes are not only taking donepezil and memantine but other similarly questionable drugs for depression, anxiety, psychosis or for simply being ornery. Many of those without dementia are also on a variety of mind- and mood-altering drugs.

It's easier to medicate than to engage. And when the chemical restraints don't work, nursing homes return to a time before modern psychotropics and use physical restraints.

But why not admit the failure of medication and instead spend some of those billions of dollars on more staff to hold the hands of both patients and their families? Beyond nurturance, much of the savings from giving up on cost-ineffective medications could be diverted to basic research that might yield not only statistically significant but meaningful and large improvements -- even a cure.

There is some comfort in believing, as our medieval ancestors did, that a tangible nostrum -- like a pearl-hued donepezil tablet -- will do some good, but it may be more comforting simply to comfort.

Instead of drugs, I'd bet many patients are wishing someone would just say the words of another ancient rock anthem: I want to hold your hand.

Ira Rosofsky is a psychologist and the author of "Nasty, Brutish, and Long: Adventures in Old Age and the World of Eldercare."

When I Grow Up I Want to be an Old Woman

2009-02-19T19:08:00.000-08:00

© Imelda Maurer, cdp February 19, 2009

I’m sitting here this evening in front of the TV answering some e-mail. I just saw the Kaiser Permanente Health Management ad – once again.

The words are sung: “When I grow up I want to be an old woman, an old, old woman.” I like that image in itself. I mean, after all, when do we ever hear anyone saying or even intimating that they want to ‘be an old woman.”

The accompanying visuals show old women – heavier than they were thirty years earlier -- but vital, happy, purposeful – looking in the mirror, keeping time to some music, laughing with friends, playing tennis, enjoying life –

It’s such a refreshing image. “I want to be an old woman.” The alternative is an early death. How often I think of my sister, three years my elder, who died at age 49, that she did not get to grow old along with me so that we could each grow, together, to be “an old woman, an old, old woman”

Kaiser has another ad in which the audio is short and simple: Kaiser: Thrive!

“Thrive” is a medical, nursing term. An inexplicable nursing condition is “failure to thrive” which can lead to death. But we all know that term, thrive, as holding so much more. What images does it bring to your mind’s eye? One thrives in a nurturing environment, in an environment which honors our uniqueness, our abilities, our life story. Above all, one thrives in the circle of loving relationships.

Kaiser has done a great favor in showing these ads because they shed a little light on the adventure and the sacredness of the latter years of one’s life.

What Doctors Get Paid to Do

2009-01-28T13:46:00.000-08:00

© Imelda Maurer, cdp January 28, 2009

Jerald Winakur and Dennis McCullough are physicians practicing in different parts of the country but with much in common. They are both geriatricians, each is married to a poet (!) and they are each authors of recently published books emanating from their life experiences in geriatric medicine.

Both men point to the same serious flaws in our healthcare system. One is the reimbursement system which is heavily skewed to procedures rather than what Dr. Winakur calls “cognitive” services. The latter includes taking adequate time to examine a patient,to listen and to watch his/her body language as s/he answers routine questions. We are all familiar with the first visit to a physician which includes the two-to-three page check list we are given to complete in the waiting room: questions about our personal and family medical history and of our daily habits (healthy or unhealthy!). Dr. Winakur chooses to take the time to ask these questions directly of the patient in the examining room, precisely, he says, because of what he learns through the patient's body language, the tone of voice, the hesitation, etc. What a man!

Cognitive services also include a careful review of medications, close monitoring and appropriate adjustments if called for. McCullough refers to this as “taking time for listening and understanding” As a result of how Medicare and private insurance companies reimburse medical services, too many patients are peremptorily “shunted off for various kind of expensive but ‘covered’ technical testing or quickly put on medication based on ever quickening decisions and standardized protocol. Pressures for efficiency and reimbursement plans skewed toward technological interventions routinely overrule more deeply caring and thoughtful responses to individual need.”

Winakur explains in more depth how reimbursement schedules are established. The American Medical Association has much to say about it, but the entire operation is very secretive with physicians such as Winakur and McCullough having little or no voice in arguing the the rightrful place of cognitive skills in the reimbursement schema.

One of the reasons I have heard given over the years as to why there is such a dearth of geriatricians in our country has been that they are not well paid. Now I understand why. Good medical practice for elders may not call for every single test or procedure in the book. (This is not to condone the ageism that is sometime seen when physicians neglect appropriate procedures solely on the basis of a patient’s age.)

Dr. Winakur began his practice as a board-certified internist. He became a geriatrician, he writes, “. . .because my patients and I have grown old together.” (Don’t you love it!) And ‘to keep up with them,’ he writes, I “continued to study the latest developments in clinical geriatrics,” and passed board examinations to become certified with “added qualifications in geriatrics.” Clearly, he’s not in it just for the money. What a man!

There are many good geriatricians out there. Geriatricians are specially trained to care for persons sixty years and older. I encourage everyone so blessed with years to seek one out as their primary care provider. Why a geriatrician at our age over a family practitioner or an internist? The next blog entry!

Perhaps our new President who has already heralded such hopeful signs of change, can help improve our healthcare system with help from an active, engaged public

The books referred to here are these:
Memory Lessons by Jerald Winakur
My Mother, Your Mother by Dennis McCullough

If You Know Someone In A Nursing Home, You Should Know About Off-Label Prescriptions

2009-01-06T16:51:00.000-08:00

© Imelda Maurer, cdp January 6, 2008

I keep seeing it.. Whether it is a newsletter, a professional journal, a TV news story, or just this afternoon a well-written, documented article on the Internet: (http://www.therubins.com/homes/vocal.htm) The article refers to a study I also mentioned in a blog post almost a year ago (January 14, 2008). The study involved 86 individuals being treated for "behavioral problems". One third were given Risperdal; one third another anti-psychotic and another third, a placebo. After a month "behaviors" had "improved". The group with the most significant positive changes was the group receiving the placebo.

There is a stream of information about the use of antipsychotic drugs used on the elderly as a way to address what caregivers mistakenly call "behavioral problems." Behaviors among persons with dementia are not problems. Dr. G. Allen Power, Medical Director at St. John's Home in Rochester, NY believes that the use of terms like "behavioral problems" or "managing difficult behaviors" reinforces the medical view that the 'problem' rests with the person with dementia. Rather, he says, these events should be seen as "symptoms" that occur, not because of a failure of the individual, but rather because of a failure of the care environment to adequately identify and meet the person's needs. This statement is so core to the effective care of persons with dementia, I want to state it again: . . . these events should be seen as "symptoms" that occur, not because of a failure of the individual, but rather because of a failure of the care environment to adequately identify and meet the person's needs.

The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services indicate that nearly 21% of nursing-home residents who don't have a psychosis diagnosis are on these anti-psychotic drugs. It is a way to sedate a person – in the short run --- but without addressing the issues at hand and at the same time setting the stage for complex negative side effects from the drug.

Three of the most frequently prescribed (I should say mis-prescribed) are Risperdal, Zyprexa and Seroquel. All three of these drugs carry "black box warnings", mandated by the FDA, which indicate that 'elderly dementia patients taking these drugs are at higher risk of death.'

Side effects of these drugs include weight gain and stroke, sometimes resulting in death. There is sometimes an increase in blood sugar levels, intolerance to changes in ambient temperature. A most obvious side effect is that of sedation.
Definition of off-label use of a drug.( From my post on January 14, 2008): When a drug has been developed and approved by the FDA for a certain disease or disorder, but a health care provider prescribes it for a condition other than that covered by the drug’s FDA approval, the practice is called off-label use. Physicians attending nursing home residents in far too many cases prescribe any of these antipsychotic drugs as all-purpose tranquilizers

As I write this, I wonder if the broad, expensive, ineffective, harmful and widespread use of off-label antipsychotic drugs among the most vulnerable in our society is a subtle or not-so-subtle manifestation of ageism. Or is it because in our long-term-care system we don't take the time to really know each individual, know him or her as an individual, not just an old person --- who is going to die anyhow ---. Do we as a society, as Dr. Bill Thomas suggests, view nursing home residents as racing toward the exit ramp of life? Of course none of us subscribes to these views consciously, but are they at work in our society and institutions at a subconscious level?

Wisdom and Grace – at an Early Age

2008-11-07T16:49:00.000-08:00

© Imelda Maurer, cdp 2008 All Rights Reserved. Permissions: ilmcdp@yahoo.com

Earlier today I took time to watch President-Elect Barak Obama's first press conference. Nothing in the content was surprising or new; Barak has campaigned with a consistent theme these many months. What I continue to be impressed with is his astute sense and practice of creative, effective leadership.

We are in the midst of the worst economic decline since the Great Depression. On September 25th, when McCain was suggesting that the first Presidential Debate be cancelled so that business could be taken care of, Obama had gathered around him a team of the best and the brightest from whom to seek advice. Again today, his press conference was preceded by a 'summit' with some 18 top economic experts. How telling it was, I thought, that those individuals who make up a brain trust in this important area, were invited to share the stage with the President-Elect.

Surely President Obama will make the final decisions because the buck really does stop there in the Oval Office. But at the same time, there is no "front and center", "I'm 'the one', "I'm in charge and I'll take care of it" kind of leadership style with Obama. Rather, there is an extremely confident and intelligent approach that says "I need all of you if this is going to work." "We are in this together and no one of us has all the answers."

It calls to mind once again the words of Sister Joan Chittister when she received the Leadership Award from the Leadership Conference of Women Religious in 2007.

"What we need again is leadership that seeks out, that encourages, that enables, that frees the theorists, the reformers, the revolutionaries and the charismatic models among us so we can all see the light. Enlightened leadership engages all of them together in one great enterprise of fire and flame in a dark, dark world. We need leadership that authorizes the leadership of the rest (of the group). We need leadership that will follow the lights within the group to the edge of tomorrow rather than the preservation of yesterday."

Blessings on you, President-Elect Obama. May our Provident God continue to guide your way in wisdom and in grace.

And thank you, Mr. President-Elect, for stirring the hope that dwells within each of us and for lighting its bright fire once again within us all.

"Hope won."

I WANT TO GO HOME!

2008-09-20T07:56:00.000-07:00

© September 20, 2008 Imelda Maurer, cdp

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080920/ap_on_re_us/medicaid_lawsuit&printer=1;_ylt=Aoi3Z4P_dr7S0rWL6yY9bnZH2ocA

Here is a story (Copy and paste to your browser address box to read entire AP item) of Charles Tood Lee who is fighting mad because he has been "forced from comfort and familiarity into a nursing home." He and the other members of the legal action maintain that Medicaid, the agency now paying for their nursing home care, could just as easily pay for those services to be provided at home.

There are two forces at work here:

One is the ongoing political struggle whereby many providers within the nursing home industry and their lobbyists have been fighting to keep Medicaid reimbursement limited to services provided in the nursing home. They don't want to see their share of Medicaid funds diminished. As if often the case, however, the expenditure of Medicaid funds for nursing home care is higher than for the same care provided at home by qualified care providers.

The other force is the growing movement to provide services at HOME which is finding life from the demands being made by Baby Boomers and also by progressive long-term care providers who honor the deep physical, psychological, spiritual, and social impact of HOME on one's well-being.

I believe it is a movement whose time has come. The traditional nursing home as we know it today is modeled after acute care hospitals. One can tolerate the schedule-first, task-dominated way of life in a hospital for a few days or weeks, but it is no way to live one's life as a matter of course.

Lastly, none of this is intended to deny the necessity of nursing home care at times, for some individuals. Having said that, the environment and every aspect of the nursing home operation must honor the meaning and reality of all that HOME is for each of us.

The Colossus

2008-09-07T11:40:00.000-07:00

Today's posting is not about aging as such. However, it is a posting that stirs the human heart at any age. We are all familiar with the words that are inscribed below the Statue of Liberty. Enclosed below is the entire poem. Reading the entire poem lends even deeper meaning to those inscribed words.

The New Colossus
by Emma Lazarus, New York City, 1883

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame,
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

It seems appropriate to remember the inscribed words and the entire work of Emma Lazarus at this pivotal time in our country's history as we approach a noteworthy Presidential election which will hold consequences that will ripple into the next decades.

ADVOCATES FOR THE NEW OLD AGE

2008-08-18T16:45:00.000-07:00

The Pioneer Network is a remarkable coalition of individuals and organizations who are actively engaged in what has been come to be known as "Culture Change" in long-term care. The vision of this organization and its members is value-laden, based on values of honor and respect for the individual and belief in the potential for continued growth and development in every stage of life.

This coalition has a short (perhaps five minutes) video at the following URL. You may want to view it. I have transcribed some of the dialog here that reflects such basic, wholesome, positive views on aging and conditions in the present dysfunctional system of long-term care that beg to be "fixed."

http://www.pioneernetwork.net/getinvolved/

ADVOCATES FOR THE NEW OLD AGE

We are all aging from birth. Boomers are living longer, healthier lives. But like previous generations we shrink in fear of our own aging and the thought of being cared for by others.

Joanne Rader, RN, MSN author, "Bathing Without a Battle"
"Dependency and loss of control are the biggest fears that we have. Many have observed their parents experiencing lack of choice, dignity, and privacy in care settings. Fifty percent of those over 65 will, at some point, need assistance. And for many the nursing home is the only available choice right now. But the present does not have to be our future if Baby Boomers take action now. Seeing what our parents experience is a powerful catalyst for change because we know we are next."

Transforming how we grow old.
Imogene Higbie, age 89. Independent 89-year old living alone in her own home not far from her daughters. Four years ago she became ill and had to move to a nursing home and to assisted living. Her experiences encouraged her to fight not only for improving conditions there, but for transforming how we grow old in America.

"I went in as a person. I expected to become a patient, but I didn't expect to lose myself – which is what happened to me. And I realized that the system I was in was dysfunctional and needed fixing."

Jennifer Macial, daughter
"The experience was intense on every level and even though she was safe and sound physically, it didn't seem to be the place to heal, to grow, to evolve, to move forward and to contribute."

Pioneer Network is taking on the culture of aging in America.

Beth Baker: author of "Old Age in a New Age"
"There are 4,000 more nursing homes in America than McDonalds, not to mention thousands of assisted living centers. So change will take time. But I found (in researching for her book) a lot to be hopeful about. I found places that look and feel like home. I interviewed dozens of workers who are excited to come to work every day. And best of all I found that a lot of these places were solving costly problems and were affordable to everyone.

"This movement is grounded in values of honoring individuals and creating strong communities. If you can bring those values and that vision to all settings, wherever elders live that will be a very exciting future for all of us, for our loved ones and for ourselves as we grow old."

Since its inception in 1997, the Pioneer Network is showing change can happen. Wherever we choose to live our older years, the fullness of life is possible. Pioneer Network is working to replace the traditional nursing home with settings that are really home in both environments and relationships

Pioneer Network is also promoting new alternatives to live at home and in the community where generations can thrive together.

Imogene Higbie elder, activist, consumer
"I realized that old people, if they are informed and want to change things have a lot of power. I found that in my old age that my activism has been effective because I'm old and informed. And I think that is what happening. I hope people realize that when they get old they can speak up, share their experiences and make things better for their children who happen to be our Baby Boomer generation."

Steve Shields, President/CEO of Meadowlark Hills Retirement Community, Manhattan, KS
"As boomers we can dispel the notion that aging is just a time of loss. Aging is a time of self actualization and growth and hope."

--- And to ponder ----
Do I see my own aging as a time of self actualizaion, growth and hope? If not, why not?

How would life in a nursing home you may know and visit look in the programs of daily life, policies, relationships, organizational structure, rate of staff turnover, quality of life and well-being of those who live and work there, if every person who has power to impact an elder's life, starting with the administrator and the board of directors believed in the concept of aging as a time of self actualization, growth and hope and that s/he will one day be old and perhaps dependent?

Lee Chung Hi

2008-08-10T13:42:00.000-07:00

"In screaming, Lee Chung Hi had used her only tool for hanging on to herself…"

This blog entry is longer than most of mine. The sacredness, poignancy and deep symbolism of the story that I excerpt here, however, merits its telling. It's a story of a woman with courage, reaching out in the only way left to her, and of an exceptional leader who trusted his gut instincts about his nursing home which kept telling him: 'It can be better. We must make it better.'

The author of the events recounted in the story that follows is Steve Shields, CEO of Meadowlark Hills, a nursing home, in Manhattan, Kansas that Steve guided from "traditional" nursing home to "home", an ongoing journey. I know Steve. He is an effective, professional executive, a leader with qualities stretching across the four types of leadership: intellectual, reformist, revolutionary and charismatic. (For more information about these types of leadership, see Sister Joan Chittister's address at the 2007 LCWR Assembly when she was presented with the Outstanding Leadership award.) Steve's actions flow from a profound faith and contemplative spirit.

I direct you to the book, quoted here, (co-written with LaVrene Norton another faith-based driven advocate for our frail elders). In Pursuit Of The Sunbeam: A Practical Guide To Transformation From Institution To Household. Published by Action Pact Press, 2006.

FROM CHAPTER ONE: 'The Way It Is."
"She screamed for years but nobody ever really heard it until she stopped. It was a shrill, penetrating, constant and unsettling shriek; a noise not readily identified as human. Words were not part of it. She could not form them. Instead, it was the cry of a trapped and desperate animal hoping someone could hear and understand. The howl haunted the nursing home corridors like a shackled ghost intent on settling its business, belying that the source of the sound was less than five feet tall, not even 90 pounds and unable to walk.

Her Asian skin was healthy and beautiful. The Meadowlark Hill staff moistened it with lotion, turned her at night and positioned her at specified intervals. Lee Chung Hi lived year after year, perched in a reclining Geri-chair. It kept her safe and in place. Her graying black hair was brushed and shining. Vital signs were monitored with regularity and her care-plan was carefully executed. She was bathed on schedule at three 'clock on Tuesday and Friday afternoons. By all valued and applied measures in long-term care, she was well cared for. In the nursing notes, and in the minds of all who cared for her, the never-ending screams were the result of dementia . . . an illness of the mind, which surely must have caused her initial placement. But then nobody remembered for sure.

The other residents were routinely lined up outside the dining room to wait for lunch. Lee Chung Hi ate alone in her chair, parked in the corridor farthest from where people gathered. Nobody – residents, staff or visitor – wanted to be near her. Caregivers attended to her dutifully, yet her noise repelled them. She ate alone, sat alone and slept alone.

She became her noise in the eyes of everyone. But nobody could hear her screaming for what it truly was. It never occurred to us that we might be the cause of it – we, who carry out the biddings of a system lethal to the human spirit.

Years passed before we finally understood it. And not until we transformed Meadowlark Hills into a vibrant household community and witnessed Lee Chun Hi's parallel transformation did we realize how profoundly appropriate her screaming had been in response to the dehumanizing conditions in which she lived."

FROM CHAPTER SIX: "The Essential Elements of the Household Model"
"I rang the doorbell and Susan, a household employee, answered the door and welcomed me in. I saw a warmly furnished living room and an adjacent kitchen and dining room; all appointed like any other home in America. The residents, an average of sixteen per household, had moved in less than two weeks before.

The signs of home were already visible amid what previously had been public corridors, cramped bedrooms and large public gathering rooms. The institutional odor was gone. My stomach growled in response to the smells of breakfast floating from the household kitchen. The previous set of monotonous unit style chairs, tables and other office-like trappings had gone to the auction block to make way for more cozy furnishings.

People were visiting with one another and, in stark contrast to the dismal scene of slumping, slumbering elders once parked at the now-dismantled nurses' station, a more inspiring dance of life unfolded. My heart warmed with hope.

But all the blossoming signs of home faded into the background when my eyes found Lee Chung Hi, the lady who screams. She had abandoned her Geri-chair and was sitting comfortably at the dining table, just as my wife had sat at our kitchen table when I left home for work that morning.

It was the first time I had seen Lee Chung Hi when she wasn't screaming.

She was smiling. Her eyes locked with mine, conveying a warmth of well-being that sent me into a suspended sense of time and place. All I could see was her warm smile and radiating eyes of peace, and I felt myself walking toward her as if in slow motion.

I stopped near her table. With her hands at her side, she bowed her head slowly forward and then back up, all the while continuing her smile. This gesture of greeting and respect, practiced in her culture yet universally understood, enveloped my whole being. I found myself returning the gesture in full communion. I was able to return eye contact and nod in mutual affirmation before emotion overtook me.

Her years of screaming, contrasted with the moment we had just shared, represented to me everything we must leave behind and everything we must achieve. The glaring reality was that she hadn't screamed for years because she was sick, but because we were.

In screaming, Lee Chung Hi had used her only tool for hanging on to herself rather than giving in to vacant slumping. She was a fighter -- a screaming indictment of the traditional nursing home system and proof in the pudding that we can overcome; that we have a moral imperative to do so."

Do You Remember Evelyn?

2008-05-29T12:47:00.000-07:00

On my March 15th entry I recounted the story of Sharon and her siblings as they dealt with their mother Evelyn and her experience with medically induced dementia. Earlier this week one of her older siblings, whom I also taught, wrote to me. In that letter, Jack commented on that entry remarking that what I said was "right on the mark." With his permission I include the rest of his comments

"Mom now talks like she did 10 years ago. You are right. You can't give anyone that kind of mind affecting medication and expect them to cope. I wish health care providers would sometimes just take a step back and really think about the types and quantities of medications they are prescribing for the elderly. As you said the real tragedy is that many elderly people don't have a loved one to help. It really took a toll on Sharon as well as Mom. I'm glad it is over. Mom is physically healthy for her age (85). Now that she is "dried out" perhaps she can enjoy more of her remaining years."

I was moved to post this entry today after reading a story on cnn.com entitled, "Is Grandma Drugged Up?" The link to this story, both a video and a text story, is listed below, documenting what evidently happens all too frequently to elderly Americans. You can cut and paste this URL in the address box of your browser.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/conditions/05/28/ep.age.meds/index.html

We Are a Pilgrim People, We Are the Church of God

2008-05-20T12:34:00.002-07:00

© May 20, 2008 by Imelda Maurer, cdp

On Pentecost Sunday my parish of Saint Agnes Church experienced a meaningful, moving Pentecost liturgy. The opening hymn had as its refrain, "We are a pilgrim people, we are the Church of God." As I sang, 'pilgrim' conjured up the reality that the nature of pilgrim and pilgrimage is that of moving toward a worthy goal as opposed to a permanent, stable position or condition. In that context I remembered my losses through death over the past year of significant others in my life, women with whom I had shared ministry and community life in significant ways years ago. These women have completed their pilgrimage. The rest of us continue on that path. As we do, we remember those whose faces we no longer see, but whose spirits live within us and within the community. Our Congregation has a beautiful and deeply symbolic ritual each summer, remembering those Sisters and Associates who have completed their pilgrimage and gone ahead since our last gathering. It is often poignant when a Sister's picture is flashed onto the media screen, particularly if her death was, by human judgment, too soon in her life or in her illness.

I experienced a similar poignant moment last December while I was on our university campus. I accompanied a lay university professor, the Dean of the School of Professional Studies, to an appointment; our way took us into the entrance of the Main Building. We had just shared a conversation in which she told me how she felt "so called" to be a part of our university primarily because of the high population of first generation Hispanic students and the university's efforts to empower them through a good education.

Of course I had been in that lobby and hallway more times than I can count. But that morning I saw things differently, perhaps because of our recent conversation. I saw again the framed photographs of our university's founding Sisters and of the university Presidents along with other items documenting our history and legacy. Tears welled up immediately with emotions of nostalgia, pride and gratitude. I was so conscious of the richness of my, of our, congregational heritage.

On Tuesday evening before Pentecost, that Main Building of Our Lady of the Lake University, burst into flame about 7:45 p.m., Texas time, the result of an electrical short in the attic above fourth floor. My first call came from a friend in San Antonio when she first saw it on the local TV station. My home phone and cell phone were busy over the next two hours. Calls coming in and going out. No one could grasp the enormity of the inferno, the significance of this loss. The same disbelief followed later as I watched TV website videos taken that evening and the following day.

The loss is a physical building. Like the Sisters who go ahead of us, there is a physical change, but the heritage of our university and its mission live on within us and within the larger community.

The gain is the opportunity for transformation. Fire is itself a symbol of transformation. Joan Chittister addresses the challenge when she reminds U.S. Sisters that though our numbers (Sisters, Sisters who actually are on the staff of our university) are decreasing, "it's not numbers we need. We each have at least as many strong women leaders as we had when we started."

And so we do! I ask the readers of this blog to keep our Sisters and our university in your prayers. We will rebuild. Let us pray that in the process of rebuilding that the mission is maintained --- no, strengthened, born anew through this potentially transforming event. Let us pray that our foremothers who provided this legacy are with us in spirit and grace throughout this task. Let us pray that the Sisters and staff at Our Lady of the Lake University and all CDPs can be engaged "in one great enterprise of fire and flame" (Chittister), that the leadership within all of us will "follow the lights . . . to the edge of tomorrow rather than the preservation of yesterday." (Chittister)

Another part of the refrain of our Pentecost gathering hymn speaks of the Spirit –sometimes represented as tongues of fire: "United in one spirit, ignited by the fire." And so may we all be.

A Mission Statement That Gets to the Heart of It All

2008-04-13T19:59:00.000-07:00

Southwest Airlines is my airline of choice for reasons beyond its 'byte-sized' fares. I particularly appreciate and enjoy the unique spirit of customer-focused service that is evident throughout its system and the cheerful, friendly ambiance of its employees. Perhaps because of its customer focus, Southwest is the only airline in the United States that has made a profit every quarter since its first quarterly profit as a young start-up company in the early '70s. Even after 9-11. Southwest realized a profit before any receipt of the government subsidies that were provided during this time of crisis for the airlines.

Last week on a Southwest flight, I read with great interest, "Colleen's Corner", the regular column written by Colleen Barrett, President, in their Spirit magazine. Colleen, a part of Southwest since its inception in the early 70's, writes in the April issue about Southwest's Mission Statement.

Speaking for Southwest, Colleen notes that their Mission Statement deliberately never mentions flying airplanes, making a profit, or providing a return to shareholders. All airlines are alike in this regard, she says. "Instead, we use our Mission Statement to explain how we will accomplish these business goals."

Their short Mission Statement has two sections. One addresses their external customers; that's us, the passengers. The second section addresses its internal customers: its employees. Southwest states its commitment, promising job stability and personal and professional development. The company pledges to treat its internal customers the same way it asks them to treat its external customers. Colleen makes clear that Southwest knows that without employees the "Right Employees", there would be, at best, poor customer service. And with poor customer service, there would be no more customers.

For many frail elders, there is no or little choice in where they live their last years. In such cases, "poor customer service" does not mean no customers, unfortunately. For those who reside in retirement communities where the focus is on customer service, both external and internal customers, those elders undoubtedly experience a higher quality of life, and the staff experiences satisfaction in their work, a low turnover rate, and input into how the organization moves toward its goal. (I've just described transformative nursing homes!)

Some retirement communities may not have a written Mission Statement. But whether one exists or not, every organization operates according to some mission statement, a philosophy. The 'operative' Mission Statement is revealed in the values and attitudes that permeate the policies, programs and procedures of the community, and how the employees, from CEO to the newest hire, approach and carry out their work. The goal is always to work toward and to assure that, first, the written words are really what we believe and value, and, secondly, that they are made operable day to day for each elder in the community and each employee.

Colleen's column is available online at
http://www.spiritmag.com/2008_04/colleenscorner/index.php

Copy and paste the above address into the address box on your internet page

Here is the Mission Statement of Southwest Airlines, stated in its entirety, (84 words!) also on page 14:

The mission of Southwest Airlines is dedication to the highest quality of Customer Service delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride and Company Spirit.

We are committed to provide our Employees a stable work environment with equal opportunity for learning and personal growth. Creativity and innovation are encouraged for improving the effectiveness of Southwest airlines. Above all, Employees will be provided the same concern, respect, and caring attitude within the organization that they are expected to share externally with every Southwest Customer.

Dementia and Medications - A Personal View

2008-03-15T17:29:00.000-07:00

Sharon was a freshman when I taught her in the late '60s. She lived with her other siblings in a nice home in a new part of town. Their dad was a successful businessman. I always experienced their mother, Evelyn, as a warm and delightful woman: devoted housewife and mother; active in church, PTA and school fundraising efforts; always gracious, hospitable, loving and with a great sense of humor.

Yesterday I had a call from Sharon. She was responding to a message I had left on her home phone when I had been unable to reach her mother who now lives in an assisted living community. My apprehensions had been well-founded. Over the past six months, Evelyn had been in and out of the hospital twice, in two nursing homes, in rehab, and finally back to where she has been living for the past several years.

Evelyn was discharged, at some point during this six-month ordeal, from the hospital to a nursing home for some rehab. Sharon is a devoted, faithful daughter. Her love for her mother is expressed not only by her presence, but by her strong and effective advocacy. (Mary Hunt, theologian, would call this "Fierce Tenderness".) Within a week of Evelyn being admitted to this nursing home, Sharon saw her mother decline from a woman who suffers from back and hip pain, to a woman restrained in her wheelchair, drooling, defecating on herself, unable to recognize her daughter, and physically unable to maneuver the simple task of taking a facial tissue out of its box.

"My mother does not have dementia," Sharon told the staff. She asked questions; she studied the nursing home medical chart; she discovered that when her mother would call out for help that the staff would medicate her and physically restrain her (!!). Sharon took the list of medications her mother had been put on to a pharmacist. That was the core problem: a mixture of almost a dozen medications for pain, and psychotropics. Sharon immediately moved Evelyn to another long-term care community where the doctor literally weaned Evelyn off her toxic regimen of medications.

Yes, Evelyn DID have dementia. It was MEDICALLY INDUCED DEMENTIA and therefore, thank God, reversible. (The tragic injustice is that it occurs in the first place.) Sharon says "we have her almost back to where she used to be. I'm just grateful that she does not remember what she went through."

It has been a difficult journey, not only for Evelyn, but for Sharon and her siblings who have companioned their mother during a very long and difficult time. Again, thank God that Evelyn has children who, out of filial love, will look after her best interests. How many residents in nursing homes do not have children who will look after their best interests? Let me say, as a Catholic Sister that would be 100% of us! We Sisters must be those advocates for our frail elderly Sisters now and the younger among us, for us when the need arises.

Childless or not, as I said at the end of my last post, "We will either change it or live it.

© Imelda Maurer, cdp 2008 All Rights Reserved. Permissions: ilmcdp@yahoo.com

Dancing with Rose -- the Book

2008-03-04T06:33:00.000-08:00

The author of this book is Lauren Kessler, a journalist whose mother died of Alzheimer's. Eight years after her mother's death, Lauren wanted to learn more about the disease, to confront what she had been too frightened to confront at the time of her mother's illness. She admits that it was an attempt, in part, "to make up for being a lousy daughter."

Her avenue of learning was to take a position as a Resident Assistant at 'Maplewood', an Assisted Living facility which specializes in Alzheimer's Care. (I use the word 'facility' deliberately. As one reads the book, it is clear that despite the love and care of the caregivers, there is, as a result of the corporate model, an institutional approach to care. It is run by schedule; it is not person-centered. It is not a community; it is a facility.)

Undoubtedly the touching descriptions of her bonding with the residents ring true, and leave the reader with a sense of gratitude. Lauren loves those in her 'neighborhood' and she senses that same devotion among many of her peers. She reflects upon a funeral of one of the residents where at least nine staff people from Maplewood are present, some at no small cost. Resident Assistants (RAs) who were scheduled to work that shift have switched with another RA, and they will work a shift for that RA when requested.

One can only conclude that Lauren does not know that long-term care does not have to be in the institutional mode. The transformative power of culture change has not found its way to the corporate offices of the Maplewood chain. Thus, when Lauren reflects on the state of the "eldercare industry", she reflects what is found in the all-too-numerous 'traditional' retirement settings, not the transformative HOME of culture change. This is what she says:

She apologizes to a resident for his having to wait for so long after he told her he needed to go to the bathroom. His response was, "I guess that's my job now, to wait."

"I think about Larry's comment for the rest of the day. I think about the time old people spend waiting, not just in places like Maplewood but throughout the eldercare system – nursing homes, assisted living, rehab, any facility that houses those who are no longer able to take care of themselves. They lie in bed, wide awake at 5:00 a.m. waiting for a caregiver to help them get up and dressed. They sit at the table waiting for meals, the first ones wheeled in fifteen or twenty minutes early because it takes so much time to get everyone in their places. They wait, like Larry, to be taken to the bathroom. They wait for attention.

"The problem is understaffing. The problem is undertraining. The problem is high caregiver turnover. The problem is paying minimum wage. The problem is the eldercare industry. (I could go on and so I will: The problem is undervaluing the elderly. The problem is fear of aging. The problem is fear of dying.) Some problems can be easily fixed and others can't. Whatever the problems they are either ours to solve or, twenty or thirty or forty years from now, ours to live." (emphasis mine)

I hope that Lauren and every future long-term-care resident find a person-centered retirement community and then demand that operational philosophy from long-term care providers. We will either change it or live it.

What's in a Name

2008-02-22T07:05:00.000-08:00

Recently a news story ran on one of the cable networks about the correlation between street names and the value of the houses on those streets. It seems that houses on streets with names like Massacre Lane or Poison Avenue don't sell well. Houses on such named streets go down in value. And who is surprised. I don't know how streets acquire such names except that perhaps 'Massacre' or 'Poison" were names of leading pioneer families. Over time that connection is lost and people only see the word in its most ordinary meaning.

Retirement centers – Nursing Homes – come up against the same issue. If you had to move from your home because you need more help day-to-day, and you had a choice of where to live, would you choose Brown's Nursing and Rehabilitation Center or Theresian House? Southfield Convalescent Center or Meadowlark Hills? The infirmary or St. Mary's Convent Community?

The first name in each of the three pairs defines those who live there by their physical frailties and limitations. The latter name is more normative of a residential complex or, in the case of Sisters, just another convent. There is no implication in the name that those who live there are in the least bit deficient.

Because words reflect and shape our concepts, names that point to a limited, negative defining of the people in that place, both the individuals who live there and those who care for them are subject to negative concepts about themselves or those they are there to serve. Given that truth, what are the consequences for the residents who receive care in such a frailty-defining environment?

Conversely, as words reflect and shape concepts, so do concepts reflect and shape the words we use. That's what's in a name.

Dancing with Rose

2008-02-13T11:00:00.000-08:00

That is the title of a book that was recommended to me by a colleague and friend. I just started reading it late last night. More about the book later.

The title reminds me of an event I experienced as a volunteer ombudsman here in the San Francisco Bay Area several years ago. I was working full time but I also volunteered with the San Mateo Ombudsman Program to visit a nursing home in my neighborhood once a week.

The scene that I recall now is seeing a resident in this "typical" nursing home, a man, with some type of dementia go up to the Activities Director and ask if she would dance with him. Her response was one of duty. Of tasks to be completed as her primary goal and focus. She said, "I'm too busy." End of conversation. It was obvious to me then that she did not see responding to this request as a part of her job description.

What an opportunity lost! Here is a person with cognitive impairment TELLING the Activities Director what is important and meaningful to him. A gold mine for an individual who is attuned to person-centered care, who is attuned to the dignity and individuality of each resident. 'Oh, yes, Mr. Johnson, I will dance with joy with you now and I will see that there are always many opportunities for you to dance with others!'

The big question here is Who Are We Working For. Are we working for the administrator who wants to see tasks completed, who wants to see an activity room neat and clean, who wants to see 'big numbers' for all scheduled activities? Or, are we working for the resident and trying to discern what are his/her routines, his/her interests, his/her life-long patterns. Only when responses are made to these issues can we be enablers of life-long development, of quality of life, of individualized person-centered care. Only then are we actualizing the reality that this long-term care ministry is, in the words of Joanne Rader, "sacred."

Dictionary Takes Note of "Aging-in-Place"

2008-01-31T08:15:00.000-08:00

From yesterday’s e-newsletter of the Gerontological Society of America:
“At the end of every December, the New Oxford American Dictionary announces its Word of the Year, and “aging-in-place” was a runner up for 2007. Although the term is well known to providers of aging services, the New Oxford American Dictionary has defined aging in place for the general public as ‘the process of growing older while living in one’s own residence, instead of having to move to a new home or community.’”
Concepts, once revolutionary, find their way into mainstream dictionaries! Aging in place is an experience that ALL of us want. We never want to leave home. How this is lived out in continuing care retirement communities is addressing this naturally-borne wish. It all amounts to taking the services where the people are, rather than taking the people to where the services are. It works. It enhances quality of life greatly.

Philosophical Values Underlying Transformative Nursing Homes

2008-01-30T15:05:00.001-08:00

Dr. Bill Thomas speaks of his Greenhouse Project, one of several approaches to culture change, as being based

NOT on the physical or organizational structure of a typical nursing home,

NOT on the structure of a hospital, and

NOT on sickness and disability.

Rather, Thomas’ conscious approach, along with his colleagues within the culture change movement, is based on

“An environment worthy of older people,

an environment of intentional community vs. institutionalization.”

Thomas continues, “It is based on a vision of growth, vitality, human development and the “miraculous power of love and affection in the lives of people young and old.”

Does this seem like something all nursing homes should strive for? If you see yourself as someone who might 'end up' in a nursing home, would you choose such an environment over nursing homes as we know them today? In which setting do you think life would be better for you and for the staff?

Does the argument gain any strength with the added fact that the day-to-day operations in a transformed nursing home cost no more than in our traditional nursisng home, with the added fact that staff retention is much higher in transformative nursing homes and that they report much higher job satisfaction?

It's worthy of a good discussion. Add your comment by clicking on the "comment" right below this post and follow the simple directions. "Let's talk."

Signs, Everywhere a Sign

2008-01-29T08:44:00.001-08:00

Making nursing homes HOME, that transformative culture change that liberates our elders, continues to grab the imagination and stir profound hope among both thought-full, reflective providers and potential consumers in our aging society.

This week’s newsletter from AAHSA contained a notice from Ecumen, a Lutheran-based aging services provider in Minnesota and the surrounding area. This company has a blog on “Changing Aging.” I went to that site and found a post from January 28.

I’ve included it here, having revised the formatting and included some minor editing.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
January 28th, 2008
Posted By John Korzendorfer, Senior Director of Campus Operations

The ongoing dialogue on the Changing Aging blog about “IT” fascinates me. “IT” is comprised of numerous factors, and today I would like to talk about one of them as they relate to America’s nursing homes.

--- SIGNS! ---
In my work I have the opportunity to visit numerous nursing homes, and so many of them have this in common:
SIGNS!

I’m not talking about directional signs. . .
Remember the chorus from the mid-70’s song “Signs?”
“Sign, sign, everywhere a sign
Blocking out the scenery, breaking my mind.
Do this, don’t do that, can’t you read the sign?”
You know what I am talking about. . .

I’m talking about typical nursing home signs:
No Smoking
Smoke Free Facility
Turn Off the Light
Wipe Your Feet
Wash Your Hands
Flush the Toilet
Close the Door
Other Door
Keep Door Closed
Knock Before Entering
Guns Are Banned From This Facility
No Parking
Do Not Park Wheelchairs Here
Sign In At the Front Desk
Visitor Registration
Delivery’s In the Rear

--- Etc. – Etc. – Etc. ---

Ask yourself this question: Do I have “signs” in my home, where I live?

The long-term care profession has been very good at relying on “rules” when instead we should be taking personal responsibility to treat people as people. As the country embraces “person centered care,” let us not forget first to treat others the way we would want to be treated, embrace “common sense” and realize that our desire to have everyone follow the rules can simply suffocate and suck the spirit out of people.

And, if we do put up a sign, how about using other ones, such as:
Welcome!
Our Mission is to Create Home.
How Can We Help?
We Want Your Ideas.
Thank You for Choosing Us.
We’re Proud to Serve You.
We’re Thankful for You.
How Can We Do Better?

If you have “IT,” you will look “IT.”
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

The work in aging services is a noble one; the people we serve make it such. It is deserving of our best efforts to provide a physical and psychological environment where this growth, vitality and human development can occur. It’s called making the nursing home HOME.

A Place Where Love Matters

2008-01-23T22:44:00.000-08:00

Did you see the Lehrer News Hour this evening, January 23, with the story about transformative nursing homes? Dr. Bill Thomas, geriatrician and nursing home reformer was interviewed in one of his “Green House” nursing homes in Lincoln, Nebraska.

The twelve-minute story highlights two primary characteristics of the Green House concept – characteristics of all transformative nursing homes. The first, making the nursing home HOME, with all the implications that follow. The residents interviewed testify to that. So do the front line workers in a more indirect but compelling way. From the transcript:

Ebmeier, Nursing Home Administrator, and the shahbazim, (plural for shahbaz, name for traditional certified nurse assistants), tell the story of one former Green House elder, Mary Valentine, who celebrated her 101st birthday in the Green House.

JOYCE EBMEIER, Administrator: One of the shahbazim went to her and said, "Well, Mary, what do you want to do? What shall we do so that you have a great birthday?" And she looked at the shahbaz and she said, "You know, what I really want is a margarita and a cigarette."

SUSAN DENTZER, Narrator: And that's what she got, as seen in this picture, taken as she and her daughter celebrated on the Green House's front porch. When Valentine died soon after that memorable day, the shahbazim were crushed. They told us that was the downside of life in the Green House, saying goodbye.

THOMAS COOPER, Shabaz: The night after she had passed, my dog (note the place of animals in this setting) went into her room, and jumped up on her recliner, and sat where Mary used to sit. That was really emotional for me, and for the whole group of shahbazim, and the whole team.

JOYCE EBMEIER, Administrator: Death gets harder in a Green House because, when you are smaller and when you are engaged in the way that the shahbazim are engaged in the lives of the elders they love so much, it is like losing your dearest family member.

The video shows a hanging plaque which reads: “In memory of Mary Valentine. May her spirit protect, nurture and sustain all who enter here.”

DR. BILL THOMAS: In long-term care, love matters. And the heart of the problem is institutions can't love.

At this point in the story, I experienced a strong resonance with Dr. Thomas’ differentiation between home and the institution. I was remembering the death of a friend in a nursing home early one morning just a couple of years ago. When the mortuary personnel came to remove the body, I accompanied them as they rolled the body-laden gurney down the long hall to the exit. My action was a conscious effort to form a kind of honor guard. As we passed the nurses station, the two employees sitting there, kept their heads down, apparently engrossed in paper work. Neither even looked up. Neither acknowledged the sacredness of the moment. Neither acted in a way that would indicate there had been a personal relationship with this person. I remember my feelings of shock and sadness. That is an example of “institution.” Institutions can’t love. Institutions that hold our elders need to be transformed into HOME.

The second characteristic of transformative nursing homes addressed in this story refers to improved physical and psychological functions. The video shows an elderly woman (age, 95) making her way with a walker with relative ease and confidence. Her daughter tells the interviewer that when her mother was living in a typical nursing home setting she had been bed bound. In this transformative nursing home, the daughter continues, “they started working with my mother. . .and it wasn’t very long before she could get up and take a few steps. And now, you can see she does pretty good (sic) with the walker getting around.”

The video spends some time on the financial aspect which, I believe, is more relevant to Green Houses as such, not transformative nursing homes generally. The Green House Project is a trademarked name and requires adherence to many particulars, including using Green House Project blueprints for the construction of each home. Generally, as Steve Shields, leader in the transformative nursing home movement has said publicly: the staffing is the same; the costs are distributed differently, but they are the same. Transformative nursing homes are budget neutral.

The story from Lincoln, Nebraska is heartening. There are not enough of these HOMES yet. We MUST liberate our elders from traditional nursing home and bring them HOME.

The transcript of this story from the Lehrer News Hour can be read at:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/health/jan-june08/nursing_01-23.html

TOO MUCH MEDICINE CAN MAKE YOU SICK

2008-01-23T11:18:00.000-08:00

Part Two of Two
What Does All This Mean To YOU?

To quote from the last paragraph of Dr. Wolf’s article: “A serious problem exists because both doctors and patients do not realize that practically any symptom in older adults and in many younger adults can be caused or worsened by drugs. Some doctors and patients assume that what are actually adverse drug reactions are simply signs of aging.”

Be assured, my friends, that ageism in our medical system in the United States is alive and well. We must be advocates for ourselves AND for those we love who may, merely by chronological age, be potential victims of this vicious and insidious “ism.”

One practical note: if you are looking for a good nursing home and you learn that one of the disadvantages of the residents who live there is that each tends to be on nine or more medications, BEWARE! The federal government agency that oversees care in nursing homes has set “nine” as the cutoff number of medicines at which an individual may be at high risk for being inappropriately medicated. “Too much medicine can make you sick.”

Second practical note: when you get a prescription, ask questions about side effects. Ask about other possible approaches as alternatives to the recommended prescription. In other words, get enough information to assure that you are able to give informed consent to the primary care provider’s suggested treatment. Ask these questions too when you accompany an older adult to their primary care provider.

Third practical note: find a geriatrician for your primary care provider if you are over 60 years of age. There is a not-so-recent field of medicine, geriatrics that specializes in the care of adults 60 and older. These primary care providers have special training in gerontology and geriatric medicine. As we age, our bodies and even typical symptoms of various disorders do not fit the classic medical textbook description. Much like infants and children who, because they are in a unique developmental stage, are universally under the care of a pediatrician, we older adults are best served by those specialists who understand, through extensive training, the older body.

A physician may be a board-certified geriatrician. Or, a physician may obtain a Certificate of Added Qualifications (CAQ) in Geriatric Medicine or Geriatric Psychiatry. This CAQ is offered through medical certifying boards in family practice, internal medicine, osteopathic medicine and psychiatry for physicians who have completed a fellowship program in geriatrics.

TOO MUCH MEDICINE CAN MAKE YOU SICK

2008-01-19T16:23:00.000-08:00

PART ONE OF TWO PARTS

Today’s entry is a ‘wake up and smell the coffee’ message. Older adults (that’s 60 and over) are generally overmedicated, suffer debilitating and sometimes irreversible side effects from sometimes inappropriate or wrong-dosage medications and are at the mercy of a healthcare system that is patently ageist.

The contents here are taken from a wonderful newsletter, WORST PILLS BEST PILLS (September, 2007 issue). It is edited by Sidney M. Wolfe, M.D. with Public Citizen, a national not-for-profit, public interest organization.

The front page article in this newsletter presents staggering figures about Drug-Induced Diseases among older Americans that occur each year in the United States.

ADVERSE DRUG REACTIONS
9.6 million older Americans suffer adverse drug reactions. At least 37% of these reactions are not reported to the primary care provider because the patient did not realize the reaction was drug-related. Dr. Wolfe believes this is a result of the primary care provider not explaining possible adverse effects to older adults when medicines are prescribed.

DRUG-RELATED AUTOMOBILE INJURIES
At least 16,000 injuries from auto crashes involving older adults are attributable to the use of psychoactive drugs, specifically benzodiazepines* and tricyclic antidepressants**

HIP FRACTURES AND SUBSEQUENT HIGH MORTALITY RATE
32,000 older adults suffer hip fractures that can be attributed to drug-induced falls. Of these, more than 1,500 will result in death. Drugs usually involved: sleeping pills, minor tranquilizers, antipsychotic drugs and antidepressants. Dr. Sidney M. Wolfe, editor, states that all of these categories of drugs are often prescribed unnecessarily, especially in older adults.

DRUG-INDUCED DEMENTIA
Approximately 163,000 older adults suffer from serious mental impairment (memory loss, dementia) either caused or worsened by drugs. These drugs may be minor tranquilizers or sleeping pills, drugs to treat high blood pressure or antipsychotic drugs.

DRUG-INDUCED TARDIVE DYSKINESIA
73,000 older Americans suffer this very serious and often irreversible side effect of prescribed antipsychotic drugs. This disorder is characterized by involuntary movements of the face, arms and legs. About 80% of older adults receiving antipsychotic drugs do not have schizophrenia or other conditions that justify the use of these powerful drugs.

DRUG-INDUCED PARKINSONISM
At least 61,000 older adults have developed this drug-induced disorder due to the use of antipsychotic drugs such as Haldol, Thorazine, Mellaril, Stelazine or Prolixin.

Other drugs prescribed for gastrointestinal problems can also cause this same drug-induced disorder: raglan, Compazine and Phenergan

*Short-acting benzodiazepines are generally used for patients with sleep-onset insomnia (difficulty falling asleep) without daytime anxiety. Shorter-acting benzodiazepines used to manage insomnia include estazolam (ProSom®), flurazepam (Dalmane®), temazepam (Restoril®), and triazolam (Halcion®). Midazolam (Versed®), a short-acting benzodiazepine, is utilized for sedation, anxiety, and amnesia in critical care settings and prior to anesthesia. It is available in the United States as an injectable preparation and as a syrup (primarily for pediatric patients).

Benzodiazepines with a longer duration of action are utilized to treat insomnia in patients with daytime anxiety. These benzodiazepines include alprazolam (Xanax®), chlordiazepoxide (librium®), clorazepate (Tranxene®), diazepam (Valium®, halazepam (Paxipam®), lorzepam (Ativan®), oxazepam (Serax®), prazepam (Centrax®), and quazepam (Doral®). Clonazepam (Klonopin®), diazepam, and clorazepate are also used as anticonvulsants.

**If you would like more information about drugs in this category, select the URL below and paste it into your Browser’s address box:

http://www.healthyplace.com/communities/depression/treatment/antidepressants/antidepressant_list.asp

A word – or Two – About Food

2008-01-17T13:41:00.000-08:00

I know, I know, this is a blog about aging. But food, as an essential part of so much of our life, fits right in, I believe.

I’m engaged in a book now by Michael Pollan whose title is IN DEFENSE OF FOOD. I highly recommend it. His advice is this: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

A quote from page 8 of his book articulates well the long-held place of food in our individual, social and communal life:

"We forget that, historically, people have eaten for a great many reasons other than biological necessity. Food is also about pleasure, about community, about family and spirituality, about our relationship to the natural world, and about expressing our identity. As long as humans have been taking meals together, eating has been as much about culture as it has been about biology."

In many public retirement communities, an emphasis is placed on enhanced dining from a simple marketing perspective. The large dining rooms are often elegant in style with tablecloths and “real” napkins at every setting. Staff serve residents restaurant-style from a menu that contains choices. Nice! Regardless of the motive. Call it paying attention to consumer interests. Not a bad idea either.

I’ve been thinking much about food, health, quality of life, and the dining experience, particularly for people living in retirement settings in the context Pollan states on page 8 of his latest book.
Pleasure
Community
Family
Spirituality
Our relationship to the earth
Expressing our identity (cultural and ethnic food habits)

How can we enhance the expression of each of these deep human values in the retirement setting? It will vary by community, by location, by local circumstances. It’s worth looking into with serious intentionality.

I believe the most important ingredient in this holistic approach toward food and sharing meals together is cooking REAL FOOD from SCRATCH. The trucks that pull up to institutional kitchens carry processed food or food-like substances as Pollan calls them. The fuel connsumed in transporting foods in our industrial food culture (an average of 1500 miles) is ten times the energy of the food transported. As we call for care of the earth, can we stop the over-consumption of fuel, the overuse of the chemicals used in growing and processing these foods, which subsequently end up in our waterways, and buy locally? Buy REAL FOOD, fresh vegetables, fruit, nuts, eggs from our local farmers and beef, pork and poultry from local ranchers? Imagine the gastronomical delight in once again having home-cooked food, of savoring the marvelous sweet juiciness of fruits and melons grown nearby and served promptly after being harvested.

For those who tend to look at the pragmatic first --- Food budgets based on cooking ‘from scratch’ are a mere 1/3 of the budgets based on trucked-in, processed and frozen foods. And look at how we honor Mother Earth in the process! It’s also a win for the lucky people who are served this food, for the small local family farmer and rancher, as well as the kitchen staff who get to do something more creative than open boxes and heat up the oven!

More on Dementia and the Drugs to Treat It

2008-01-15T14:14:00.000-08:00

I discovered that Dr. Bill Thomas (father of the Eden Alternative and Green House projects in long-term care) has a blog titled “Changing Aging.” The URL is this:
http://www.umbc.edu/blogs/changingaging/

In a post of January 15, titled “No Miracle Pill,” Dr. Thomas refers to 6 clinical studies examined by Italian researchers on the use of commonly prescribed drugs for mid-to-moderate Alzheimer’s. Aricept is the most common of those named. They found “that in none of six clinical trials they examined did using the drugs significantly reduce the rate of progression from MCI (mild cognitive impairment) to dementia.”

I have heard other respected geriatricians state this same result from their own professional reading and experience. In one case, the geriatrician told those of us in the audience, “I tell a family member, ‘if your mom enjoys eating at “Uncle Julio’s Fine Mexican Restaurant”, your money would be better spent giving her that simple pleasure once every few weeks.” He went on to say that the improvements in memory from using these drugs are “clinical” in nature. After a few months on the drug(s), a person with dementia might be able to remember a series of five words from a list of ten, over four words that s/he was able to remember before beginning to take the drug.

Dr. Thomas ends his short post with this: “The problem is that, outside of a small number of exceptional circumstances, the drugs listed above are largely ineffective and expose patients to substantial and sometimes dangerous side effects.” (Emphasis mine)

The original, short and easy-to-read article that Dr. Thomas refers to can be accessed here:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21990057/

2008-01-14T10:12:00.001-08:00

Using Antipsychotic Drugs Off Label In Nursing Homes To “Manage” Behavior
© January 8, 2008 by Imelda Maurer, cdp

Once again a research study has affirmed the obvious: nursing home residents who are treated with antipsychotic drugs as a result of exhibiting “behavioral problems” do better when they are taken off these drugs. The New York Times in its January 4, 2008 issue described the study, conducted in England, Wales and Australia and its findings. In part the article reads, “The study sharply challenges standard medical practice in mental health clinics and nursing homes in the United States and around the world.”

First, a simple glossary:
Antipsychotic drugs. refer to those medications that were originally developed to treat psychosis. A diagnosis of psychosis includes conditions such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, mania and delusional disorder. Medications to treat these psychoses include Haldol; Risperdal; Abilify; Clozaril; Zyprexa; Symbyax; Seroquel; Geodon

Behavioral Problems. Terms like this or adjectives such as “combative,” “aggressive”, “uncooperative”, “resists care” are seen in nurses’ notes of typical nursing homes. Such descriptions are subjective, reflecting a bias on the part of the one charting. Good care givers, professional health care providers, know to look for the meaning in any behavior. All behavior has meaning. It is the task of the caregiver to find that meaning and address the issue the resident is attempting to communicate. Mary Lucero, a nationally known expert on dementia and dementia care notes, “Resistance to care is a message of distress. It is evidence of frustration and anxiety pushed to the last resort.” A person with dementia cannot act with the reasoned intent to cause harm. Aggressive or combative behavior is that person’s means to protect, to remove an obstacle or to stop an action seen as harmful to him/her.

Off label use of a drug. When a drug has been developed and approved by the FDA for a certain disease or disorder, but a health care provider prescribes it for a condition other than that covered by the drug’s FDA approval, the practice is called off label use. Physicians attending nursing home residents in far too many cases prescribe any of these antipsychotic drugs as all-purpose tranquilizers

Typical nursing home. Whenever I use that term in my blog, it describes any nursing home that is institutional in culture, where staff convenience determines a resident’s daily routine, where regulations may be duly adhered to but in a mechanistic, impersonal way, and where activities are generic and repetitive. As a consequence, morale is low among staff and residents. Turnover, especially among front line staff, the direct care givers, is very high. Unfortunately, the residents can only escape through death.

Back to the study! An editorial in the journal Lancet, in which the full study was described, advises against using these antipsychotic drugs to address behavioral issues at all. “We know that behavioral treatments can work very well with many patients.” Johnny Matson, professor of psychology at LSU in Baton Rouge writes.

Hooray for the authors of the study who conclude that the routine prescription of the drugs for aggression “should no longer be regarded as a satisfactory form of care.” Physicians in typical nursing homes may practice their craft primarily by prescription. It occurs, for example, when the director of nurses tells the attending physician that Resident X has been shouting out during the night, or is “combative” and “uncooperative” with care. An all-purpose tranquilizer --- read antipsychotic drug being used off label--- is prescribed. The resident’s behavior changes. His/her body may become rigid; the resident may become untalkative, unable to feed him/herself any longer, is no longer oriented to those around him/her, shows signs of depression, and may be one of the “slumpers” typically found around the nurses’ station.

I am reminded of Steve Shield’s words about culture change here. Steve, CEO of Meadowlark Hills, Manhattan, Kansas says, as I wrote in an earlier blog, that when he and his staff were exposed to the philosophy of culture change they all saw it as holy. “It is holy,” Steve explained to me, “because it liberates the elderly and returns hope to them.”

True culture change – the kind that results in transformative environments for residents and for staff – will reflect medical personnel and licensed staff who look for the meaning in resident behaviors and who try, in as many ways as it takes, to address the issue the resident is trying to communicate.

“GOING GRAY” and “I FEEL BAD ABOUT MY NECK AND OTHER THOUGHTS ABOUT BEING A WOMAN”

2008-01-02T13:16:00.000-08:00

© January 2, 2008 by Imelda Maurer, cdp

Several weeks ago I heard author, Anne Kreamer, interviewed on one of San Francisco’s public radio stations. She had recently published a book titled, “Going Gray.” I checked it out of our neighborhood library. It’s sort of a pop culture kind of book. So is a recent book I read by Nora Ephrom, “I Feel Bad about My Neck and Other Thoughts about Being a Woman". Both books are easy-read reflections of issues aging women face in our American culture.

Anne details her experiences as a fifty-one year old woman who decides to no longer color her hair. She is going to ‘go gray.’ The author examines culturally accepted reasons for coloring one’s hair, stereotypical values and motivations affecting both men and women to color their hair, along with a simultaneous and often unarticulated search for authenticity.

Nora has a whole chapter on “maintenance” with details of time and costs, written in her typical observant and humorous style.

Anne cites two writers near the end of her book which go beyond the pop-culture and which I wish to share: Betty Friedan in her 1993 book, “The Fountain of Age” wrote that “an accurate realistic, active identification with one’s own aging – as opposed both to resignation to the stereotype of being ‘old’ and denial of age changes – seems an important key to vital aging, and even longevity.”

Anne’s comment on Friedan is this: “An active, realistic acceptance of age-related changes” – as opposed to denial of passive resignation – was thus the key to a continued vital involvement in life, a very different face of age than disengagement and decline. . . . Mindless conformity to the standards of youth can prohibit further development and that denial can become mindless conformity to the victim-decline model of age. It takes a conscious breaking out of youthful definitions, for a man or woman to free oneself for continued development in age.”

Women, our graying hair and our changing bodies are subjects of complex, convoluted issues in our society. Some of these unexamined values are hawked even by vendors who define themselves as religious or spiritual. Material presented in a widely advertised national program which grants certification in “Spiritual Gerontology”, for example, has a self-administered survey, “Ageless in the Lord,” which measures “how you are progressing in the 12 keys to agelessness.” (Clearly the implication is that aging is a negative, and that if we are really progressing we will be 'ageless.' Please, please, don't deny me my aging!)

On the other hand, Andrew Weil in” Healthy Aging” takes the better part of the first chapter of that book to conclude that “. . . aging is written into the laws of the universe,” and that “acceptance of it must be a prerequisite for doing it in a graceful way.”

Yes, aging is going to happen (unless we die young). Accept it? Just accept it? I think not. Cherish it. Honor it. It is where Providence has brought us.

In the final pages of her book Anne Kreamer draws that same conclusion as the worthy reason to go gray. By doing so, she says, she is ‘facing it (aging) squarely, accepting it incrementally. I think that each year as my hair becomes whiter, I will be a little more ready to celebrate the good things about my ‘here and now.’. . I’m proud of what I’ve done, the years I’ve lived, how far I’ve come. I’m happier going through each day – on the sidewalk, in stores and restaurants, at parties – being as honest as I can be about who I really am.”

What are your thoughts about your neck and about going gray?

When I began writing, my intent was to raise some thoughts about accepting and cherishing our aging. Now that I have finished writing, I realize that really, the focal issue is that of the ageist society in which we live.

So my final questions are, do you think ageism is the issue? Have we just accepted these societal norms and practised one of the worst 'isms' in our society? How does one consciously articulate and then fight this aspect of ageism?

Culture Change: Let's Not Make it a Cliche

2007-11-07T14:31:00.001-08:00

There is a wonderful revolution taking place in (albeit all too few) nursing homes across the country. As long as there are parents who say to their children, ‘Promise me you’ll never put me in a nursing home,” or any of us groan to think that we may spend our last days in a medical institution that is foreign to any feel or sense of “home”, then there is need for this revolution to spread.

It goes by several names: Culture Change; Transformative Nursing Homes: Resident-Centered Care; Person-Centered Care; Green House Model; Wellspring

What all these terms have in common are the following values and attitudes:
• The resident is put back into the driver’s seat, making as many choices about his/her daily life. One implication is that activities and care revolve around the resident as much as possible, as contrasted with an institutional schedule and staff convenience.

• It is an environment that honors the culture of aging as life-affirming, satisfyhing, humane and meaningful.

• The place has the feel and look of HOME. Just two evidences of change in the environment:
No medical carts rumbling down the hallways.
No nurses station.

Culture change is not about rearranging the furniture. Far from it. It is a deep, challenging transformation of attitudes and values which is dependent on strong, knowledgeable leadership. The leader must have a deep belief in these transformative values and the leadership ability to shape staff so that these values permeate every cell of their being. Anything short of this is not transformative change and the result will not be ‘culture change.’

The win-win part of culture change is that this transformative mode of operation costs no more than traditional, institutional care. In fact, there are many reasons why the cost is probably lower. That’s a topic for another day.

Steve Shields, CEO of a transformative retirement center in Manhattan, KS speaks of what made it possible for him and his staff to move forward in their journey of transformative change: “The vision was painted so strongly and in front of everybody that it became holy. Truly.” (OLD AGE IN A NEW AGE by Beth Baker). I spoke with Steve about that quote and asked him what he meant by ‘holy.’ He said, “It (culture change) is holy because it liberates our elders and returns hope to them.”

Reason enough to undertake transformative change.

CIRCLES

2007-04-05T07:40:00.003-07:00

© April 5, 2005 by Imelda Maurer, cdp

It’s a wonderfully thrilling time to work in the field of aging. Each day brings exciting news of approaches to care and life in nursing homes and retirement centers that put HOME back into “nursing home.” This cultural transformation from the institutional, medical model of “living-every-day-by-a-schedule-that-someone-else-decides-for-me” to a model where the nursing home resident is truly the CENTER of all decisions, programs and activities goes by several names: Culture Change; Cultural Transformation; Person-Directed Care; Green House Project and similar terms. The common theme is that the resident is at the center of the program.

The graphic above is taken from the Internet at

http://www.pioneernetwork.net/news-and-events/Accord2.php The article from the newsletter of the Pioneer Network summarized focal points of its June 8 - 9 meeting in St. Louis.

"Marguerite McLaughlin of Quality Partners in Rhode Island (the QIO that supports all QIOs nationally) presented a framework for person-directed care to illustrate the need for elders to be at the center of

● transformative care practices (e.g., bathing frequency, time and method),
● transformative workplace practices (e.g., a culture of valuing and respecting caregivers and their needs), and
● transformative environmental practices (e.g., the creation of sanctuary, shelter and peace that provides a sense of community and safety, free of unwanted intrusions)."

Recently I was fortunate enough to visit a nursing home that pioneered this cultural transformation: Teresian House, a 300-bed nursing home in Albany, NY, owned and administered by the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm. Sister Pauline Brecanier has been the administrator there since the late ‘80s. Sister Pauline believed even then that the nursing home “should look and function as any family home would" (from CULTURE CHANGE, Haworth Press).

Among the positive impacts resulting from transforming a “nursing home” into “HOME are these: obviously happier elders, happier, more content, longer retained employees, a full house since word of mouth about good customer care spreads quickly, and a neutral financial impact. In other words, this innovative, humane approach to life in a nursing home doesn’t cost any more than the way ‘traditional’ nursing homes operate.

My hunch is that medical costs, number of hospitalizations and visits to the Emergency Room are much lower than in a traditional nursing home. But I don’t know of any study that has looked at those factors.

My reason for visiting Teresian House was to visit with a Sisters’ Congregation, the Religious of the Sacred Heart, who has recently begun to depend on Teresian House to care for their frail elders who need nursing home care. The Sisters have done an outstanding, remarkable attentive, and thought-full job in planning for and implementing this transition, and are to be highly commended for that. (More on that in a later blog, I hope.)

The living proof that Teresian House is really HOME, and that the elders who live there feel at home, is evidenced by the following which is shared with you with Sister Mary’s permission.

Sister Mary Ranney is a 95-year-old Religious of the Sacred Heart. She moved from the convent retirement center, Kenwood, to Teresian House (located on Washington Ave), some months ago. She wrote the following which was included in the Sisters’ community-wide newsletter. (‘Bunny’ is the name of one of the Sisters who visit there weekly. There are, incidentally, Sisters there every day VISITING, HELPING, ADVOCATING, as a part of their job description.)

Teresian House: a Kenwood on Washington Ave!
“So much has been said of our new home, and so well expressed, that it is difficult to add to the picture. For me, one thing is different! Here, we walk in circles, no straight lines. Surprisingly, we get there! A circle to the chapel, He is in it; a circle to the dining room, friends await us; a circle to the front door, guests on hand; a circle to Bunny’s class and we get lost! I notice too, there is more light in circles, more love in circling hugs, more joy in enlarging our circle, more peace to have come full circle”

It seems to me that the Sisters and all the elders at Teresian House are experiencing ‘the hundredfold’ promised in Mark 10: 29 – 30. It is my hope and prayer that we will all be that lucky!

Blessings on you, Sister Pauline, and on all advocates and practitioners who are working to make nursing homes HOME!

I’m Not a Young Woman

2007-03-26T18:46:00.000-07:00

© March 26, 2007 by Imelda Maurer, cdp

Lowe’s had a large selection of vacuum cleaners, and I needed one. I had just moved to begin a new ministry and was shopping that Saturday afternoon for some basics for the small house I was renting. The salesman was helping another woman when I walked up. I was there only a moment or two before he looked at me and said, “I’ll be with you in a minute, young woman.” To which I responded politely, “I’m not a young woman.” The woman he was helping was probably embarrassed at my apparent lack of social sensitivity to this well-meaning salesman. She turned to me and said, “He’s trying to make you feel good.” “I know,” I said, “but I’ve lived 63 years to look like this, and I don’t want any of those years or experiences disregarded.”

How many of us have not had that experience at least once since we passed 55 or 60 years of age? How did we really feel about such a remark? A good feeling because maybe we really don’t look as old as we really are? Maybe ‘they’ really think I am still young. And am I happy that I am seen as still young?

Our western society is so terribly ageist. The state of youthfulness is worshipped and sought after to the tune of billions of dollars raked in by the cosmetic and anti-aging industry here in the United States alone. On the other hand, birthday cards for anyone 30 or older make degrading joke after degrading joke about one’s age. What a shame.

Dr. Andrew Weil, in his recent book, HEALTHY AGING addresses this concept of our society’s abhorrence of aging. He concludes by saying that no matter how much we spend on hormonal supplements, plastic surgery or anti-aging cosmetics, we cannot stop the aging process, and we should “accept” our aging. No, Dr. Weil, we should not “accept” our aging, we should CHERISH and HONOR our aging. It is a sacred part of our life journey.

For me as a Sister of Divine Providence, it is another wonderful and good aspect of God’s Providential love and care. For me, aging is an adventure. I’ve never been this old before! Who will I be as an old(er) person? How will the experiences of my life, both inner and outer experiences, show themselves in my face, in my body?

Aging can hold much pain for some of us. I don’t deny that. Many older adults suffer complex health problems. But that is not a universal experience. Each of us has some control over how our older years will be lived based on our inherited genes and by the way we live each day now: healthy diet, at least a 30-minute walk, positive attitudes, and informed, regular care of body, mind and spirit.

If we each fought ageism every time we encountered it, whether it is public policy or a well-meaning sales clerk, wouldn’t we individually be a lot more psychologically healthier? Wouldn’t our entire society be a lot healthier?

Can you look at yourself in the mirror and smile with gratitude for the life’s journey that has been yours so far, and that reveals itself in that face you see in the mirror?

I Never Saw Your Wrinkles

2007-03-02T08:14:00.000-08:00

© March 2 2007 by Imelda Maurer, cdp

Several years ago I fell in love with gardening. It was a kind of surprising transformation following a farm-life childhood, where the work seemed only drudgery. So averse was I to having to go on Saturday mornings to hoe the weeds out of the long rows in the grape vineyard or from around the young corn plants, or to pick the field peas, that I cultivated the habit of praying for rain every weekend.

When I was in my mid-30s, I found myself living in rural southern Louisiana with an ample yard of beautiful, dark, delta soil beneath the lawn. I decided to attempt a small organic vegetable garden and cultivated a patch that was probably 20 feet by 12 feet. I was astounded at the delight I took in seeing the small seedlings take hold and flourish, at the beauty of the different shades of green against the dark, black soil. I looked forward to the time I would be able to spend in my garden, a time that became richly reflective and meditative, as well as emotionally fulfilling.

As that first spring progressed, the tomato plants grew almost shoulder height, producing tomatoes for me and many of my neighbors. After the growing season, I removed the dead plants and added them to the compost pile where, during the still winter season, they turned into rich dirt. That compost, added to the garden, nourished the next season's young plants. I had an experiential awareness of the universal cycle of life, death and subsequent new life, as I had observed my garden plants mature, provide fruit and later yield to death.

There is a distinct beauty in a young, maturing plant. A pepper plant, for example grows so straight with wondrous, dark, shiny, green leaves. Its stems strengthen and become almost woody, enabling it to support the proliferation of beautiful, glossy, waxy peppers. In doing so, the plant loses its youthful appearance and gains the beauty of maturity.

I began to understand not only that the appearance of the pepper plants in each stage of growth and development held its own beauty, but that there was a certain rightness and appropriateness in the beauty of each stage of that pepper plant's life. The reflective time in the garden provided the recognition of a connection between the stages of life in the plants I loved and nurtured and the stages in my own life. I recognized in a new and profound way that there is a beauty, a rightness, an appropriateness in who we are and how we appear at whatever age.

I've believed for many years that as we age our beauty deepens. The face and eyes of older persons reflect the richness of their life experiences and the wisdom that comes from their life's journey of intermingled pain and joy. It is this inner self, wonderfully manifested in some way in our physical being, that is who we really are. Robert Redford alluded to this perspective in an interview in which he spoke of a personal rejection of having plastic surgery because he believes that in that process, "something of your soul in your face goes away."
We all know at some level that, when we look at someone, or when we call a person's image to mind, that we are seeing the person as he or she really is -- something of the inner self. This was exquisitely voiced by a woman in a news story that ran recently on "Good Morning America.” The story cited growing numbers of adults older than 65 who are choosing plastic surgery. Featured was an 80-year-old woman who had recently had a face lift, tummy tuck and breast augmentation. She was shown sitting around a table with women of her own age group, obviously friends and acquaintances. One in the group asked why she underwent plastic surgery. The subject of the interview answered, touching her smooth, wrinkle-free face: "Look how smooth my face is. Don't you remember how wrinkled it was?" To which her friend replied in a soft-spoken voice, "I never saw your wrinkles."