Simulating Aging for Caregivers
What an interesting concept - training called Xtreme Aging, which is designed to simulate diminished abilities associated with old age. I just read this article about this program, which is apprently becoming a part of many nursing and medical school curriculums, and I think should be mandatory training for every nursing home employee, or for anyone who works with the elderly.
Here's the idea, they put on glasses to blur their vision; stuff cotton balls in their ears to reduce hearing and their noses to reduce sense of smell; and put on latex gloves with adhesive bands around the knuckles to impede dexterity. They even put corn kernels in thier shoes to approximate typical aches and pains. And after all that, the subjects are put through a series of typically routine tasks like buttoning a shirt, finding a phone number in the phone book, dialing a cellphone and folding and unfolding a map. Imagine - shirt buttons are so small, phone book print and cellphone numbers are so small, folding a map is a frustrating task for me in my thirties!
The idea behind Xtreme Aging, of course, is to foster sensitivity both inside and outside medical facilities. I generally don't quote directly from articles, but this is something to think about.
To approximate the state of people entering a nursing home, she asked each participant to write down five favorite possessions, five cherished freedoms and three loved ones on Post-it notes. Then one-by-one she asked members of the group to part with a possession, a freedom or a person: a car here, a husband there, freedom of travel next — until all that anyone had left were two possessions.
“You guys just aged to the point of going into a nursing home,” she said, as participants made the last hard choice, invariably giving up contact with their children. “What did you give up? All your loved ones. All your privileges. And at most nursing homes you only get to bring two possessions.”
She asked, “How did that make you feel?”
Hands went up.
“Lost.”
“Like I want to die.”
“Like I failed.”
“Now,” Dr. Rosebrook said, “how many of you look forward to living in a typical nursing home?” No hands went up. “But this is what we do to people. If we’ve taken everything away, what have we done to the elders in society?” Kim Hansen, 46, who works in the facility’s rehabilitation unit, said the hardest part of the exercise was giving up the people in her life. “I gave up my parents first,” she said. “Then it was between my husband and my kids. I gave up my husband. I got very emotional with that.”
There's something to think about - yes, its a simulation, but a powerful one, and one that just considering it makes me very sad. The participants get to go back to their lives, and their possessions, freedoms, and loved ones . . . but what happens when you're no longer a participant? Shouldn't we strive to make the reality as pleasant as possible?
