The Talk of Life: Organic Legacy, Out Loud
“What’s so important about saying it out load?” I was asked a few months ago during a Q&A session at the end of one of my presentations that talked about “creating an organic legacy.” Good question I replied. What is so important about trying to get our aging parents to speak openly to us about the story of their lives? The short answer is “in the nick of time” insights.
It is easy to think of life review as simply a reconsideration by our aging parents of the important relationships and events in their lives. Certainly that is a big part of it, but certainly not all of it. There are unexpected discoveries, things you never saw coming, to be had in the actual telling of stories out load. The emotional and spiritual surprises that are not revealed through “private brain chatter.” They are the product of the telling out loud.
In this way, the telling out loud uniquely facilitates the legacy process. It helps our aging parents discover among other things hidden truths and forgotten strengths. It doesn’t matter how well they know the details of familiar stories or how often they have been repeated in the past, at some point the retelling reveals a new insight that catches everyone by surprise. But these are “aha moments” only occur in the actual telling of the story to someone who is empathetic to occasion. Older adults need a safe opportunity to hear themselves and then to ultimately use the raw material of these exchanges in the ultimate crafting of an “organic legacy.”
By way of background, organic legacy is a concept I created in my work on the developmental tasks on the last phase of life and is discussed at length in my book How To Say It To Seniors.
How To Say It To Seniors by David Solie
Legacy is not optional.
When understood as a developmental need, legacy insists on being addressed, either consciously or unconsciously. It’s the end product of life review, a developmental mandate of those privileged to survive into old age. Once we enter this stage, we constantly reconsider our lives to determine how we want to be remembered.
Returning to the past is not pathology.
Life review and the creation of a legacy are a natural evolution of where we need to be developmentally at the end of our lives. Legacy surfaces when control issues abate. If control issues are not resolved, they dominate our developmental mandate, and we never get to focus on legacy.
In searching for an organic legacy, events that may have been misinterpreted, misunderstood, or unrepaired in the past are reexamined.
This process reinterprets events and, if necessary, invites us to make amends. This process is difficult because of many factors:
The number of experiences we have stored up over a lifetime;
The tremendous mental focus needed to do it right;
The physical energy required to remain highly involved at a time when physical strength is ebbing each day;
Unfacilitated control issues.
Creation of an organic legacy offers the potential for healing.
Forming an organic legacy means that we have dedicated considerable time, energy and insight into what has happened in our lives, and tried to determine what everything means. Packaging the essence of that journey provides future generations with a perspective that fosters understanding, forgiveness, acceptance and resolution of values that may or may not have been appreciated during our lifetimes.
Legacy is not simply a summary of what we’ve experienced.
Part of our legacy is what we lived and part of it is what we may not have lived, but what we admired. Both parts of legacy contain values for which we would like to be remembered. Legacy coaches facilitate the articulation of these values.
Legacy gives us a chance to play an active role in the future.
Through organic legacy, we are able to create a vehicle that has the potential to influence people beyond those we encountered during our lifetime. The goal is to be part of a conversation 100 years from now, even though we are not physically present, because we set in motion a series of events or memories that live on after us.
Topics: Aging Parents | No Comments »
End of Life Convesations: From A Doctor’s Perspective
My wife Janet shared with me a very moving article about end of life conversations from a doctor’s perspective entitled: Talking Frankly at the End of Life. Here is the link.
One of the most important aspects of the article is the issue of telling the patient the truth about their medical condition. “Am I doing more harm than good?” the author asks from her physician point of view. She cites a recent study in JAMA that asked 300 terminal patients “if their doctors had ever discussed care at the end of life.” As important, after the patients died, the researchers looked at the type of care the patients received prior to death and then interviewed the caregivers six months after the death to see how they were adjusting.
The results indicated that the patients who discussed care at the end of life were more likely to have a better quality of life at the end of their lives. They were not more depressed. They had less aggressive medical interventions. They went to hospice earlier. As important, their caregivers fared better.
What we want to know at the end our life is a personal choice. We all want some version of the truth but in different degrees and different doses. The key is being offered, more than once, the opportunity to hear it from the person who holds so much sway over our lives: the doctor. It is a natural part of our leaving, the slow dance we all take to step away from this life, preserving our dignity and saying our final goodbyes. Ironically, to do this we may need to remind the doctors who take care of our aging parents as well as ourselves, it’s okay to talk about the end, more than once…
Topics: Aging Parents | No Comments »
Artificial Aging: The Developmental Implications of Dying Too Soon
A woman in her early sixties was dying of a terminal illness. Her parents were gone, which left a younger sister as her only means of family support. But there was long standing disagreements between the sisters that had left them distant and disconnected. Now the younger sister was struggling to do her best to help her older sister but was feeling frustrated, unappreciated, angry, and guilty. “What should the younger sister do?” a friend of the family asked me. It was a good question I had not considered before.
The main focus of my work has been on the developmental agenda of the last phase of life of older adults, the need for control and legacy. But what about the developmental agenda of a life cut short from its normal longevity? Does a terminal illness in younger adults usurp their normal developmental stage by superimposing the final agenda of older adults? I didn’t know, and that’s what I told the friend of the family.
I also told the friend of the family that under the circumstances, I thought it was worth considering. If I was right, the need for control and legacy had taken center stage in the older sister’s life. As with older adults, I suggested that the younger sister initially reframe her conversations and energies around control issues. Specifically, how could she help her older sister preserve control in a world where all control was being lost to such a devastating illness? This could give the sisters a common cause that might be the basis of a more effective partnership. The friend of the family shared this idea with the younger sister. “At this point, “ the younger sister said, “I am willing to try anything.”
“Anything” began to open a door. The older sister’s burden of fighting for control in the face of a terminal illness was in desperate need of reinforcements. Instead of being rejected, the younger sister’s overture to assist her older sister with “control management” was accepted. Their differences became less important and a new, more effective dialogue began to emerge. “Now what?” the friend of the family asked me? Add legacy I told her. The door swung open.
The same legacy questions that opened up heart felt conversations between adult children and their aging parents offered the sisters a new, deeply personal way to communicate. Not surprising, the older sister’s life review took center stage, and with it came powerful remembrances, joy, regret, sadness, healing, and legacy. They were able to cover critical emotional terrain before the older sister passed away, being there for each other until the end.
I now believe that the last mission of life can come either on time when we are old or it can come “too soon” when are not old. Either way, it brings with it the overpowering need for control and legacy. Either way, it offers a way for all of us to partner with those who need understanding, care, and comfort at the end of their journey.
Topics: Boomers | 4 Comments »
Too Close For Comfort: Navigating the increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease
Alzheimer’s disease extracts a toll across generations. Its diagnosis in an aging parent creates an immediate crisis for the offspring who must come to terms with their increased risk of winding up with the same affliction.
New high tech imaging further complicates the emotional upheaval of discovering Alzheimer’s disease “in the family” with its ability to supposedly identify offspring who are appear to be “on track” for the same outcome years before the first symptoms arrive. Painfully, this breakthrough in early detection does not come with a breakthrough in early treatment. Currently, there is no early treatment for “anticipated” Alzheimer’s disease.
For many of the offspring of parents with Alzheimer’s disease this is all too much too soon. They elect to not know the details of their familial risk and simply take their chances. But brain research may be offering some relative “good news” to this “to know or not to know” dilemma by providing important insights about the brain and how to keep it healthy.
First and foremost, brain research is starting to change our minds about the very nature of the brain itself. We are seeing more impressive evidence of “neuroplasticity,” the profound power of the brain to overcome, work around, and even reinvent itself in the face staggering set backs. Norman Doidge captures this new understanding in an intriguing book, The Brain That Changes Itself. It reminds us that the brain is still revealing its uncanny ability to side step disease and misfortune.
Brain research is also starting to offer new insights about the mind-exercise connection. While our techno-evolution into immobile, 24/7 screen watchers may be good for the information-curious brain, it is clearly bad news for brain health. It turns out that our cultural sluggishness creates nutrient and perfusion deficits our brain can ill afford. John Ratey makes a compelling argument for the brain’s fundamental need for exercise in his fascinating book, Spark. It reminds us that we are not simply bystanders in the drama of brain health.
In a similar manner, brain research is starting to sort out other factors that can preserve optimal brain health in addition to exercise. While diet is a hot topic, the findings so far have yielded mixed results. What we do know is that foods that are good for the heart appear to be good for the brain. But beyond that there are no magic brain bullets, expect for possibly one. Blueberries. Sue Halpren’s personal journey through maze of memory research in Can’t Remember What I Forgot, found that blueberries appear to benefit brains unlike any other food. It reminds us that the battle for optimal brain health needs to be waged not only on the treadmill, but also in the grocery store
Lastly, the battle may also utilize new software programs specifically designed to improve the health of older brains. Halprens’s book discusses a program by Dr. Mike Merzenich called Brain Fitness for auditory processing and memory. Initial clinical research suggests that that it does indeed improve cognitive function (http://merzenich.positscience.com/). It reminds us that the recipe for brain health will include an integrative mixture of life style habits, technology, and possibly medications. As important, it means that the offspring of Alzheimer’s patients have more options than simply to wait and hope for the best.
Topics: Alzheimer's Disease | 1 Comment »
When The Bottom Falls Out Mind Map ™
Here is the When The Bottom Falls Out Mind Map ™ that I created for a family where the aging parents told their adult children they were going to wait until they “needed to plan” (Double-click on the image to enlarge it).
The goal was to provide the adult children with a way to visually show their parents the type of decisions that would have to made if the bottom falls out. They simply told their parents they would “do their best” when things fell apart and gave them a copy of the mind map. These are the things we are going to have to decide with or without you they said. No scolding. No lecturing.
A few weeks later their parents brought up the mind map. They has some questions. It was a start.
We are all visual people. Check lists, brochures, and passionate pleas may fall on deaf ears. But a mind map lays out the interconnecting parts, a global view of the complexity that lies ahead. In essence, the When The Bottom Falls Out Mind Map ™ is the current marching orders until further notice. One way or another, it helps settle what really is going to happen…
Topics: Aging Parents | 6 Comments »
Magical Thinking and Aging Parents
Aging creates complexity and emotional burden. Aging parents find themselves facing situations and decisions that are hard to figure out and even more challenging to manage. They feel overwhelmed and understandably look for ways to simplify complexities and ease burdens. One of the quickest and most effect techniques is magical thinking.
Magical thinking is the respectable cousin of denial. It doesn’t pretend there isn’t a problem. Instead, it offers an unrealistic solution. Problem solved. Here’s an example.
Ann’s parents are finding it more difficult to keep up their home. Ann has tried to introduce the idea of “other” living alternatives but her parents cut her off with the statement, “we will stay here until something happens and we have to move.”
While offered as a reasonable solution, it is pure magical thinking. Ann’s parents want to stay in their own home as long as possible, but any discussion about alternative living arrangements that involves leaving their home is emotionally overwhelming for them. The quickest way to get rid of this discomfort is to find a simple, magical solution. In the case of Ann’s parents, it is “stay put until the bottom falls out.”
The good news is that magical thinking works, if only momentarily. It allows Ann’s parents to defer the unbearable complexity and emotional burden of sorting out living accommodations to an undefined future event. Unfortunately, this strategy comes with a severe surcharge: the unnecessary loss of long-term control.
By refusing to admit that a conversation about future living accommodations, though uncomfortable and complex, is necessary to maintain optimal long-term control, Ann’s parents are betting their quality of life on a hope that things will simply fall into place when a major medical set back invades their lives. Now what?
Despite their persistent refusal to discuss the “what if” housing issue with Ann, she needs to find a way to break through this communication gridlock. One effective way is to create a “When The Bottom Falls Out (TM)” mind-map that visually represents their current “magical thinking” marching orders on a single sheet of paper. This diagram will help her show her parents the impact of “we don’t want to talk about and will wait until things change before we plan” approach to long-term control. It will give Ann the opportunity to diagram the myriad of complex and unanswered questions that will surface when the “bottom” does fall out.
The “When The Bottom Falls Out (TM)” mind-map is a simple and effective reality check that affords Ann’s parents a global overview of their choices and an opportunity to reconsider other options. If they hold firm to their magical thinking strategy, then Ann has less guilt about their decision. She did her best to reframe their choices in an effort to discuss other strategies, but was ultimately rebuffed.
But the good news is that in some cases a simple one-page diagram can be a change agent. It puts magical thinking solutions in a logical, non-judgmental context and exposes their limitations and untoward consequences. It also draws an important line in the caregiving sand for adult children. It says, “Here are my marching orders as I understand them” until further notice. Many times this is all that is needed for new conversations about non-magical options.
Topics: Aging Parents | 8 Comments »
Caregiver Brain Changes
Much has been written about the brain issues of aging parents. Less has been written about the brain issues that impact middle age adults. Given that the majority of caregivers of aging parents are middle age, it is important to know how middle age brains are changing and how this impacts the demands of caregiving.
The most significant change in the middle-aged brain is a decrease in “executive function.” Executive function is the hub of multitasking and occurs in the frontal brain. It is responsible for prioritizing and keeping track of long lists of complicated, interconnected transactions. As this capacity begins to wane, it becomes harder and harder for middle-aged adults to keep “everything together.”
Complicating this setback in multitasking capacity is a concurrent decrease in the brain’s “staying on task” function. The impeccable filtering of distractions that comes so easy in youth begins to give way to the irresistible pull of distractions in middle age. The result is that middle-aged adults suffer from a failing attention span. Things get put in the wrong place, scheduling errors increase, “why I did I come in here” moments are more frequent, and “retrieval time” of information slows. This unwelcome and annoying distractibility has qualities that mimic ADD and make it harder and harder for middle-aged adults to “stay on task.”
Both of these brain changes complicate the job of caregiving for middle-aged adults where keeping everything together and staying on task are essential.
What can make this better?
1. Consider a “one-list” system Multiple “to do” lists can lead to disaster. It is more effective to work off a single, dynamic list that is constantly annotated, revised, rewritten, and reviewed. It becomes the focal point of a “keep track of things” system that is always identifying the most important short-term priorities and then quickly repositioning these items to the top of the list.
2. Fight the urge to “binge” multitask Binges of multitasking only exacerbate distractibility and prove inefficient and unhealthful. With the natural tendency of middle age brains to wander or lose their location “threads,’ it is better to focus on a the task at hand and “turn off” as many distractions as much as possible (music, cell phone, email dings, etc.).
3. Optimize the continuum Mind-Body health is an interconnected continuum. The simple but powerful things that optimize bodies, optimize brains. Exercise, prayer, music, meditation, writing, dancing, being with friends, healthy food, support groups, and large does of humor open caregiver hearts, and, as importantly, give caregivers the creativity they need to build a new partnership with their middle age brains.
Topics: Middle Age Caregivers | 1 Comment »
What I Know Now: Lessons From Looking Back
Last June I was interviewed by Nell Bernstein, Senior Editor at Caring.com about what “I would have done differently” in caring for my mother based on what I know now. Below is my response:
Talking With David Solie
June 2008
Nell Bernstein, Caring.com senior editor
Caring.com advisory board member David Solie has spent his career of helping
seniors navigate their final years — as a geriatric psychologist, CEO and medical
director of a life insurance brokerage corporation, and author. His book How to
Say It to Seniors: Closing the Communication Gap with Our Elders is a wise and
insightful guide to helping adult children understand and communicate with their parents, based on an understanding of old age not simply as a “loss of faculties” but as a unique developmental phase with its own tasks and challenges.
Just as parenting experts can fall to pieces when faced with their own tantrum-
throwing two-year-olds, however, Solie found his eldercare skills put to the test
when the health of his fiercely independent mother began to deteriorate, and a
cousin “sounded the alarm” about her safety living on her own. To complicate
matters, she was a caregiver herself — to Solie’s adult brother, who has Down
Syndrome.
There were taxing moments – such as when Solie’s mother broke her wrist and
fired every caregiver he brought in to help while she recovered. But mother and
son were able to come to an agreement that ultimately brought them closer
together.
Q. Comments we hear frequently from readers of Caring.com are: “I think Mom should move and she doesn’t want to” or “I don’t think my parents are safe in their home any more, but I don’t know how to talk to them about it.” Have you found that these dilemmas are pretty common?
A. I hear about them all the time. There are probably ten versions of the
question, but they all come down to: “How do I talk to my parents about
moving?”
My mom just died last year at age 90, and my dad died in 1989, so I have a very
long “residency” in this myself. I am also part of a unique subset of the care-
giving community because I have a brother who has Down Syndrome. He was
living with my mother until she had a stroke, so the issue was not only the care
giving of an aging parent, but the complexity of having a disabled person riding
shotgun. If you think getting a parent to move is complicated, try getting them to
let go of a disabled child!
Q. What happened when you tried to get your mother to move?
A. At first, I was asking for my brother to be in a group home and constantly
talking her about transitional places for her to live — if not today, then when she
could no longer ambulate in the house. I’d find a place and show it to her, and
she would always say the same thing: “Maybe when I get older.” This was at
age 87! It was the perfect way to pull the rug out from under me.
Her decision – and the one I ultimately honored, though at times it was difficult
to do so – was that she did not want to move, even though her capabilities
started diminishing. She had osteoporosis, spinal compression fractures, and
difficulty ambulating, but she was tough. As the world sort of shrank around her,
the La-Z-Boy in the backyard was like the Alamo – she defended it to her death.
Then she had a massive stroke and had to go into skilled nursing for the last ten
months of her life.
Q. Were you comfortable with her decision to “age in place,” as so many of
our parents insist on doing?
A. Well, with other family members telling you what to do, you get to this point
where you feel some sort of spiritual or fiduciary responsibility if you don’t act.
My cousin, who lived closer to her, raised the alarm – that my mother couldn’t
bathe herself, food wasn’t doing well in the refrigerator, and she was having
trouble with the stairs to do the washing.
My cousin mounted a big case and wanted intervention, and we showed my
mother some places, but she absolutely refused to move. She said, “No. This is
the house your father and I bought, and I’m not moving.” She was adamant. We
had bought a long-term care policy that included in-home care, but she
considered it a disgrace to have anybody in her home. So she did everything by
herself, in her own way.
Q. How did you come to understand her perspective?
A. At one point, I went to talk to our family attorney about what I could do, and
he said a wonderful thing. He said, “Look, you can go to court and try to get a
conservatorship. I think you’ll fail. I’ve talked to your mother. She’s coherent.
She’s articulate. She’s political. She’s insightful. She moves slowly and she
can’t open up a jar of food the way she used to, but here’s the thing: You’ll
destroy your family forever. So here’s what we do – we wait. You should know
this, because you write about it.”
I said, “I do know, but I feel guilty.” And he said, “OK, then wait with guilt.” And
after she died, he came to the funeral and said to me, “Good job. You did what
you were supposed to do. You waited.”
Q. What did he mean by that? What is “waiting with guilt?”
A. Sometime when we look at moving our parents from their homes, we think
we’re doing something helpful and healthy and safe, but we’re completely blind
to their internal architecture. Emotionally, they have a lot of secret scaffolding
that holds them up on so many levels. All meaning — everything — is tied to the
home. Once we yank ‘em out of that, it’s over.
When I went to my mother’s house and looked around, I could see she had her
world orchestrated. It was exactly her world. And I could not imagine her ever
being content anywhere else. I really feel we underestimate how important that
is.
That’s why, when we’re having this conversation ten years from now, we’re
going to be saying that aging in place has become the solution, not what I call
“production aging”: more assisted living, more nursing care. I think we’re going
to find a lot more technology allowing a lot more people to hold onto their
places. The home is going to undergo an organic modification, and we’re going
to be bringing a lot more to them in the home.
Q. But there are so many arguments on the other side – that by moving to a retirement community, our parents will become less socially isolated, safer, and better cared-for. Why do you think the drive to remain in their own homes is so profound for so many older Americans?
A. In 20 years of working with seniors, I’ve come to know how deep the need for
control is in that age group, how little they ultimately wind up with, and how
closely control is tied to dignity and hope — not hope that you’re going to be
young again, but hope that you’re going to get some good days. These people
are not naïve; they’re not the least bit unaware; they just want some good days.
Some days are better than others, but when you compare it to anything else,
days in your home – as long as you can cut it – are great days.
That’s what I found out when I sat down in my mother’s old, worn-out La-Z-Boy
with the tuner with the larger buttons and the Collier’s magazine from 1946. I
realized that in a world of great instability — her friends had passed, my dad was
gone, her neighbors were gone — this house was her anchor on so many levels.
Looking at that, I felt it was profound hubris on my part to be all knowing and
righteous about where she should live.
Q. But how do we balance respecting our parents’ need for control with our desire to keep them safe?
A. I built scaffolding around her. I took care of the wills, the long-term care
insurance, co-guardianship, and power of attorney for health when she got sick.
Then she fell and broke her wrist, and I couldn’t wait for the cast to come off
because she fired so many caregivers in a row. Three days and they were gone;
the agencies were exhausted. This fairly petite Norwegian immigrant had the
ability to exhaust whole tribes of people. She would take ‘em down in droves.
It was too much. It wasn’t necessary. Had I relaxed my hand a bit, my mother
wouldn’t have felt under so much duress, and wouldn’t have dug in so deeply.
Q. It sounds like you came to terms with this aspect of her personality by trying to see things through her eyes rather than trying to get her to see them through yours.
A. You have to understand what you’re asking of older people when you ask
them to move. You’re asking them to give up the equivalent of water or oxygen.
So if you’re going to take the bold step of being smarter than your parents and
telling them to move, there are two things you should know, that are borne out
by research and surveys. Number one, as a group, they are remarkably robust
and not afraid of death. And number two, they are afraid of nursing homes.
Q. It sounds like you made a lot of concessions to your mother’s point of view. Did you ask her to make any compromises?
A. I just said to her, “Mom, I know you want to be in control and independent,
and I know that, above all, this house is where you want to stay. But if we’re not
careful here, something could happen, and then all of a sudden your life could
be thrown out of control in a way you don’t want.”
So when I told her I wanted her to get a personal emergency response system,
she said “OK, I’ll meet you halfway because you’re not trying to stuff me into
assisted living.”
Q. Is there anything you know now, looking back, that you wish you’d
known while you were in the thick of the care giving experience?
A. I wish I had known that I didn’t have to be so anxious about it — that
ultimately, worrying about all these horrific scenarios didn’t change the outcome
or make me a better caregiver. We rev ourselves up so much to do the right
thing in the caregiver role that it can really become too much. I wish I’d relaxed
more and spent more time on what mattered the most.
If I were doing a post-mortem on the whole experience, I wish I had just told
myself, ‘Relax, it’s OK. There’s not a scorecard for you in terms of whether you
were the perfect care provider because you covered every safety base.’ What
our parents really need from us is comfort, and our friendship. It may be
counter-intuitive – it may seem that we need to convince them that we know
best — but they need to be accepted where they’re at.”
Topics: Aging Parents | 4 Comments »
Bitter Endings
We wished things had turned out different. They didn’t. History and personalities brought the drama of our aging parents to its only logical and painful conclusion. But as Linda Kriger points out in her heart felt article entitled Seeking Forgiveness (http://www.forward.com/articles/14255), the death of a parent hardly ends the trauma or internal dialogue that haunts us following a “bitter ending.”
My father and I parted on similar terms, incommunicado and mutually sorry about our biological connection. As James Joyce reminds us in The Dead, the departed usually prove more formidable after their gone. My father was no exception.
I have danced for years with the guilt, anger, and loneliness of the events surrounding his death. The fact that our relationship was never right from the beginning offered no comfort. Even his blatant failings, alcoholism, violence, and a perverse perfectionism were not enough for me to bid him a final and much needed adieu. Instead, my post-death relationship with him had all the qualities of emotional quicksand. I schemed and struggled only to sink deeper into complexity and emotional confusion.
Like all adult children who suffer bitter goodbyes, I found myself circling the issue of forgiveness but never getting it to stick once and for all. Having had zero nurturing from him during my childhood, it seemed next to impossible to find the emotional release I needed.
But as Kriger discovered, it’s never too late in the game to make one more pass at finding relief. My only word of caution is that these bitter ending are hardcore Greek tragedies of accommodation not assimilation. We can’t muscle away the trauma or will it into submission. These are first and foremost familial dramas that must be accommodated. The best we can do is orchestrate a “survivor’s compromise” that allows them to be who they need to be and finally gone.
Topics: Aging Parents | 2 Comments »
Working with Low Income Seniors
I was recently asked by a large medicare provider how my work on the developmental tasks of seniors could be used by their patient advocates with a predominately low income population. I thought is was an excellent question, and here is what I said.
In my experience, financial hardship demands an inordinate amount of time and energy just to understand and manage control issues. The battle to make sure you have food, shelter, and medications is a fulltime job. Understandably, your senior services professionals will spend the majority of their time helping your members think about and chose the best “control plan” based on the immediate circumstances. Poverty is unto itself a twelve-step program, one stressful day at a time.
Aging and diminished health create overwhelming complexity for seniors. This makes them feel confused, isolated, and out of control. Your senior services professionals can help simplify this complexity and become an essential “health management” partner for your members.
One aspect of the “control plan” they can offer is to help your members understand how they can control their health. They can choose to prevent new medical problems, slow down the progression of existing medical problems, and prevent complications. These are profound choices that give your members a way to control the quality of their lives as well as reduce their financial burden.
Intertwined in the control-focused conversations with your members, your senior services professionals will find an abundance of legacy moments. Despite the demands of just getting by, every senior is an active participant in an “involuntary life review.” This means they are sorting out their life story. It is a powerful current that is seeking an occasion to be expressed. It not a matter of high-functioning or low-functioning. We all want to feel our life mattered; we all want to tell our story.
Your clients will be telling your senior services professionals stories about their health issues. These stories will offer up ready-made on ramps for legacy questions about their family, their lives, and their dreams. While you won’t be able to solve their low-income problems, you can assist them in thinking about and telling their story. And in the telling you will find they have lived the heroic pilgrimage we all make through life. More important, you will offer them an empathetic ear and a rare occasion to “be known and recognized.”
Topics: Aging Parents | No Comments »