Comments on GeriPal - Geriatrics and Palliative Care Blog: The last year of life in the oldest-old

It is really heartbreaking that when you necessita...

2010-02-17T22:24:38.511-08:00

It is really heartbreaking that when you necessitate your loved ones and they are not close to you. But you should not feel dishearten. We are always in attendance to hand round you. Our association works for Elderly Care in South Atlanta. For more questions you can visit us.

Great post. Your last paragraph really summarizes...

2010-02-16T15:28:08.446-08:00

Great post. Your last paragraph really summarizes the challenge well. The problem is really a societal one. Viewing late-life disability as something other than failure is (unfortunately) a counter-culture viewpoint. As the baby boomers age and the dependency ratio gets lower, I wonder how this viewpoint will evolve.

The distances we have not traveled: illness, disab...

2010-02-16T13:18:42.102-08:00

The distances we have not traveled: illness, disability, and age have long been held and treated as moral flaws. Early in the AIDS crisis, folks were pressured to rehearse their affirmations; overcoming cancer is still about positive attitude and strident self-advocacy; want to age without debility: walk several thousand steps, drink a glass of wine and be a good patient--anything less is non-compliant, self-destructive willfulness! Do we live with our bodies or against them.

Great post, Ken - It does clarify the importance o...

2010-02-15T13:36:51.341-08:00

Great post, Ken - It does clarify the importance of the things we were discussing in those prior NY Times-inspired interchanges regarding accepting the reality of disability and even the "malignant, metastatic adulthood" concept http://www.jhartfound.org/blog/?p=1236.

As always, the human diversity in aging is one of the hardest things to wrap one's mind around. Some will be very healthy into great age but most won't. Prevention and health promotion are good things, but people shouldn't be blamed when it doesn't work for them.

Before hearing of this paper, I have used Joanne Lynn's taxonomy of deaths as my rule of thumb: 50% of people have several years of disability before death, relatively few have quick deaths without illness.

Now all I have to do is find my current issue of JAGS.

Great post. We have such a deep seated rejection o...

2010-02-14T09:46:22.670-08:00

Great post. We have such a deep seated rejection of getting older and (God forbid) dying, that we fail to see these are natural processes. I think the blame game (you didn't eat the right foods, exercise the right way, have the right 'fighting' attitude)reflects our fear of our own disability and death. It is frightening to think about who is going to be able to care for us and at what cost if we are 'lucky' enough to age 'successfully'. We want it all - not to die young, not to get old, and not to be cared for by others.