Conference April 9, 2005
Demographic Shift: Ready or Not, Here It Comes
2010, baby boomers are turning 65 and becoming seniors; it is time we prepare to take care of ourselves and not leave the task to the hotel and hospitality industry. We need to train and prepare caregivers in a way that baggage handlers were put in the spotlight after Sept 11th: this is a crisis looming ahead, a tsunami and we will succumb to it if we aren't good boys scouts and BE PREPARED.
Today's conference at San Francisco State featured many excellent speakers at the peak of their field, no surpirse because SF is at the forefront of caregiving in the US. Noted was Patrick Arbore, PhD of the Institute On Aging who decried the way we don't have open conversations about death and dying in this country. He pointed out that Terry Schaivo died without explanations for her wishes, Johnny Cochran passed from cancer which must not have been pleasant and the Pope slipped into that good night...three deaths to get us talking about that transition. In addition, his colleague Mary Twomey focused on elder abuse and how we cannot look away when we see something that looks amiss. We must confront behavior or stories that seem suspicious.
(It must be mentioned that Stephanie Lencioni and Jacquie Lichstein organized this conference to meet the requirements for their MSW in Social Work.)
To start the day, David Hahklotubbe provided an overview of the field of aging and pointed out that those of us who attended the conference were an anomaly. People don't pay attention to the subject, he said. He is working on a documentary called Gray Dawn to capture the "Man on the Street's" impressions of aging. Media, he noted, doesn't shape culture anymore, society is shaping the more's, values and ethics we all live by.
(Note this blog where I capture the story in real time and beam it out to yo, reflect it back to you, asap.) We are fast becoming a culture which can reflect itself and perhaps have no way to look back on where we've come, which leads me on to the larger aim of this blog and the goals I have for writing. My role as a writer is to reflect on society and I take this responsibility seriously. I thank you for joining me on this ride.
Future versions of this blog will have excerpts from works in progress. I h ave called the blog telepathy because we will come to recognize that we don't even need the medium of this technology to communicate when we rely on age old forms of telepathic communication.
For now, I return to report back on the conference. From the Pacific Institute, Doris Bersing engaged us in an energetic talk that included a personal story about assessing an 89 year old who was deaf and not understanding her but after three days asked a question, "Aren't you the lady who's father raises horses?" And she was stopped cold because she had mentioned this in passing because in trying to establish rapport early on she saw pictures of horses and she saw that there was memory in this man's mind. It is not all cut and dried. It is not easy to determine who should be conserved or not. Nancy Flaxman from openhouse an LGBT sensitive affordable senior housing spoke about her mission. Then Bonnie Bollwinkel spoke bout Alzheimer's.
The last speaker of the day was Cathy Cress who covered assessment from the perspective of a geriatric care manager, an individual who solves problems, usually a nurse or social worker. As students, prospective professionals in the field, professionals or caregivers, we all left the conference at the end of the day invigorated with a sense of urgency and knowledge that, to paraphrase Margaret Mead, it is a small group of people who will change the world.
2010, baby boomers are turning 65 and becoming seniors; it is time we prepare to take care of ourselves and not leave the task to the hotel and hospitality industry. We need to train and prepare caregivers in a way that baggage handlers were put in the spotlight after Sept 11th: this is a crisis looming ahead, a tsunami and we will succumb to it if we aren't good boys scouts and BE PREPARED.
Today's conference at San Francisco State featured many excellent speakers at the peak of their field, no surpirse because SF is at the forefront of caregiving in the US. Noted was Patrick Arbore, PhD of the Institute On Aging who decried the way we don't have open conversations about death and dying in this country. He pointed out that Terry Schaivo died without explanations for her wishes, Johnny Cochran passed from cancer which must not have been pleasant and the Pope slipped into that good night...three deaths to get us talking about that transition. In addition, his colleague Mary Twomey focused on elder abuse and how we cannot look away when we see something that looks amiss. We must confront behavior or stories that seem suspicious.
(It must be mentioned that Stephanie Lencioni and Jacquie Lichstein organized this conference to meet the requirements for their MSW in Social Work.)
To start the day, David Hahklotubbe provided an overview of the field of aging and pointed out that those of us who attended the conference were an anomaly. People don't pay attention to the subject, he said. He is working on a documentary called Gray Dawn to capture the "Man on the Street's" impressions of aging. Media, he noted, doesn't shape culture anymore, society is shaping the more's, values and ethics we all live by.
(Note this blog where I capture the story in real time and beam it out to yo, reflect it back to you, asap.) We are fast becoming a culture which can reflect itself and perhaps have no way to look back on where we've come, which leads me on to the larger aim of this blog and the goals I have for writing. My role as a writer is to reflect on society and I take this responsibility seriously. I thank you for joining me on this ride.
Future versions of this blog will have excerpts from works in progress. I h ave called the blog telepathy because we will come to recognize that we don't even need the medium of this technology to communicate when we rely on age old forms of telepathic communication.
For now, I return to report back on the conference. From the Pacific Institute, Doris Bersing engaged us in an energetic talk that included a personal story about assessing an 89 year old who was deaf and not understanding her but after three days asked a question, "Aren't you the lady who's father raises horses?" And she was stopped cold because she had mentioned this in passing because in trying to establish rapport early on she saw pictures of horses and she saw that there was memory in this man's mind. It is not all cut and dried. It is not easy to determine who should be conserved or not. Nancy Flaxman from openhouse an LGBT sensitive affordable senior housing spoke about her mission. Then Bonnie Bollwinkel spoke bout Alzheimer's.
The last speaker of the day was Cathy Cress who covered assessment from the perspective of a geriatric care manager, an individual who solves problems, usually a nurse or social worker. As students, prospective professionals in the field, professionals or caregivers, we all left the conference at the end of the day invigorated with a sense of urgency and knowledge that, to paraphrase Margaret Mead, it is a small group of people who will change the world.
posted by Kundalini at 4:30 AM
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