A Better Understanding

I have spent much of my working life amongst older people and have tried to be sympathetic, as they told me about their aches and pains. I have watched people searching in pockets or purses for change as they paid for their bus fares, with other passengers impatient at the delay, and have watched people carefully walk across pedestrian crossings, trying to achieve the process before the lights change to red. I have overheard whispered conversations with pharmacists as an older person explains some personal need, and asks for a treatment.

I used to visit people in hospital and in old people’s homes, always admiring the way they often adapted to new circumstances, often with courage and stoicism, and when they were confused or anxious, I have tried to reassure them. I hope as a younger man I was patient and kind, although I do remember on one occasion listening in blood-curdling detail to a twenty minute narrative about an old lady’s bunion, eventually fleeing from her home, no longer able to cope with the account of her adventures under the surgeon’s knife.

But I never really understood what it was like to be old.

Having become older myself, it’s different now. I am myself into this new dimension of life, responding to the challenge it brings and sharing in the struggle it sometimes involves. I have a deepened sympathy for older people for I too walk with care, my visits to our kindly doctor are becoming a habit, and the routine of daily life whilst important to me, is in danger of sapping my appetite for new experiences. I now understand the stories I used to hear from older people about their lives’ restrictions, and have sympathy for their limitation of interest beyond themselves which can make us so me-centred, though am trying to resist making up such stories of my own! ‘You are not old’, laughs my doctor, and I realise that he deals with people who are much older than me, and in serious need of medical care.

Our local independent cinema has showings for pensioners. There was a crowd of us there the other day, a couple of hundred at least. I watched people as they left, silhouetted against the screen still showing the credits. Lots of sprightly older people, but some were lame and halting, as they fumbled towards the light. Several had walking sticks, some couples holding on to each other, others still sitting when most people had left, waiting for sufficient space to make their exit alone. We were a parade of the ageing, and I was one of them, understanding a way of life which, when I was younger I recognised was an inconvenience, but had no idea of the real consequences of age as I now do. Still with sympathy, I now watch older people with empathy as well.

Bryan

Research and Reality

I see the Oxford Institute of Ageing is holding its second Spring School in April, following the apparent success of its first such event last year. The institute describes itself as multi-disciplinary and believes that the production of high quality, strategic research, informed by good policy and practice, will lead to a greater understanding of societies as they age. An excellent aim. They identify a need for ‘an academic network focusing on skill-building and information-sharing within the global ageing research community’. The theme for the Spring School is ‘The Multi-Disciplinary Toolkit for Global Ageing Research’.

Clearly the school like the institute is primarily an academic exercise. The format of the school will be to ‘address concepts and tools in demography, bio-demography, bio-medical research and practice, economics, sociology, health and policy. Special emphasis will be placed on developing methodological skills, both from quantitative and qualitative perspectives. Additional opportunities for networking and informal discussion will be provided through poster sessions, research discussions and workshops. There will be an opportunity for participants to submit an abstract and present their own research findings’.

Quite apart from the fact that I don’t easily relate to this language, and have never been an academic, the way the institute explains its purpose seems remote from the interests of these blogs. When we set off on this journey in October 2005 I explained that where possible my concern was to be factual and to identify experiences that belong to many of us as we age, and that whilst I admired people who say ‘I am as young as I feel’, I suggested that often we don’t feel a bit young. ‘Being old’, I said, ‘is more than feeling; it demands a level of realism about the decline, but also a recognition of the new perspectives that ageing provides’.

It’s had its ups and downs – as I have – but after nearly 120 postings, the Ageing blogs continue. I miss any such sense of personal experience in the way the Oxford Institute presents itself, indeed of persons per se. Their approach makes me feel as if I am a speciman under someone’s microscope, the Institute subject to a structured bureaucracy, keeping some people busy by being busy. But then I read on their website a balancing comment made about last year’s School. ‘There was a huge sense of an underlying compassion and sense of deep concern for human welfare in general that was actually quite moving’. Does the Institute's spiel conceal the spirit of the exercise, and is my reaction unfair?

I am not part of a ‘global ageing research community’ but because of my age, claim a place in a diverse ad hoc community of ageing people. The two communities may need to talk to each other.

Bryan

Ageing into Aged

This week we became conscious of old age at it most acute.

S. had her ninetieth birthday last year and there was a great celebration for her family and friends to mark the event. It was a wrench when at about the same time she decided to move from her fine Georgian house. She was part of a community of like-minded people who met socially and had their annual party in her huge garden. Missing them was almost as bad as leaving the house she had lived in for many years, and although the friends insisted that they would keep in touch, most of them failed to do so.

Now she is moving again. The flat which became her next home proved to be inconvenient and – always interested in people - she felt cut off from the life around her. ‘No one walks in this street, its cars all the time’ she said. Her new flat however is part of a complex designed for older people and she is looking forward with not too much apprehension to moving there next week. ‘I don’t worry; it will all happen without me seeing it as a problem’ she said. She is very philosophical about everything and if sometimes forgetful – asking the same question more than once – continues to love company, often quietly amused by the people she meets.

M. – now well into her eighties and one of our neighbours - is unwell but bravely copes with her circumstances and is amazingly well organised. The author of many books, she has lived in this country but also abroad, and like S. has had a varied and interesting life. Until very recently she would wait for our local bus to town seated on a little portable chair which folded up and became a walking aid. Although mentally alert she has for some time found difficulty in finding the words to express her thoughts, but conversation at the pace which she can manage continues to be a delight to her and to her friends, amongst whom we number ourselves. Like S. she is always polite, but says what she thinks, and after a meal with us will say ‘Thank you, but I want to go home now’.

Both people live on their own, and, with no close relatives near to them, they need friends as an alternative family. Both heartily disapprove of old age but in their different ways cope with the inconveniences that are involved. They live within enforced limits, but with a determined spirit, and their minds are stored with the memories of eventful and fulfilled lives.

Bryan

Acceptance and Resistance

I have been looking again at Wikepedia’s article on Ageing - one of my early reference points for these blogs. Ageing is described there as the accumulation of changes in an organism or object over time, a multidimensional process of physical, psychological, and social change. Some dimensions of ageing grow, says the article, and expand over time, whilst others decline. Reaction time, for example, may slow with age (that sounds familiar), whilst knowledge of world events and wisdom may (hopefully) expand.

The article makes various termilogical distinctions such as ‘universal’ ageing –something that happens to everyone; ‘probabilistic’ ageing, which may happen to some people but not to others; ‘chronological’ ageing, defined by the number of years we can expect to live; ‘social’ ageing (what’s expected of the elderly in any society) and ‘biological’ ageing. The article then becomes somewhat technical and to me, remote from real experience. Just like everything else, there are specialists in this field who study ageing, whereas we are older have to live with it.

At the end of last year I made a formidable list of the things that were wrong with me – my health I mean, not my temper (though the two are related). Only one of them is serious enough to be a problem because unlike some of the others, it is progressive. It was a self-indulgent exercise but at least it made plain to me that ageing is more about the body (the ‘biological’ ageing referred to above) than the mind (though that is physical too of course). It’s real this deteriation, not imaginary. But whereas the mind can’t change it, it can manage it; which is the real challenge as we get older. That doesn’t mean pretending that it isn’t happening, but as far as possible, changing one’s lifestyle to accommodate it.

That means obvious things, like not moving as quickly as you used to do (and thereby causing less breakages in the kitchen!), allowing yourself to pause before answering a question so as to make sure that you respond correctly, reorganising what you eat at meals rather than insisting that what you have always enjoyed at the table is still good for you when plainly it isn’t, not throwing yourself around in despair because of memory loss, and hoping that when you say something that you forget that you said five minutes ago, people will be patient and forgiving.

We have to accept what is unavoidable but must resist the idea that in the process we have become someone else. We may be different but we are – as we have said in these blogs before – still ourselves. The differences may disturb us but they can be interesting as well. : ’multi-dimensional’ as Wikepedia says!

Bryan