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Dear Friends,
One of my favorite quotes is inscribed in the entrance hall of the Health and Human Services Administration building in Washington, D.C. Senator Hubert Humphrey is credited with saying, "...the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped." These words are so profound and should be reflected not only through government policies and actions, but by all of society and the way in which we demonstrate respect, dignity and inclusion to these often marginalized populations.
Dr. Robert Butler, widely known as the "father of geriatrics," coined the term "ageism." Ageism is age discrimination by stereotyping people of a certain age as "old." Usually, people who are 65 and older are slotted into that category. And then when we use phrases such as, "Oh, but she looks so young,” or "But they are so active," it seems like an anomaly that older people are basically well. When asked what it means to get older, many younger people see the loss of beauty and decline of function with increased bouts of illness. They often dismiss older people as being irrelevant to the world of today because they are "just old."
The healthcare workforce needs to be particularly sensitive to protecting the rights of and advocating for all the populations represented in the late Senator Humphrey's statement. We need to think of age not as a number, but as a continuum through which people have different capacities and different paths. We cannot label people by their age, but we need to maximize what they can do and provide every opportunity for them to live a life doing what matters to them while treating them with respect, dignity, and inclusion. This will be the only way we, as a society, will pass the moral test of caring for those in the dawn, in the twilight and in the shadows of life.
Warm regards,
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