The COVID-19 pandemic has been devastating to nursing homes around the world. Despite temporary mandates and visitation restrictions that have been put in place to prevent the spread of the virus, St. John’s has pivoted while facing these new realities to continue protecting against what Dr. Bill Thomas described as the “Three Plagues of Growing Older.”
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Artists create resources for all to advocate during COVID-19 and beyond
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Image by Petra Eriksson from @artists4longtermcare is a social action initiative that uses art and storytelling to raise awareness of the crisis facing residents and staff in long-term care facilities during the Covid-19 pandemic I continue to marvel at how very blind we, as a society, are to ageism. Doesn’t anyone else notice that when […]
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How improvisation gives us a powerful tool for moving from “How things should be” to “What can we create given what exists?” – and the most humanizing shot at relating to the strangeness, the fluidity and the uncertainty of dementia (and pandemic life) in ways that promote intimacy and growth rather than frustration and humiliation.
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Eldercare teams are wearing brave faces right now. They’re keeping their heads down and doing what needs to be done in the midst of this horrible crisis. They’re feeling the pain of seeing hospital workers and first responders being rightly honored, while their own work seems all but invisible to the world.
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Media coverage of anything aging-related has long been characterized by alarmist hand-wringing, the most egregious example being the gray tsunami metaphor. Coverage of the pandemic is no exception, given that an estimated 80% of COVID19-related deaths are of people over 85, many occurring in nursing homes where the virus has run largely unchecked. Typical headlines read, “Ageism on the […]
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Baby Boomers soared through their 60s and early 70s, shattering ageist stereotypes as they went but many have yet to realize that they still have an ageist view of old age. No wonder so many dread it. “The Last Spell of Ageism” relates my own efforts to overturn ageist views of the last stage of life and to see it in a life-enhancing way.
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The people working in nursing homes do not need blame right now. They do need supplies, encouragement, and love.
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