Old does not equal Stupid

I have been shocked and appalled by the treatment my father has received from his local medical team, but have needed to calm down a bit before writing about it. The medical professionals in Valparaiso, Indiana seem to believe that all old people have some form of mental impairment. It wont be long before my peers are the old folks in this country and we really need to do something about this prevailing attitude.

It ranges from doctors who assume my father is deaf and demented and don't speak to him, to nurses who pat his shoulder like a toddler and say "there, there," to candy-stripers who insist he is confused and doesn't know where he is going. Everyone calls him Albert or, even worse, Al, when his entire adult life (since he got his PhD at the age of 22) he has been called Dr. Crewe.

I've taken to interrupting his local neurologist by stating "My father is not deaf and he has no cognitive impairment." What I really want to say is "My father is smarter now than you could ever hope to have been. Without his pioneering work in the field of electron microscopy, the entire field of medical imaging would not have been possible and you would not have a career."

At the large medical centers where he and my mother both still receive treatment - the University of Chicago Hospitals and Rush - they are treated with utmost respect. No infantalizing, no sweet talking, no first names. There is no underlying assumption that they have diminished mental capacity. Even my mother, who has dementia, is treated as an adult. Many Parkinson's' patients do eventually develop dementia, probably most of them, but it is not right to assume a patient is demented before treating them.

Our children are our future, and they are learning so much from our interactions with the medical team and with our parents. They understand that Granddad may not be able to speak well enough some days to hear him or may not be able to walk on his own, but know that he is a wise, functioning person. They understand that Grandma's brain functions differently from their own, but that with a little help she can be a whole person. They learned this weekend from their Great Uncle Bill, who turned 95, that their grandparents will continue to decline, but will also continue to have a quality of life and love for their family.

Unfortunately, my parents live in a place were the Beverly Hillbillies are practicing medicine. One doctor impressed my sister and I by stating he had performed 10,000 g-tube placement surgeries. My father did the math and felt he was a quack. Of course, it turned out my father was right - the doctor tried to have him undergo an entire new procedure to replace a 50 cent part that had warn out. The infectious disease doctor never asked about my father's prostate while diagnosing a frequent urination problem. The neurologist refused to contact one of the leading Parkinson's' experts in the country, my father's doctor at Rush, to discuss medicine dosage, so my father and I came up with his medication plan on our own. The list goes on and on.

I saw a t-shirt that says "I haven't always been old, but I have never been stupid." My father would never wear it, but I might just be forced to use that line one day.