C. S.:
My mother who is now 82 has become very distracted and forgetful in the
last year. She cannot be relied upon to feed herself well and lives a very
limited life mostly in front of daytime TV. 2 out of 3 sentences she is
now unable to finish off. She is often confused. There are still good
things - she lives well in present time and can communicate on a moment by
moment basis very well its just that things connected with memory seem to
go missing.

I am unable to spend very much time with her but my brothers spend more
time than me. I have listened to them at length about her and help them
to figure out how not to get angry with her.

I have discharged much grief by saying good bye to her in advance, this has
helped me to decide to enjoy her company at what ever level she is
operating on on the day. It has helped to remind myself that in many ways
she is now operating at the level of my daughter when she was 8. i.e.
She says delightful things, gets tongue-tied, seems to be mostly in
present time, can't hold her self very steadily, easily knocks things over
etc etc. When this perspective hit me, I was able to consider her as
completely OK as she is right now.

As a bout of confusion hits her, I notice that she loses control of her
balance, as if her brain needs to borrow the use of the balancing bit to
help the thinking bit work better.

Now, how much of this stuff is distress? It certainly helps for me and my
partner to put our arms round her and say "it doesn't matter - you already
forgotten more than we know" and other light comments. It removes the
tight feelings that she has around her memory loss. She visibly relaxes
and knows that we know. She definitely becomes restimulated more around my
brothers and other people who are less tolerant of her. When this happens,
she actually turns up the volume control on the confusion and make it look
much worse than it is. This in turn make people more uptight and a spiral
gets under way.

I have come round to thinking that there is no reason why our brains
shouldn't work perfectly until only a very short time before we die (at a
very ripe old age) but that accumulated effects of distress actually
affects the chemistry of the brain in such a way that it starts to die off,
permanently closing of some of its function. If we are lucky, this will
not be in an area affecting our memory/attention but if we are unlucky, it
will affect us in a way that is labelled "senile". I would guess at this
stage that discharge will not bring back these lost abilities but that they
may be recovered by transferring them to another part of the brain.
Stroke research has shown that it is possible for the brain to teach an
undamaged part to take over certain lost functions.

_______________________

P.B.:
I'm so pleased that so many of us are sharing our thoughts and questions
about elders. I'd lke to share some personal history and reflections on my
experiences of the past few years. I hope my story will inspire others to
deepen their relationships with elders, or to share more
thoughts/questions.

I have taken on the role of primary support person for my mother, who's 84,
since my brother died four years ago. He had been living with her since
our dad passed on in '80. I have learned so much about living and about
getting older from the time I've spent with my mother. For her, the elder
years of her life seem to have been some of the best ones. Some of the key
ingredients for this have been staying both physically and mentally active,
and having lots of friends. She competes both local and internationally in
Masters Swimming competitions, an organization which lets people compete
against other swimmers the same age. To keep in shape for the
competitions, she works out at the pool five days a week. The swim team is
also a place for lots of caring friendships and social activities, and Mom
is also very active in her church. She has also taken all sorts of courses
at the local community college. I think she has been able to figure out a
lot of things to that have helped her stay in pretty good shape. She has
never wanted to be in RC, and I think she might be doing even better if she
could have regular counseling sessions, but my sister and I are both
committed to listening to her as much as we can manage. And sometimes she
does "listen back" to us for a while, so there is a kind of informal
listening partnership that happens. Earlier in our lives she could be a
fairly critical parent, but our mother decided to stop being critical of us
somewhere along the line, and that has really helped my sister and me to
stay close to her.

When my brother died, it was clear that my mother would need some kind of
ongoing support. I made a decision at that time to stay close and
connected to her, to do what it took to see that her life continues to go
well. In practical terms, that meant driving 45 minutes each way to visit
her once every week or two and staying in touch by phone between times.
That has turned out to be a great decision for me. I've really enjoyed her
company, seeing her continue to flourish. Her enthusiasm and
determination, her caring relationships with other elders have been a big
contradiction to the society's pervasive negative stereotypes of elders.
She makes me look forward to growing older, rather than fearing or dreading
it.

A big issue for my mother has been her determination to stay in her home of
the past 40 years. She says that "senior" housing communities are not for
her, and I can't say that I blame her. It means that we have to continue
to strategize various support systems for her (Much as folks with
disabilities have to do) but thinking about her in that way gives me a way
to stay close and to keep thinking about her. It's clear to me that
consigning elders to nursing homes and other "senior " housing has the
potential to be isolating for all concerned.

Key for me in my relationship with my mother has been deciding that she
MATTERS. Ageism pushes us to look at elders as insignificant, or a burden.
It has been lovely for me to see what has happened to me by deciding that
my mother is an IMPORTANT PERSON. My sense of history keeps expanding as I
listen while she and other elders I meet reminisce about times gone by.

__________

E:

At almost 54, I am a "baby elder," and just learning the more important
depths and joys of growing older myself. My mom is just turned 84, and my
motivation for sharing in this discussion on "senility" is based on my
experience with her. In recent months she has developed a "memory problem"
as well as showed signs of "slowing down" and "depression" and other
behaviors worrisome to many around her. Since I live 1800 miles away, I
hear about this mostly on the phone, though I did get to see her late this
summer.

It seems clear that much of what she does that worries others is more about
their feelings (guilt, ignorance about disability, and especially fear about
aging) than any real difficulty of hers. Listening to her and staying
relaxed around her memory lapses when I was with her gave her space both to
show what is real about her struggles and to share and grow in her
perspective on herself. I observed in everyone around her this odd
combination of impatience and worry coupled with genuine caring. But the
sum of it was distancing and left my mom in a defensive, angry place. I was
so grateful that my general RC training and all that I've learned about
disability issues over the years proved so useful as my own role unfolded
there.

I want to particularly underline the importance of seeing this as a
disability issue, only connected to age because of ageism. My mom does have
memory lapses, but handles them well if those around her are not upset or
pushy. As my daughter says, her "rememberer" may be broken sometimes, but
her "thinker" is just fine. Since all of us will face increasing experience
of disability as our lives proceed, there is no more important arena to give
ourselves the chance to work in, discharge and recover slack in. It will be
vital not only to those around us, but to each of us personally. The
presence in our lives of close, frequent relationships with people whose
disabilities makes them seem different and "hard to be with" is a precious
gift and a wonderful opportunity to grow and learn.

____________________
G:

It sometimes happens that a body grows stronger, a mind clearer and sharper with
age.