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Old 09-05-2015, 11:35 AM
 
Location: Near a river
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There's nothing you can teach about the process of aging and death, just like there's nothing you can teach about the process of childbearing and birth no matter how many "classes" you attend. You can share stories and wisdom, and I suppose that's a kind of teaching. What we each really learn is what we do by going day by day into it on a personal level.
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Old 09-05-2015, 12:07 PM
 
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
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Here in Toronto, one of the medical schools teaches a course on gerontology, to young, mostly female, nursing students. It is a five day long program, where the nursing students have to wear a number of physical limiters, that simulate what it feels like to be 80 years old.

The first limiter is eyesight. They have to wear a set of goggles that reduce their eyesight by 70 percent, to the front and sides. They also get a pair of sound reducing ear pieces, that make them all most deaf. They have to wear a body suit that adds 50 pounds to their own weight, and it also has stiff metal inserts that make it hard to walk and bend. They have to wear weighted shoes, and hand braces that simulate arthritis.

Then they have to do their everyday student routine, climb stairs, take the bus, eat lunch, go to the bathroom, and take part in classes. For FIVE days.

Ever hear the one about "walk a mile in my shoes ' ? This is the real world version of that parable.

Another program at the same nursing school is for nurses that deal with morbidly obese patients. This program uses a body suit that adds 100 POUNDS to the weight of the nursing student, for a period of five days. They have to wear it 24/7 for the entire five days, even in bed. The whole idea is make the nursing students actually experience the physical effort and pain that being VERY overweight causes the person who is inside that fat body. The obese patients who talk to the nursing students call them "stick people " because most of them have no idea what it is like to be really fat.

It works.

Jim B.
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Old 09-05-2015, 12:43 PM
 
Location: SW MO
23,593 posts, read 37,349,391 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RiverBird View Post
There's nothing you can teach about the process of aging and death, just like there's nothing you can teach about the process of childbearing and birth no matter how many "classes" you attend. You can share stories and wisdom, and I suppose that's a kind of teaching. What we each really learn is what we do by going day by day into it on a personal level.
As one who was married to a midwife who also taught child birth classes and who was also a political and legislative analyst with a policy area of senior issues, as was I, I disagree on both counts. We both did a lot of public presentations on seniors and their needs and limitations for years. Our aim was to give others an appreciation for and understanding of our aging, senior populations which now include us.
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Old 09-05-2015, 12:50 PM
 
Location: Backwoods of Maine
7,485 posts, read 10,443,442 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by WellShoneMoon View Post
There are wide variations among us in terms of how we age. What would we teach young people about aging?
Indeed. Too many oldsters assume that age and ill health are just a long slow, steady decline for everyone. They should look to their parents, their grandparents, their uncles and aunts. I have done just that, with my family tree for 3 generations back. I know to what age they lived, and what they died from. I know whether their declines were precipitous, or whether they were gradual. I know how long their lives were useful ones.

This has given me a valuable blueprint for my own later years. As a young man, I could see it all. None of my elders would have thought to give me an 'education' on that. Their lives were my education.
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Old 09-05-2015, 12:55 PM
 
Location: Central NY
5,945 posts, read 5,090,085 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by canadian citizen View Post
Here in Toronto, one of the medical schools teaches a course on gerontology, to young, mostly female, nursing students. It is a five day long program, where the nursing students have to wear a number of physical limiters, that simulate what it feels like to be 80 years old.

The first limiter is eyesight. They have to wear a set of goggles that reduce their eyesight by 70 percent, to the front and sides. They also get a pair of sound reducing ear pieces, that make them all most deaf. They have to wear a body suit that adds 50 pounds to their own weight, and it also has stiff metal inserts that make it hard to walk and bend. They have to wear weighted shoes, and hand braces that simulate arthritis.

Then they have to do their everyday student routine, climb stairs, take the bus, eat lunch, go to the bathroom, and take part in classes. For FIVE days.

Ever hear the one about "walk a mile in my shoes ' ? This is the real world version of that parable.

Another program at the same nursing school is for nurses that deal with morbidly obese patients. This program uses a body suit that adds 100 POUNDS to the weight of the nursing student, for a period of five days. They have to wear it 24/7 for the entire five days, even in bed. The whole idea is make the nursing students actually experience the physical effort and pain that being VERY overweight causes the person who is inside that fat body. The obese patients who talk to the nursing students call them "stick people " because most of them have no idea what it is like to be really fat.

It works.

Jim B.
This is interesting. I had a friend I met through work. Like a lot of us, she was older single mother struggling to make the bills, etc. But her weight, I believe had to go between 350-400 lbs on a 5'6" frame. She had gone through a lot (a boyfriend had beaten her badly and she needed meds to stop seizures---this being before the weight gain). She never saw a doctor. And the list goes on.

She had gotten so bad she called in sick to work, sat in her recliner, never getting OUT of recliner even for potty breaks, had someone deliver food/drink under the promise of not telling anyone. It was in the warmer weather and eventually the odor started being noticed outside her door. The police were called and an ambulance came. She was taken to a hospital where a psychiatrist tried to talk to her but she shouted at him to get lost. Eventually when people visited her we had to put on gowns to protect ourselves.....I was never told from what, but I assume infection of some kind. Eventually moved to a nursing home. Then back to a hospital over a course of 2-3 years where she died within a year. She had gangrene (I think) in her intestines, where important things are connected. The poison pretty much went through her body. She refused surgery. Clearly she wanted to die.

So I am thinking if a nursing school can simulate what it feels like to be old, fat, etc., maybe some mental health education should be part of the program.
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Old 09-05-2015, 01:50 PM
 
4,423 posts, read 7,338,866 times
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Some schools stopped teaching cursive. I don't think they'll be taking on aging any time too soon though it would be nice.
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Old 09-05-2015, 05:44 PM
 
Location: SF Bay & Diamond Head
1,776 posts, read 1,861,669 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by merv1225 View Post
Exactly! Why don't we teach young people how to make a budget and how to save and invest? Show them how money grows over the course of decades. It should a required part of a young person's education.
Other than food and shelter what would anyone over 50 need money for? Spend it when you are 22 and can enjoy it.
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Old 09-05-2015, 05:51 PM
 
8,238 posts, read 6,543,701 times
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It's so true that young people are often not taught about aging.

I can remember one prime example. My parents were avid casual bicycle riders around their neighborhood.

One day my father said 'we're done with bicycle riding' and 'we're packing them away.'

I didn't understand at the time why they were giving up something they seemed to enjoy so much, and my father never revealed the reason.

It turned out to be a matter of no longer having a good sense of balance at all times.
At my age at the time, I didn't really know that balance can be a problem as one ages. And it seemed to me at the time that my parents were still fairly young.
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Old 09-05-2015, 06:08 PM
 
28,575 posts, read 18,614,411 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by yourown2feet View Post
After all, it will happen to them eventually, unless they die young.

Although I remember being given books and quite a bit of instruction about puberty, adolescence, and general health, the whole topic of what happens when your body is on the downward arc was a grim mystery.

I feel that it would make sense to educate young people about what they can expect on that "arc." Maybe they would take better care of themselves, and maybe they would be less inclined to view Old people as a separate, inferior species.

Just my $.02 for today.
It varies too immensely. What can be taught is how to be healthy and do the things that will extend a healthy life. But you can't teach a person at 20 how that person will age.

What I do wish is that computer technology designers had a few old folk on their usability teams, though.
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Old 09-05-2015, 06:09 PM
 
Location: Victoria TX
42,579 posts, read 86,668,900 times
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They are taught about it. They just don't believe it.
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