A woman from Riverside, California was arrested for elder abuse. She had left her mother outdoors for days facing the elements. The mother was found on a chaise lounge, soaked in urine, covered with feces, and bleeding with bedsores when transported to an Orange County hospital. The 47-year-old daughter was arraigned on felony charges.
In another story, three siblings from Aurora, Illinois were charged with criminal abuse punishable by up to a ten-year prison sentence. Photos of the mother taken at the hospital indicated a three-inch-deep open wound on her tailbone and a right leg that was black from spreading gangrene. The leg had to be amputated. According to the Senior Services Associates, it is estimated that possibly about 76,000 Illinois residents over age 60 are abused or neglected in some manner. However, only about 8,000 victims are reported to the Elder Abuse and Neglect Program annually. Surely such estimates are similar in many other states.
Attitudes have been gradually changing toward the elderly in America for a number of decades. During the 1950s teen icons emerged such as James Dean, Elvis Presley, and others. More and more, television and other media began featuring young actors and less elderly ones. The economy fed increasingly into the quest for the younger markets.
As far back as the late 1700s the idea of mandatory retirement law began to spread. This may have initiated a growing implication that the retired elderly are rather useless. As the centuries passed, the senior was not as highly respected or considered as important to society. In fact, with the passage of time they're often viewed today rather as a drain on the family's resources. As people lived longer, they found the support of family and friends declining instead of growing. Living past seventy has become, for some, a rather bleak prospect-- a time of loneliness, financial struggle, and illness. A researcher named Atchley claims that society and the mass media increasingly lump all seniors under one label, subscribing to the idea that the elderly are "unattractive, unintelligent, asexual, unemployable, and senile." One only has to look at the growing array of derogatory terms about the aged to realize how they are often disrespected: old fart, geezer, battle-axe, old goat, gaffer, etc.
This brings us to the hotly debated final days of a senior's life. Physicians might be called the "masters of death:" they've sanitized death for the survivors. The dying person is separated from the family, sometimes in panic mode, receiving intense medical care until the very end. The senior does not know his/her rights in regard to how and where to die. Doctors often go to great lengths to prolong life, even when it is obvious that the dying is comatose, in great pain, no longer able to think or act. Of course, most doctors are simply trying to do what they think is best, what they think the family wants. And we recoil angrily from the opposite reaction of assisted suicide. But couldn't we allow our aged to die with dignity, in a comfortable place, in the presence of those who love them most? Some forms of hospice care definitely seem a step in the right direction.
Perhaps the baby boomer generation will finally help us to view aging and death in a more proper and respectful way. This generation has now begun to retire but many will still be active for decades to come, some continuing to work until well past retirement. They are largely young-minded and perhaps more adventurous than some generations. They are very well-informed regarding their rights. It is likely many of them will manage their last days in the way that is most comfortable and humane for them and their families. Our seniors deserve to live and to die in the way they wish.
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