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Show Making Life More Enjoyable What will old age be like for you? It's a question that few people contemplate willingly, wil-lingly, yet old age can be far more pleasant than many people realize. The family of the elderly, elder-ly, who are often called upon to make old age more comfortable for an elderly parent or spouse, may be happier and more successful if they see through some popular fallacies. ' The elderly are often programmed pro-grammed by society to feel hopeless and depressed, according ac-cording to Dr. Allen Willner, Director of the Senior Citizens Citi-zens Treatment Program at Long Island Jewish-Hillside Medical Center. When people peo-ple reach their late sixties, seventies and beyond, they are frequently conditioned to become dependent, behave be-have like children, Or the stereotyped version of an "old person." Old age doesn't have to be like this, however, states Dr. Willner. "Current evidence evi-dence is negating most of the misconceptions concerning concern-ing aging. Senility, for instance, in-stance, is not an inevitable stage in old age. Everyone who is old is not necessarily dependent. Once the bleak veil is lifted, we can learn to see old age as a positive time. "Senility," says Dr. Willner, Will-ner, "is actually quite rare in the general elderly population. popu-lation. Depression is far more common. And, what is often -mistaken for senility is, in reality, a lowered state of alertness, sometimes due to brain damage or the side-effects of medication, attention deprivation and hopelessness." Children have a lot of information to assimilate when faced with helping an elderly parent. If they begin to treat the parent like an incompetent, the parent is likely to begin to act that way. Building a parent's self-esteem self-esteem is critical. Encouraging Encour-aging their independence is also essential, unless it's impossible. im-possible. Urging one's parent to maintain their own home, perhaps with the aid of a companion, is another possibility. Pamphlets and booklets offered by corporations, private pri-vate foundations and the government can frequently help educate an elderly person per-son about home health care. Dr. Willner suggests that such material be clear and easy to absorb. For elderly persons who have a diminished di-minished ability to absorb written words, visual tools are imperative. A blend of the visual and the written is ideal. A booklet entitled, "How You Can Help Heal in Your Own Home," offered of-fered free by Curity, provides pro-vides instructions and easy-to-understand diagrams, outlining out-lining simple first-aid techniques tech-niques that can be accomplished ac-complished at home. It is available by sending a self-addressed self-addressed envelope, plus 304 to cover postage and handling to: Curity Booklet P.O. Box 2883, Hillside', New Jersey 07205. |