[Dysphagia] Dementing elders

[eripley at yahoo.com (Irene Campbell-Taylor)]

I must protest most strongly to the recent opinions expressed vis-a-vis regression to childhood in elders with dementing processes.  To those of us who have worked extensively with such patients, it is objectionable in the extreme to contemplate that professionals are regarding elder individuals who have lived, worked, raised families, paid taxes, supported the current economy regarded as, in the way one elderly gentleman once told me about himself, "something unthinking attached to a diaper."  He was diagnosed as having SDAT!
  We owe our patients better than this. They are not infants, they are not to be infantilized, they are not to be regarded as unaware because, believe me, they are far more aware than anyone realizes. 
  I have spent many years teaching nurses NOT to speak to dementing elders as though they were infants. I teach medical students, and demonstrate to them that their patients with dementing illnesses are seniors worthy of respect and consideration. The agism that is rampant in society and, therefore, in medicine is deplorable and not to be supported in any way by those who purport to care for them. Think for a moment.  What if it were your father or mother?


Dr I Campbell-Taylor
Clinical Neuroscientist
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