Valuing older people as super-managers

People in care homes are learners. Of course they are; perhaps more so than at any other time in life.  Why? Well okay the brain forms fastest in the first 2,000 days of life but what I'm talking about here is another form of learning; the everyday learning that is needed to manage complex health conditions and manage change.

Complex health issues are perhaps easier to understand than managing change; indeed both intertwine.  As far as health goes, every day is like a balancing act managing symptoms and effects of choices and behaviours. Hard enough, but layer onto this the need to manage the loss of what used to be better in life as well as taking the risks associated with learning to benefit from new technologies and you get the picture.

The sheer nature of having lived many years means older people have more memories to manage and to integrate into a coherent narrative. More accumulated knowledge and historical perspective bears down on every contemporary national event and policy as well as a person's private world.  Incredible skill and processing is taking place every day to help shape understanding and maintain a healthy, balanced perspective on life without becoming totally overwhelmed by infinite ruminating.

And yet increasingly we have marginalised older people from society in favour of almost exclusively young thought leaders.  No wonder then that older people feel deeper undervalued and often suffer from social isolation with its serious health implications.

Care homes are full of people with incredibly rich and diverse histories, and yet the system seems reluctant to see this.  Risk aversion has become a dominant culture, overriding creative engagement with older people whereby they are empowered to pursue purposeful activities and make a meaningful contribution to their community and the wider society.