Being elderly and living with a physical disability often leads to a life of despair. The hardships faced at times are unimaginable by most of us living without physical disabilities. There are so many variables to consider, was the disability from birth or did it develop later in life, financial circumstances, level of education, social programs offered by different levels of government and also relationships with family members. We are an aging society; people are living longer and require care for an extended period of time which in turn puts a strain on the health care system. The sad reality is that the financial position of the person will often dictate the care that they will receive.
When a person is born with a physical disability, they spend their life trying to adjust to their situation, be it learning brail, sign language or adjusting to life in a wheelchair, just to name a few. However, if a physical disability developed in your elderly years, it becomes that much more difficult to live a fulfilling life. To have to learn to adjust to a new way of life in our “golden years” is not an easy thing. It, of course, can be argued that if your physical disability evolved later in life, you had a lifetime of preparing for your elder years, by getting a good education, saving money and planning financially for the future and therefore, now you should be in a position to “hire” the best care and live in the best facility, this is not always the case.
Recently, I had a discussion with someone of great financial means who was talking about his mother, who is in her eighties and developing dementia. He explained how he had just placed her in a beautiful assisted living care home with medical staff on duty 24/7. He went on to say that the food was wonderful and that he had hired someone to visit with her three times a week to read to her, play memory enhancing games with her and generally to look after her well being. This is wonderful for her, but certainly not the norm for most of the older disabled population. It reminded me of my Nana, who had served in the second World War for England, married a Canadian and moved to Kenora, Ontario after the war ended. Without going into detail, she did not have a good life and nothing could have prepared her for her elder years. To support her children, she had a job as an orderly in a care home, an orderly received higher pay than a nurses aid. She was a very petite lady and lifting mainly men, took a physical toll on her body. By the time she was in her early fifties, her shoulders were so bad that she had to receive monthly cortisone shots to help alleviate the pain and she could no longer work. As she got older, her physical condition deteriorated, she had very little agility and became wheelchair bound. She lived in a tiny government funded low income apartment and had to rely on social assistance and the help of her children to survive. She had been a very proud woman and was now a very meek and withdrawn person, embarrassed that she was relying on others for her existence.
Although things have improved somewhat from my Nana’s days, there is still a lack of well equipped homes, shortage of care homes, often a two year waiting period, little in the way of social programs to assist the elderly with physical disabilities. There are just not enough government programs, not enough Social Workers, to provide assistance for each and every one. Some need to rely on other family members, usually the mother, to assist them, placing a strain on the family. “Women have the greatest responsibility for the family, including children and elder care” (Mullaly, 2007, p. 161). With more and more families needing two incomes to exist, the extra help is just not available.
We need more awareness to the plight of disabled elders. Just as we do fundraisers, walk-a-thons and runs to raise money to help with various diseases, such as cancer, heart and stroke, the same should be done for the aging disabled. Raising money would increase awareness and make this a more powerful and important issue. We have probably all seen the messages on TV about elder abuse and we need more of these messages because we can all learn from them and they create awareness. It is our responsibility to become more proactive in assisting our aging population to improve the quality of their lives instead of just placing them in a care home and giving up on them. By lobbying our political leaders for more financial help, for better programs to help manage their disability, for more physical activity and recreational programs, we can help our older disabled individuals live a more meaningful life. We are taught to respect our elders, so why should their lives be any less important?
References:
Mullaly, B. (2007). The New Structural Social Work (3rd Ed.) Canada: Oxford University Press.
Shauna Richardson
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