Le Moyne and Loretto team up to offer eldercare in a 30-credit degree

Youth is deeply coveted in the United States. Obsessed with looking younger, longer, Americans slather their faces with anti-wrinkle creams, pay for facelifts and attend gyms like the devout visit chapels in attempts to hold onto their glorified 20s. However, for America’s approximately 76 million baby boomers experiencing or approaching senior status, a desire to stay young is being replaced with a need to seek age-appropriate care.

Unappealing as eldercare may be to people approaching old age, America’s aging population is, uh, booming, increasing the need for a work force qualified to care for the elderly. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 12.8 percent of the nation’s 307 million people are aged 65 or older. In addition, 13.7 percent of Onondaga County’s population is above age 65, putting Syracuse’s elderly population almost a full percentage point above the nation’s average. 

With the first baby boomers nearing 65 years old, the county’s elderly population will soon swell, as will opportunities to care for them. With that in mind, Le Moyne College and Loretto, charged with taking care of Central New York’s elderly, decided to offer locals continuing education courses to gain insight on how to better take care of the aging population.

The baby boom phenomenon exploded in 1945 as World War II dissipated and soldiers made their way home. Between 1945 and 1964, almost 80 million newborns called the United States home, causing a steady addition to the country’s population. 

As the boomers—now ranging from ages 47 to 65—trade paychecks for retirement, they will begin to require age-specialized health care and living assistance. Anticipating the approaching upswing in elderly needs, Le Moyne and Loretto are collaborating on a Holistic Aging certificate to prepare health care professionals to care for a generation famous for its love of independence and liberal social values.

Patricia Bliss, director of continuing education at Le Moyne, says Loretto approached the college two years ago and expressed an interest in creating classes to challenge managers to change their opinions about aging. “We crafted this certificate of Holistic Aging,” she continues. “The idea of this is to look at aging past, present, future and really begin to shift the paradigm with their managers.” 

Sally Berry, senior vice president for policy and program development at Loretto, says her organization wanted to give all managers—from finance managers to food managers—more insight on the process of aging, regardless of their actual contact with the elders. “Their day-to-day actions and decisions still affect the elderly,” she explains.

The model the group used to mold the continuing education program came from Bill Thomas, a local political activist. Thomas, who sparked Loretto’s desire to teach geriatric health-care providers to treat elderly patients in a more personal manner, Bliss says, pioneered a movement advocating person-centered care for older adults. Dubbing the method person-centered care, Thomas works to build reverence for age, respect for the elderly and care geared toward helping older Americans maintain their independence and enjoy a life beyond the confines of nursing-home halls and scheduled meals. 

Encouraging such care is the program’s mission, says Bliss. “Historically, aging people have not been highly revered in the United States the way they are in Asian cultures. Here, as people get old, they’ve been warehoused in these huge living facilities,” she says. “We don’t have enough caregivers to provide the care {baby boomers} will need. They’re not going to be willing to check themselves in because they’ve been mavericks since the 1960s. They’re not going to want to be told when to go to bed, when to eat. They’re going to require a more individualized type of care.” 

So the Holistic Aging certification should help caregivers learn to respect the aging population, people entering “elder hood,” the term used now instead of “senior citizens.”

The certificate is composed of four classes, each of which lasts 10 weeks, says Bliss. Loretto’s managers, leaving the rest open to the public, will hold 10 to 12 of the 24 available seats. The first class, which begins this fall, focuses on the cross-cultural sociology of aging. The second course explains the physiology of aging. The third explores the spiritual, emotional and cognitive processes involved in aging. The fourth and final course is a concept class, requiring students to implement their lessons at their workplaces and observe whether changes appear in the way employees treat elders. 

With luck, Bliss says students will leave with a certificate that encourages them to give elders person-centered care. “We’re really trying to reframe aging as an opportunity to pass to generations and utilize our aging population as a force that can contribute to society and be productive,” she says. “So we’re looking at physiology and care-giving, at how to maintain our independence, how to maintain function, how to provide care in positive and constructive ways that maximize people’s performance in the sense of wellness.”

Although Loretto already supports a person-centered care commitment for the elderly, Berry hopes all of the organization’s workers will eventually subscribe to providing patients with holistically saturated health care. Berry says employees working in the health care field or people interested in joining its ranks would reap the resume benefits of gaining the certificate. Elaborating, she spoke from an employer’s perspective after learning that an employee received the certificate. “What they’re going to say is ‘this person has generated an interest in different aspects of aging,’” Berry notes. “I think it shows some initiative.”

The first course will convene on Tuesdays from 4 to 8 p.m. in an attempt to accommodate the adult students’ work schedule. As for who will take the course, Bliss says the details are yet to be seen. “It might be people that are working with elders in our community. It might be people who have a loved one who has Alzheimer’s disease or just want to know more about the field. It might be people in human services who are looking for a market niche to make a career change. It could be people looking for career changes. It might be health-care providers, it might be nurses in hospitals,” she muses. “It could be folks from all walks of life. Or, I might just be personally interested in aging because I’m getting older and I want to know what’s going on in the field and how this field is going to emerge over the next few decades.”

Each course costs $1,656 and requires 30 credit hours, including a college-level writing course.
For more information, call Loretto at 703-7993, Le Moyne at 445-4100 or visit the college’s website, www.lemoyne.edu. There you’ll find the application as well.

As an educated social worker, Bliss says she’s worked in hospice with the aging and dying, forming her opinion on aging. “To me, the idea of dying is much less sad than sitting on the 10th floor of Loretto staring at a TV.” Elders surely agree that they too deserve more than an electronic view.