Age Against the Machine

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.