Ageism – It Has No Place in Our Healthcare

One of the truths that people find out as they grow older is that there is no user’s manual. When you are young, there are old people you can talk to about growing older. Unfortunately, you often either don’t avail yourself of the opportunity or you don’t think the things they are describing would ever pertain to you. In fact, young people often vow to “never do that” when they grow old. The reality is, no one really knows much about growing older because it’s a new phenomenon. As unbelievable as it seems, 2/3rds of the people that lived past 65 since the beginning of human history are alive today. This whole aging thing is new, and the world just hasn’t kept up with it.

Ageism is defined as the discrimination or prejudice based on the person’s age. I’ll naturally focus on the discrimination and prejudice toward seniors, usually those above 65. In some cultures, older people are revered, but in the fast-paced youth focused culture prevalent in America, that is certainly not the case. Consider the term “OK boomer.” It’s almost always used by a younger person in reference to an older person who they have judged as being out-of-touch with modern technology, values, or social issues. While fast-changing technology has certainly made it difficult for older people to keep up, younger people may not consider that seniors have just chosen to not spend their time looking at their phone or sharing pictures of their food at the local restaurant with all their friends. As for values and social issues, I would think that time and experience would have solidified an older person’s values and further defined their stance on social issues. Do some, dare I say most, older people have prejudices that were often part of their childhood? Yes, but hopefully our values have guided us as we work to overcome them, and we shouldn’t be stereotyped into an out-of-touch, unchanging group. I think that some TV ads keep this stereotype alive.

I’m concerned about the Progressive Insurance ads where Dr. Rick, the fictional “life coach,” tries to keep his patients from turning into their parents. They mock getting places early and inserting themselves into other people’s situations. From my point of view, respecting others’ time and noticing those around us and ways we can help them are positive things. Furthermore, don’t we strive as parents to get our children to emulate the values we think are important and isn’t one of the best ways to teach them these principles are through our actions? Why doesn’t Dr. Rick urge his patients not to adopt the prejudices and narrow thinking that their parents might have passed on to them? I just don’t like the approach this ad takes.

From a healthcare perspective, ageism is real, and it impacts how our country and especially our healthcare providers and our government perceive us, determine priorities, and allocates time and resources. Why aren’t older Americans the primary focus of every healthcare decision. Even our education system seems to be ageist. Today, as they face a huge tsunami of aging Americans, our medical schools are ignoring the facts. Right now, 96% of our medical schools require pediatric rotations, yet only 10% require geriatric rotations. Seniors are the ones that consume the large majority of our healthcare, why aren’t we focusing on ways to treat them and keep them healthy?

Let me focus on one thing that I’ve observed in my own dealings with providers and seems to remain a pervasive problem in all facets of healthcare. All the providers seem to lack the ability to access and/or use the information pertaining to the health of each of us. From the number of times I’m required to fill out the same information each time I go to the doctor, sometimes multiple times in one visit, to the lack of knowledge of our medical history confirms this lack of coordination. Some of the first money allocated after the passage of Obamacare was to develop the information systems that would allow providers access to our health history. From where I sit, it isn’t any better 15 years later. Older people suffer from multiple infirmities, how can a provider care for me if they don’t know all the things that affect my health and the history of my treatments.

A tool that would greatly aid the treatment of people with multiple health problems is artificial intelligence (AI). This great tool has unjustly been demonized by some, which seems to have inhibited its continued development that would give providers game changing insight into how to treat older people. For older people with multiple chronic diseases and unique health challenges AI could offer treatment options that would only be available through the information scanning and logical compilation abilities of AI.

Ageism continues to inhibit the well being and treatment of older Americans. The growth and longevity of seniors is unprecedented, and I understand that this is a new phenomenon but our country, and especially our government, needs to recognize the power that older people have and their desire to live a full life. When a reporter asked John Glenn why he wanted to go into space when he was 77 years old, he said that just because he was old didn’t mean he didn’t have dreams. America needs to know that this unprecedented wave of older people has dreams and wants to be recognized and understood. That healthcare expenditures should be spent on those who will gain the most . . . seniors.

Tell your lawmakers that ageism has no place in our country and remind them that you vote and there’s a lot of us.

Best, Thair