Aging: Words Matter - Part 1 with Patricia D'Antonio, BSPharm, MS, MBA, BCGP

Описание: Aging: Words Matter - Part 1 with Patricia D'Antonio, BSPharm, MS, MBA, BCGP

Words are powerful. They influence how we think, behave and approach things. They can produce labels, misunderstandings, misrepresentations and change our perceptions in profound and meaningful ways.

In this episode of This Is Getting Old: Moving Towards an Age-Friendly World showcases GSA's work on Reframing Aging. Tune in as our guest —Patricia D'Antonio, BSPharm, MS, MBA, BCGP—offers us ways to reframe our language wehn talking about and thinking about aging.

Part One of 'Aging: Words Matter Part 1.'
What Is The Reframing Aging Initiative?

Reframing Aging is a social change endeavor designed to improve the public's understanding of aging. The GSA's ongoing effort is fostering a new language in talking about getting older that leads to more substantial support for age-friendly services and policies. This initiative, in turn, plays a critical role in ensuring that the public recognizes that there is much we can do collectively to ensure well-being as we age by following the concepts of Reframing Aging.

Reframing Aging is an evidence-based communications strategy led by 10 National Aging Organizations – American Federation on Aging, the American Society on Aging, the American Geriatrics Society, and Grantmakers in Aging.

Ageism is often not recognized. Ageism intersects with all of the -isms and impacts all of us; no matter how old we are. What we've learned in our research is there are challenges in how the public thinks around aging. Some of that comes around the following:
Cultural Models That Drive People's Thinking

Cultural models are patterns of thinking or assumptions created through years of experience.

People rely on cultural models to interpret, organize and make meaning out of all sorts of stimuli, including experiences, feelings, thoughts, and communications.

Impact of Ideal vs. Perceived Real Views Of Aging

Ideal views of aging is that older adults accumulated Wisdom, are self-sufficient, are staying active, and earned the leisure perceived
Whereas the "Real" views of aging are deterioration, loss of control, and dependency

We can see challenges here when many people see aging as getting older means more health issues, which means more doctor's visits and medications than, one of the advantages of getting older is you get to relax more.

An excellent example of individualism is when somebody says something like, "If you exercise and eat right, you'll age well." Except we need to think about the systems around us that make sure that we have that opportunity to eat well and exercise. Then just saying if you only eat well doesn't get you to that systemic solution that we need to create.
Another place where that's important to think about is when people talk about financial planning. So when you're retiring, if you only just put money away every month, you would have money for when you retire.
Well, if I am in a system where I'm working three jobs to make ends meet, I may not be in the position right now to be able to save for retirement. It doesn't absolve people from having to take some action.
So we need to ensure that there are policies in place that support all of us as we age.

Impact of “Us” vs. “Them” Dichotomy Thinking about Aging

When we start to tell stories that create that "us" versus "them," it does put people and make people think that we are two different models in our brains. When we start to think about this, it impedes how we think about support for aging in any way.
There's this dichotomy of everybody on a cruise, that life of leisure or somebody jumping out of the air, out of an airplane, or everybody is very sick and decrepit. They need help, they're frail, they need help with whatever is going to happen. Those kinds of pictures don't help us gain support and understand what aging means and how we all contribute to society even as we age.
Impact of Fatalism

Fatalism is the culture that makes people think, "If this is a tsunami, I'm going to run someplace. I'm getting out of here."

We learn in those fatalistic crises kind of messages, which when you work in policy, you have to make it a crisis so that anybody will take action.
But honestly, what we learned through the research is people say, “There's no solution here, so I'm going to go someplace else”. So when we talk about this tsunami, as much as it does make people look at it differently, let's go someplace else where we can make a difference.
But there are things we can do to collectively age well. There are solutions. We can solve problems; we have a collective responsibility to create policies that benefit all generations; and recognizing what is around us shapes us - social determinants of health matter - from age-friendly cities with adequate transportation, housing, and other age-friendly domains.

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#aging #wordsmatter