i spent this morning with the local ACAT (aged care assessment team). and i really enjoyed it. i think geriatrics and palliative care are two interesting areas of medicine that (in some ways) get overlooked.
as part of the morning we saw two potential clients for assessment. they had markedly different reasons for the assessment being requested. one was a 75 year old man with progressing dementia who is being looked after by his son - and the focus was primarily on respite care. the man had become more verbally abusive and difficult and the son needed a break. the second was an 80 year old woman who had had shoulder surgery and needed some assistance with ADLs when she returns home (which she was keen to do asap) from hospital.
there was a moment during the assessment with the woman where she talked about sometimes feeling lonely (her husband had died a few years ago), particularly in the early evening. she is able to occupy herself during the day by going to various groups, but now that she’s living on her own it’s the time between eating dinner and going to bed that make her saddest.
and, while residential care would offer her more social contact, she is not nearly ready for it and wants to maintain her independence as long as possible. it made me feel that we get so locked into the idea of couples and nuclear families that when it gets to this stage, we become limited in the possibilities. i’ve always been interested in co-housing, and it seems to me that having a situation where you live and share with more people than your immediate family would be beneficial at all stages of life. something to consider for the future…