One fact that most surprised me in the readings was Cruikshank’s claim that older adults automatically become reliant on pharmaceuticals, sometimes without even thinking whether the medication is necessary in the first place (Cruikshank, 2009). What was surprising for me was how normalized this overmedication became in our culture, almost as if the automatic reliance on pills is the rule and not the exception. It surprised me because I thought that, particularly with older adults, doctors would be more hesitant to prescribe medications out of fear of drug interactions. Cruikshank emphasizes this idea of how often the medical system equates “treatment” with pharmaceuticals instead of holistic forms of care.
Cruikshank discusses natural changes in the body during aging our metabolism slows down, organs function differently and this gave me a better understanding of how older adults also have more extreme drug reactions. I found her points regarding non-drug treatment and the suggestion to curtail prescriptions/feed evidence that these prescription drugs can have serious side effects especially for older adults. I appreciated the way that Cruikshank said fear of aging can come from my predictions about independence on prescribed medications, and her writing gives me hope that things may not automatically default to pharmaceuticals as a solution (Cruikshank, 2009).
I found Aronson’s chapter, especially the story of Irina, Dimitri’s daughter, to be particularly interesting. Irina’s frustration captures the power balance between family members and physicians, and how physicians often take a priori authority over family members not considering the lived or experiential perspective of patients (Aronson, 2019). I thought the story Aronson provided was deep in that it demonstrates that the physician-patient process subjugates the voice of family who may be just as involved, if not more so, in the care.
Aronson also mentioned dementia in which doctors talk of dementia from an impersonal, clinical perspective. When I thought about her ideas beside the Memory Loss Tapes, I think it demonstrates how dementia is lived, but not presented medically at a conference. Her estae regarding dementia points to how the medical construction of dementia can be dehumanizing to patients, while the tapes put the heir name and perspective forefront.
Mister particularly, her reference of gabow’s mother was a notion of the alternative method that Cruikshank spoke of one using creativity, community, and alternative to medicine of management of aging. This was meaningful to me because I could see the potential for improvement to quality of life when we move away from fixing older adults to helping them holistically (Aronson, 2019; Cruikshank, 2009). To reiterate, aging does not always require medicalization; we may work to dignity and well-being outside of drug dependence.
SN: This post reminds me of the Pain Hustlers and how the older guy passed away because he was over medicated and became addicted.
References
Aronson, L. (2019). Elderhood: Redefining aging, transforming medicine, reimagining life. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Cruikshank, M. (2009). Learning to be old: gender, culture, and aging (2nd ed.). Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Great post. I like how you talked about how you think doctors should be hesitate on how they medicate. You would think doctors would be more cautious about previous diagnosis, medications and side effects but they still prescribe medicine to first one thing without thinking about what could happen next. I agree sometimes listening to a family member could give more insight and even better understanding of a circumstance then looking at someone as a disease or diagnosis. All treatments do not have to include medication, agreed.
Hi NIya is response to the fact that you were surprised at how normalized this overmedication became in our culture, almost as if the automatic reliance on pills is the rule and not the exception. I think because in the US medicine practiced is tied to money, especially when pharmaceutical representatives are successful with convincing providers to prescribe certain drugs. I’ve worked in the medical field for most of my career and have seen the amount of bribes and pressure these pharmaceutical companies put on providers. It’s the sad reality that we live in.