- The quote that surprised me the most from the readings was, “A lot of Americans have dementia: 5.3 million in 2015, which is more than four and a half more people than have AIDS – and some estimates suggest that only about half the people with dementia has been diagnosed” (Aronson, 2019). WHile I knew that many people live witrh dementia, I had no idea it was so much higher than the amount of people who have AIDS.
- Cruikshank speaks about how people who are older are put on more medications than the average patient, andone third of those people experience a life altering side effect (Cruikshank, 2003, as cited in New York Times 2012). Her solutions to evaluate the systems we are actively participating in like big pharma, and evaluation of drugs continuously as research develops should always happen. It does make me as little fearful of aging, as I am already on psychiatric medications, so I can only imagine how that will develop as my chronic conditions maybe worsen with age.
- The conversation with Irina in Aronson’s book showed the impacts of drug induced health issues, as if Dmitri wasn’t on so many, he maybe wouldn’t have gone from healthy to bed bound so quickly. It is important to note how this could be a method of control over the aging population, as the amount of deaths realted to medications is most likely underestimated and not studied enough.
- The information I learned from Aronson’s conference experience was that people do, in fact, have the ability to manage the symptoms of dementia better through caregiving and understanding how to talk to someone with cognitive impairments. Furthermore, it is all about someone’s access to resources. Through the Memory Loss Tapes, I did see the way some of the nurses treated the patients with dementia that is at a more advanced stage; nurses showed the patients themselves in the mirror when they could not recognize themselves, which often agitated the patient. It is not necessary to prove someone’s lived reality as wrong when they truly are not the most aware of their current surroundings.
- I think that the example of Gabow’s mother being provided with the options to pursue more expensive care and denying it shows how important it is for doctors to listen to the wishes of patients. Medicine should never be about prolonging suffering when other options exist to help the person as a whole rather than pathologizing the process of aging.
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