Experiencing Aging
Posted by Patti on August 5th, 2008 / Print This Post
The experience of aging:
Along with 15 colleagues and a reporter, Mrs. Ramirez, a social worker at the facility, put on distorting glasses to blur her vision; stuffed cotton balls in her ears to reduce her hearing, and in her nose to dampen her sense of smell; and put on latex gloves with adhesive bands around the knuckles to impede her manual dexterity. Everyone put kernels of corn in their shoes to approximate the aches that come from losing fatty tissue.
They had become, in other words, virtual members of the 5.3 million Americans age 85 and older, the nation’s fastest-growing age group — the people the staff at the facility work with every day.
Read the article and learn some empathy. Nursing Assistant Educators and others (DON’s…Staff Development Leaders) might want to consider making some of these exercises a part of the CNA Training/Orientation process.
August 5th, 2008 at 7:51 pm
There is a formalized group of these exercises available at http://kahsaconferences.org/files/Dignity_Sensitivity_Boot_Camp_Handouts_for_2008.pdf.
August 6th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Thanks Matt!
August 6th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
That is exactly a part of the CNA training my class had received from a wonderful nurse named Michelle here in Rhode Island. She also had us wear briefs, use walkers, wheelchairs, etc. On other days we brushed each others teeth, fed each other. It was all part of a sensitizing, empathetic way of showing us how it felt to be the aging patient/resident in a nursing home. I firmly agree that anyone being trained as a CNA should receive this form of training. Michelle was wonderful. We each had a turn to experience what it is like to be transferred via the hoyer lift–I really don’t think that all CNAs really put themselves in the resident/patient’s “shoes” a lot of the time. I feel that I received a very valuable education. I was and still am influenced by every activity that I participated in in that class.