There was lots going on for seniors last week, topped by the Chamber of Commerce luncheon presentation of Peter Reed of Reno’s Sanford Center for Aging at the Gold Dust West. Reed’s talk was well-reported in the Nevada Appeal, but a couple of points:
“I challenge you to think about the way you’re interacting with the elderly.”
“Don’t judge the elderly by the same standards you use for the younger.”
Yes, seniors often move at a different pace than the younger adults. So it might be best not to think of seniors as moving slowly; rather, that they move at the appropriate speed for their age, which isn’t bad.
Two good points among the many he made.
He told of plans at the center for a geriatric outpatient clinic in Reno to shepherd people through the aging process, as well as enlarging the community in making advances in aging services.
He noted that author G.Allen Powers of “Dementia Beyond Drugs: Changing the Culture of Care” will appear at the UNR Pennington Health Sciences building in Reno from 4-5 p.m. Feb 18.
Fiction on dementia
Most thriller writers don’t have time in their plots for thoughts on dementia. The late Robert Parker with Michael Brandman did in their novel “Damned if You Do,” available at our library.
The old Parker stand-by chief of police, Jessie Stone, shines here as always, but he’s not too busy solving the murder of a young woman to forget about his old pal Donnie Jacobs.
The writers are soft in telling about Jacobs and his death, but you can sense they know what they are talking about when it comes to dementia and the slow slide out of reality.
But they never condescend to looking down on Jacobs, and it all fits nicely and gently into the pursuit of a murderer.
Nice to read crime fiction about something other than getting the bad guy. And the writing is witty and deft where it should be. Enjoy!
Sam Bauman writes about senior issues for the Nevada Appeal.