Ageism

SPEAKER_00 0:00

The following is for informational purposes only. For medical advice, please see a medical professional.

SPEAKER_02 0:17

Welcome to staying alive with Margaret and Susie. Hi. Hi. This is the next episode we told you guys we were going to do. What happens when people think you're too old to do things and you know you're not? That's called ageism. So that's what's called. That's what this episode is about. Yeah. Stereotyping people based on age. And our bodies all age differently and capabilities are different. And Susie's going to start us out telling us a funny story. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

Okay. Okay. When I once the first time I experienced ageism, I was only 40. And I was with a coworker, and we were running across the street, and she acted like it was going to be too hard for me. How old was? How old?

SPEAKER_02 1:05

She was probably 20. 20, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

You know. And I remember thinking, you think I'm too old to run across the street? I mean, at that time I was riding a bike and running, and you know, I I was pretty fit first. You know, and and um anyway, it just it was like, wow. I was really surprised. And you know, but I just want to start out too by saying there's so many different types of ageism, and I thought that was really interesting. There's something that they call intentional ageism, where you actually are assuming you're too old. You know, the person thinks they're too old to do things, so they kind of put it on themselves.

SPEAKER_02 1:50

Yeah. Um, a lot of the things you look at also called internalized ageism. Internalizing you've internalized.

SPEAKER_01 1:58

Yes, yes, that's right. That's what it's called.

SPEAKER_02 2:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

Um, there's also uh sort of an interpersonal age ageism, which is in social situations. There's um institutional ageism, and then there's also workplace age ageism, which it doesn't play into people's lives so much as they're older, but it can. Um, I remember at my last job, I worked at a senior center. So, of course, there was a lot of awareness about age there, you know, because everyone knows they're working with people who are older. But sometimes if I made even the slightest mistake, I was the oldest person in the office. I felt like, oh, they think I'm making that mistake because I'm old. Do you know what I mean? Oh, yeah. And and I I didn't like that feeling. I have to admit, I didn't like it very much. No, yeah, yeah. It was interesting.

SPEAKER_02 2:55

And I betcha people notice it the most if they really think about it in social situations where um people see us as being less visible, maybe with less to say, maybe not invited to the neighbor's party because they're in their 30s and they think that we are too old. Well, um, or I mean they don't think that we're too old, but they just figure, you know, yeah, what are they gonna talk about? Nothing in common. Nothing in common. What are they gonna talk to us about? Luckily, I'm an extrovert and I love people of all ages. So I just like quietly talk to them.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

Interact with them. Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's a good idea.

SPEAKER_02 3:39

Like, oh, this person's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

Yeah, you know, but ageism, when I was looking into it though, I I hadn't really thought about this. Ageism can be against any age, assuming that teenagers are all selfish, or that two-year-olds are all brats, or that uh Gen Xers are all entitled. I mean, you know, whatever. It can be at any any age, is considered ageism.

SPEAKER_02 4:04

And um it could be, or some people might call that young people's oppression or um adultism, where the adult is thinking a child is right, right.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

You know, but well, and and teenagers might be, you know, I think I'm around a lot of 14-year-olds right now, 13, 14-year-olds, and I, you know, I think they think sometimes that most adults don't have anything to say worth value.

SPEAKER_02 4:32

Yeah. You know, it's just it's just a matter of of uh where they're at in their lives. You know, there's an an organization called the Grey Panthers, and it's not super active anywhere that I know of, except for really New York City. You know, New York City's on the cutting edge these days, as far as I'm concerned politically. And um, but that you know, there is some in the California area, and they focus on social isolation and health care. Um, because access to health care and also how old people are treated in long-term care situations, yeah, they see as the two critical areas. And this was like long before COVID hit. And I'm sure we've all heard some terrible stories about what happened to older people in nursing home situations in the early months of COVID. Right. And um it's it's really a terrible thing to to be treated as if, well, they're old, they're gonna die anyway. And yeah, yeah. So um because we tend to focus on health and health care, I thought we'd go into the aging examples that I can think of that have to do with medical care. Is that okay? Are you ready to move on?

SPEAKER_01 5:58

Yeah, you know, one thing I found is that there is some types of ageism people just aren't aware of. And I think the what I read is this sometimes is the type of ageism that comes up in a medical setting because they're not necessarily doing it on purpose, it just happens. And and you know, it's probably a matter of having more education about it, you know.

SPEAKER_02 6:27

That's one reason, and then another reason is that that's the way the system is set up, and there's not a active enough political block uh to to really fight back to ask for changes. And by that, what I'm thinking about is like the over-prescribing of pharmaceutical prescriptions for one thing, whereas because as we age, we have a lot of aches and pains, and or maybe we're even depressed and that sort of thing. And so um I know a lot of people, and to be honest, like I have aches and pains. I might get depressed sometime, but I don't even talk to my doctor about it because I know that what the medical establishment has been taught is offer your elder patient a pill.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

Yeah, and I don't want that pill.

SPEAKER_02 7:28

I know what pill they're gonna offer. I don't want it. Right. So I I deal with my pain in other ways, like learning lymphatic drainage, for instance, in that case, and and uh more or talk therapy can really help.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

Any kind of therapy or counseling can help people who are depressed, you know, having somebody to talk to, getting exercise, doing things for yourself that make yourself feel good. But I know it can be it can be tough, you know.

SPEAKER_02 7:56

And once once you go down that road of taking too too much of a variety of pharmaceuticals, those things can start interacting with each other. Like I have a friend who the combinations of drugs that she's on for pain and antidepressant, I know she's starting to have like dementia kind of things, a brain fog that she never had before, since she added this new drug to her formulary. And she's in the medical system where that's what they do. And you know, I'm trying to support her around it as much as possible.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

But um Yeah, that's really hard. And and I think that that doctors who deal with a lot of elderly people, some are well trained in gerontology. I mean, I I've been to the doctor's, I know, I've been to the doctor's office a lot in the last um few weeks, last couple months. And um I noticed that there's a in this town where I live, there's a lot of older people. Um, a lot of people come here to retire, a lot of people stay here, you know, our population's around 100,000. You know, there's there's a lot of older people. Our Center for Senior Health, you can't even get on a waiting list there, you know. So those are the people who are trained in gerontology. You know, I think that that can be a little frustrating for for people. I think that also there's a generational gap. I know I think our our generation is a little better at asking for help than the generation before us. I know my mother was always of the mind that the doctor knows best, whatever the doctor says is fine with me. Um, you know, I don't have to push to get answers or help. You know. And um, yeah, I think it it can be a real big problem.

SPEAKER_02 9:55

Well, that brings up um another example of ageism in medical. It's like, don't be afraid to ask your doctor, is there any other treatment for this doctor?

SPEAKER_01 10:07

You know, or for this symptom or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 10:11

Whatever, yeah. I mean, yeah and we're not talking about um something major like cancer treatment or something. We're talking about normal aches and pains of aging as our bodies are breaking down, and and uh, and then the doctor is like, oh, I can shoot some such and such and into your ner nerves, or I can give you this pill to to numb numb out your nerves. So they're treating the symptoms, and there may be a medical procedure that that would have been recommended had you been younger, but they're not mentioning it. And so we have to kind of go in there knowing and be ready to ask, oh, is there some other treatment for this, doctor?

SPEAKER_01 10:54

Yes, but you know what? Now we have in in my state, we are a trial, they're having a trial run of this program where AI is being used to determine if certain procedures can be done for people on Medicare. And I have a family member who needed something and it was actually rejected. Yeah. They really had to fight for it to get it to happen. And so they did fight for it and get it together. They did, they did, but it was at first they oh, actually, what happened was they went ahead and had the procedure and then got billed for it, and then they fought for that, you know. Good, because because it's you know, uh I if I was a doctor right now, I'd be so happy if I was retiring with all this AI stuff coming.

SPEAKER_02 11:42

I'm sorry, I just it scares me, you know, because it takes a lot of the decision making out of the hands of the people who are trained uh to actually, you know, provide care instead of um perhaps like one one of the proponents might say, well, um a computer robot isn't ageism, you know, like that they'll be able to make uh unbiased uh uh don't know about but no, it doesn't it doesn't work that way.

SPEAKER_01 12:10

It doesn't I wouldn't say so. I mean there you know you put in the first thing they ask you when you go to the doctor is your birth date.

SPEAKER_02 12:17

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 12:17

So when your your birth date's 1940, boy, that's that's an immediate assumption about you in the medical system.

SPEAKER_02 12:25

I know. Like I I recently had some drug that that I refused because I knew I didn't need it. And um, and I said to the doctor, Well, why are you prescribing this? I don't have this, I don't have this, I don't have this, I don't, I don't have any of the things for what for which and they said, because you're over 70. And it's like forget about it. Like I'm not taking it, I'm not doing it, you know. Yeah, so um interesting.

SPEAKER_01 12:55

Yeah, you just you know, it goes back to advocacy and being aware of what you need and and you know, and maybe a little bit more training for the medical facility about ageism.

SPEAKER_02 13:09

Um and and one other thing is um overuse of screening tests beyond necessity. Um, there are many tests that we no longer need once we're over 70, and we just have to know our own bodies and and know what those are. And and I won't necessarily I think name name any tests because I mean that's between you and your doctor. But I know that there are certain screening tests that I don't need to deal with anymore because I'm not at risk for those things, and there's no reason to think that I suddenly will be.

SPEAKER_01 13:45

I think just getting your basic blood work every year is a really good, you know, way to start for any kind of screenings that you might need. And then your basic, you know, colonoscopies and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_02 13:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:59

And I I don't want this to be a put down on the medical establishment because the fact is they're not necessarily trained in gerontology, and people have never lived as long as they have in our current generations. And so there's a lack of research being done. Like the they're not research studies on uh people over 80, uh like popular.

SPEAKER_01 14:24

Well, they don't use people over 80 for for any kind of clinical trials because because it's not necessarily safe. I mean, so you you know, you you use younger people to test a lot of things, especially test medications. So so how they interact with an older body. I mean, my mom um always had to take high blood pressure medication, and she was so sensitive. I mean, the woman, if she took a new blood pressure medication, she almost always ended up in the hospital or at the doctor's office. So, you know, those medicines where maybe some people her age could handle them, they were, you know, you become more and more sensitive to things. And some people are sensitive anyway. You know, they they can take, you know, half of a muscle relaxer, whereas a regular person who who needed one maybe could take two or three. Yeah. So yeah. Just be aware.

SPEAKER_02 15:22

And then there's the cost of the medical procedures too, like in the bottom line to what that costs, like and and we have to decide for ourselves. Like, if if we want to fight for something that we think we would benefit from and that we we do not believe we're we're too old for that procedure, then we're gonna fight for it. Yeah, I um yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:48

Well, you know, when we think about the ageism, it it can go across the board in so many different places in our in our world. And we have to recognize it and recognize when we are being discriminated against because of our age. And it might be, like I said, not intentional, you know, and people don't like they're making jokes or or you know, like I don't know how many stupid birthday cards I've gotten from people about aging that, you know, some of them are funny, but some of them, you know, after a while they're kind of not funny.

SPEAKER_02 16:26

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

I mean, I I I accept that I'm aging and I'm I'm happy to be in this body right now. Um, there are some good things about it, you know. For instance, I take things in stride a lot more than I used to. You know, I I just roll with the punches a lot better than I used to. And um and I think I'm in a family too that appreciates my age, you know. Yeah, I I have to say, my my granddaughter was so sweet, we went on a hike to a beach and we had to climb over these rocks, you know, and she knows that I'm a little unsteady on my feet, so she was holding my hand, and it really made me happy, you know.

SPEAKER_02 17:14

So, you know, it was really sweet. I mentioned um Grey Panthers earlier, and one of their programs is the one that your grandson was involved in, the type where they put really young children with uh people in nursing homes. Yeah. Because they realize that that though like an 85-year-old and a five-year-old that the skills they each have can really support each other, you know. And the people love it a five-year-old can still read to a five-year-old, and a five-year-old can run and get the voices and you know, and they can tell them funny stories.

SPEAKER_01 17:52

I mean, kids are you know, they they say funny things, and and the older people love it. They love to just see them, you know.

SPEAKER_02 17:59

And the younger children, they're not um, they haven't been jaded by ageism yet. That's real. That's right. It's just a really sweet thing. And it, I mean, similarly, like they bring animals into those settings too, because right animals love you no matter what. Yeah, and um uh animal companions are really nice for older. It's very sweet too. That's a good contradiction to age. We could do a whole episode on pets, but we'll okay. You want to you want to do an episode on pets? I mean, make make a note. That sounds good. Well, I I don't have anything else I want to say on ageism today. How about you?

SPEAKER_01 18:37

Well, I would say though, that if you have a comment or want us to, you know, a comment about ageism that maybe you have experienced, feel free to look at our website and and comment. We'd we'd love to hear from you.

SPEAKER_02 18:49

Yeah, and like and subscribe. Like and subscribe. Okay, well, thank you very much. Thank you. Until next time, we we are staying alive.

SPEAKER_00 19:02

You've been listening to Staying Alive with Margaret and Susie. This show is hosted by Margaret Cooley and Susie Hymist. To subscribe to our show, leave a comment or ask a question. Please visit staying alive with margaretandsus.com. Our podcast is available on all major podcast platforms. If you've enjoyed our program, please feel free to leave us a five star review. Thanks for listening.