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Fan** B Th«* Bed and Black. Thursday. September 19. 1974
AGING
Naomi Tuck-even the smallest amount of light
coming in the Hillhaven Convalescent Center
window is blinding to her.
Text by Dee Gibson
Photos by Bill Durrence
House Conference on Aging struck a new path in the concept of aging services:
alternatives to institutional care, where the older person would be allowed to maintain
his independence and still receive the special services he requires This has been tie
direction that senior citizen programs have gone during recent years.
Judy Hula, of the Georgia Office ol Aging in the Department of Human Resources,
credits two basic factors with shaping the government’s attitude
"The birth rate is drastically falling — we re almost at Controlled Population
Growth — and at the same time the older population is getting larger and larger," she
explains. “Since 1900. the older population has expanded six and one-half times. There
are 21 million people out there that are over 65 and politically speaking that's a very
powerful block There’s a political.awareness of older people; they're applying more
pressure. They've decided. Hey. we re 21 million strong, we're a pretty big group,’
and they're pushing for their own rights The people in Washington and the states,
they're all listening and they're out looking to see what they can do instead of, ‘what
can we hand you here or what can we hand you there.' People aren’t just sitting back
and waiting any more."
LOCALLY. THE Athens Area Planning and Development Commission (APDC) is in •
charge of coordinating community programs for the elderly. The agency is allocated
funds to investigate service needs for a 10-county area including Jackson, Madison,
Elbert. Oglethorpe, Oconee. Greene, Morgan. Walton, Clarke and Barrow counties. In
this area, the agency studies the entire population, including how many older people
live in the area, how many are urban and rural, how many are poor, black or white,
which counties have the biggest concentration of older populations, the existing
services and who is providing them. Most importantly, the agency looks at the
region's service needs
Jane Osborne is a director of the aging division of the Athens APDC.
'•AT AGE 65 it's been bam. that's it, buddy, go sit in the corner' and nobody was
relating to that particular group of people," she says. “Why are you going to make
people live longer, which is what we re doing, if you’re going to put them out to
pasture and they’re going to be miserable for the next 20 years? We lose a lot of
valuable people who still have a lot of contributions to make because of what our
society's view of aging has been ”
The major service need in the area is transportation, and most of the funding is
directed toward this.
“If we spent as much money as we needed for transportation, there wouldn’t be any
left for the other services," she adds. "Many of these people's problems stem from a
basic lack of transportation. We've been very lucky: we've had a car donated to us for
a certain area, and a driver."
The main contractor in the Athens area is the Athens Community Council on Aging
(ACCA), a service agency that works with other public and private service agencies
in order to help maintain older people in their own homes.
“We don't really speak of our services as alternatives to institutional care because
we fully recognize the role the institution plays in our society," John Daniel, executive
director of the council, says. “We speak of our services more as choices of living
arrangements, of service needs, individual desires and abilities.
"Someone may have a disability and our agency will try to not only help that person
convalesce but to refunction, retool, relearn different types of activity that will enable
him to live independently What we try to stress are the positive aspects We don't
want to destroy any initiative that a person might have if he has a potential for doing
something on his own. We work with a person to determine the most appropriate kind
of services to help him remain independent,” Daniel adds.
The ACCA was formed in January, 1967, by a group of concerned citizens who
recognized that transportation is a big problem for older people. As they began to go
about solving the transportation needs of people, they found that the older person has
very complex problems. They found that if transportation is one problem, usually its
compounded by other problems, such as income, health, housing. They eventually
began to work toward forming senior groups in churches (presently there are 15 such
groups ranging in size from 25 to 200 members). The agency har been recognized as a
community model for in-county related services by the U.S. Sena ? ,»u Committee
on Aging. It has also been recognized by a number of local, state t.d national
organizations and is now one of 25 approved agencies in the National Council for
Homemaker-Home Health Services.
The key to the ACCA's operation is a referral system where people are matched to
needed and available services. Anyone may be referred to the council for help; Daniel
suggests most often a neighbor or minister notices that someone needs aid and refers
them to the council. Afterwards, someone from the center visits the individual and
decides, along with other members of the staff, what types of services an individual
needs. These may range from counseling to consumer protection to legal aid. and lha
council has the resources to help in all of the areas
BR1GHTWOOD Day Care Center provides personal care in a special type of
protective setting
"This is a relatively new concept," Daniel says. “Day care for older persons is kind
of like day care for younger children; however, in operation it is quite different. In
order to come to a day care center, these people must have some degree of mental or
physical incapacitation and require supervision. These are people who cannot be left
at home during the day while the spouse or person they're living with is off doing
something else. If we can try to help them retool or relearn or learn a new function,
they can get into a new environment without getting totally frightened."
The center is operated by one coordinator, one assistant, and volunteers from
Communiversity, the recreation department, music therapy, social work undergradu
ates and housewives.
Homemaker-home health aid services concentrate on giving home management and
personal care to sick people. The activities include assistance in shopping, paying
monthly bills, meal preparation, light house cleaning, bathing and other health
functions.
"We're only able to serve about 138 people a month These are people who are
home-ridden, pretty much confined to the home environment, and they need
somebody to come into the home to provide some personal care and home
management,” Daniel adds “They’re people who are mostly convalescing from a
more acute, serious illness, but aren't really able to live and function on their own."
THE RETIRED Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP) is operated by the council along
with ACTION Senior citizens volunteer to work in the community in such areas as
Recording for the Blind, local libraries, as teachers aides, providing both a
meaningful opportunity for the senior citizen to become a part of the community and
to contribute something worthwhile.
ACTION brochures boast that nearly 70,000 opportunities for volunteer service have
been created for senior citizens and the number was expected to have increased to
80,000 last July.
President Nixon launched ACTION in 1967, calling it an “alliance of the
generations.”
"Let us now work together to work out those ways by which the committment and
the compassion of one generation can be linked to the will and experience of another
so that we can serve Americans better and Americans can better serve mankind," he
challenged
What resulted were three programs specifically designed for senior volunteers and
a readjustment of the Peace Corps and VISTA to include activities by them
The RSVP program that is included with the ACCA, is considered the fastest
growing volunteer program in the nation and boasts a budget of more than 815
million. The projects are community-organized and operated and provide a range of
volunteer jobs, progressing from chauffering patients to clinics and serving as senior
teaching aides.
Another program. Foster Grandparents, takes retired Americans with low incomes
and places them with disadvantaged children in hospitals, correctional institutions,
residential facilities for the mentally retarded, emotionally disturbed, dependent and
neglected Recent estimates have indicated that 50,000 children in 450 child care
institutions throughout the country are now working with more than 11 000 older
citizens
Earl James, program coordinator for ACTION volunteers in the Atlanta ACTION
office, terms the Foster Grandparent program, "one of the best we have The people
organize to run a real service to some child that needs love and compassion and
guidance and just needs affection more than anything else. They will adopt a child for
a period of an hour or two every so often and will go out and sit with them advise
them and they do a world of good."
SERVICE CORPS of Retired Executives (SCORE) at last count had attracted more
than 4,000 retired executives to counsel owners of small businesses on sales profits
productivity, merchandising and record keeping. SCORE volunteers also' provide
management advice to non-profit community organizations and works closely with the
Small Business Administration in helping small businesses which seek SBA «■■■»■'
assistance
One of the area programs that ACTION seems to be most proud of is a Wheels to
Meals program, where older citizens are taken to a center to receive a free lunch
Older people who meet certain income requirements that indicate a difficulty In
setting a proper diet can come to the center for the free lunch What is important
however, is not that these people are receiving free meals, but that they are mixing
with other people They're not isolating themselves and shutting out the rest of the
world.
Although the meals are free, participants can offer donations and this monev is
used toward expanding the program 7
“There is such a stigma to free things here," Ashe says. "People have tremendous
pride and they will do without before taking anything remotely resembling welfare
We tell them they can pay what they want, if they want, and no ow ™r7n<™ who
Walk through Hillhaven Convalescent Center's glass doors and the first thing to hit
you is a flat “under-odor " The atmosphere of people too long closed behind doors
without ever feeling sunshine or smelling fresh air. It is always there, coloring
everything you see and every emotion you feel, an odd contradiction to the bright
orange paint and the shiny modern furniture that awaits every incoming visitor. On
the left, a young receptionist sits isolated behind a wall with glass windows, seemingly
to close out those inside
The hallway leading to the rooms is wide and empty except for one tiny old man
who clings to a wooden railing along the wall as he creeps slowly toward his room.
Misses Naomi and Sara Tuck share room 10. a small, empty rectangle that
somehow squeezes in two beds, a wheelchair and two visitor's chairs.
Miss Naomi is the tiny wrinkled form in the wheelchair who blinks bleakly from
behind Coke bottle eye glasses. At 84. she has cataracts and glaucoma and when she
talks, generally she covers her eyes with a scrawny blue-veined hand.
Her sister Sara is 74 She requires a cane to walk, but otherwise she has full
possession of all of her faculties She also has had cataracts, but hers have been
removed by surgery.
Miss Naomi doesn’t talk much. Mostly she just sits and nods her head at what Miss
Sara says Both of their faces are expressionless, except for a rare smile. The only
movement in the room is an occasional scratch on the head or a smoothing of a skirt
When the women speak, their sentences trail off into nothing, standing in midair as if
waiting for someone to finish them.
They have been in Hillhaven for five months.
"1 fell and broke my pelvic bone," Miss Sara says. "We couldn't neither one of us
take care of the other one, so we had to come here."
Miss Naomi, rubbing her fingers across her forehead, nods sadly.
"We have this house on Barber Street and we lived there until this happened," Sara
continues We just can't get competent help nowadays, and so we came here under a
doctor's advice."
The two are the last of an old Athens family; all that are left now are the sisters
and one half-brother who owns Tuck's Shoe Repair
"We just want to go home.” Miss Naomi interjects.
It really isn't likely that the two sisters will be able to leave anytime soon. Old
bones heal slowly and without the competent help that Miss Sara speaks of, the sisters
may be forced to remain in the convalescent home for quite a while — forced to retain
themselves in a square, sterile room without the comforts of home and the memories.
Memories of the house pain Miss Sara the most. Existing in the cubicle, there is little
for the sisters to do besides talk, and such an atmosphere docs not foster changes or
diversions.
UNTIL RECENTLY, the majority of the older population was forced to spend the
remainder of their lives in such an institution, shut away from the rest of society and
closed olf from any sort of productive activity. A sort of youth-oriented attitude
pervades American society; we are all too willing to cast aside a perfectly healthy
65-year-old for the promise in those with years yet to be lived.
"Anything which a young, vibrant, physically attractive society such as ours thinks
is hard to look at, anything that has some sort of physical difference is stigmatized,”
says Dr David Levine, professor of social work at the University of Georgia. "The
way you handle that is by shutting your eyes or putting it away or institutionalizing it
so that you can’t see it.
"The stigma really is that people are no longer vital, no longer worthwhile after a
certain age. and they feel that if society believes this, it must be so. What happens is
that while you don't use a skill, you're not needed. Say, for instance, you don't have to
get up to go to work, so you don't get up. If you don't feel needed, you don’t produce."
he says.
He estimates that between four and one-half and five per cent of the older
population are presently being cared for by institutions, leaving 93 to 95 per cent in
the community. The concern now is to utilize these people, to allow them to continue
to be contributing members of society.
Levine divides the aged into four categories, depending on their degree of
independence. There are those that are entirely independent and self-contained, who
can do everything for themselves. Conversely, there are those who require 24-hour
care, the kind that would be provided in a convalescent home. The two groups most in
need of special consideration are the self-directing ones, those who require special
services in times of need, say an unexpected illness, and those people who can live
independently if certain services are provided for them on a regular basis
"Sometimes it's just a question of making the services available and in some
instances, it's generating new resources where they don’t exist," Levine says.
THIS DESIRE to help the aged in some manner appeared first in the federal
government in 1961 with the first White House Conference on Aging. Out of this came
the recommendations which eventually became Medicare and Medicaid, two
programs designed to aid the aged in paying medical bills. Later, in 1965, the Older
Americans Act was passed, providing a means of securing special aid services
through federal funding to community groups. Most recently, in 1971, another White
Brlghtwood Day Care
Center provides
supervision and activity
for many. Mary Byrd
relaxes In a rocking chair
waiting for her ride home.
Perlitha H. Sly is new to
the center. Although she
watches a patchwork
quilt being made, she
can't participate- her
hands can't hold the
needle.
Independence is goal
of senior citizens