All too often, in an attempt to be friendly or as a way of showing an elderly person they care, health care providers, retail clerks, hair dressers and restaurant servers, just to name a few, start talking in “elder speak.” People use this form of language when they assume that the older person they are talking to isn’t “all there” and probably can’t hear very well, either. In no time at all, they start dumbing down the conversation to a point where it almost sounds like “baby talk.”
If you’re wondering what elderspeak sounds like, here are some examples offered up by respondents on the “New Old Age” blog of the New York Times:
When asking someone their age, they ask “How many years young are you?”
Salutations often begin with “Hi sweetie, cutie, or honey.”
Actions, as simple as taking a pill, are evaluated like a grade school child with “Good job! Or good girl or good boy.”
A woman clearly in her seventies and older is referred to as “young lady.”
The nurse or doctor who asks her patient, “How are we feeling?”
Rather than asking about a career or current interests, an older person is asked, “Who were you or what did you used to be?
Greeting older people by their first name, as they would a teenager.
The overall tone of elderspeak is usually patronizing, over bearing and spoken slowly in a loud voice using simple words. The speech sends the subliminal message that the older person is incompetent. And here’s the thing: people pick up on it – even those with Alzheimer’s disease – and they don’t like it. They see it as insulting and a form of bullying.
New research shows that elderspeak, no matter how well intentioned by the speaker, is a lot more than an annoyance for those on the receiving end. Dr. Kristine Williams, an associate professor at the University of Kansas School of Nursing, analyzed hundreds of video tapped interactions between staff and residents who suffered from mild to moderate dementia. They identified if the staff used elderspeak, spoke normally or said nothing at all while they helped a resident with bathing, dressing, or grooming and then rated how residents reacted to the exchange. What the researchers found was sobering: when nurse aides used elderspeak, the residents resisted by physically pulling back, saying no, grimacing, grabbing the person or clenching their teeth. The more the residents became uncooperative, the more the staff resorted to talking to them like misbehaving children.
Dr. Mary Mittleman, Director of Psychosocial Research at the Silberstein Institute on Aging explains it this way: “It is a mistake to assume that a diagnosis of dementia means that a person becomes more like a baby. They may still have a lot of memories from far-distant times…they have a history which babies don’t.” She goes onto advise that ‘speaking to a person as an adult is probably going to get a whole lot more cooperation.”
It’s not just older people with dementia that are negatively affected by elderspeak. Anyone over sixty can be worn down by all the negative messages and images of aging conveyed in our culture, let alone as to how people talk to them. One major study showed that older people, who buy into these harmful perceptions and stereotypes, live 7.5 years LESS than those who ignore them and keep a positive attitude about growing older.
YOUR TURN
Share your elderspeak story. What's your pet peeve?
