Treat ME—Not My Age!

Last week, a story popped up on one of my social media feeds that told the story of a 30-year-old woman whose doctors failed to diagnose a life-threatening illness FOR MONTHS.

Why? BECAUSE SHE WAS 30.

Similarly, I’ve read and heard a number of stories about life-threatening and/or life-limiting diagnoses being missed in older adults, particularly those over the age of 60.

Why? BECAUSE OF THEIR AGE.

This has GOT to stop. There should be no place in healthcare for ageism.

And yet . . .

Did you know that ALL aspiring physicians are required to do a pediatrics rotation as part of their training—even if they never expect to treat children? Yet NO medical school students are required to do a geriatrics rotation—even though most of them will at some point in their careers treat older adults?

Worse than that, research shows that ageism in healthcare is actually BAD FOR OUR HEALTH:

One example if that is in the declining number of physicians who accept Medicare. Another is that older patients tend to live with multiple chronic conditions—each of which may be treated by a different doctor—and without one physician (ostensibly a GERIATRICIAN) a monitoring their overall care, they could be at risk for taking medications that do not mix well with each other.

Still another is that older adults have been led to believe some of their conditions—fatigue, chronic pain, low libido, etc.—are just normal parts of aging, so they fail to talk with their doctors about them. And when they do, these older patients are often infantilized by their doctors who speak to them as though the patients are children: slower, louder, and using simpler vocabulary (that is, when these doctors have the patience to spend any time with them at all).

And ageism in healthcare comes with other costs, as well—like $63 BILLION in a SINGLE YEAR.

Of course, not all healthcare providers are ageist. But the fact remains that, according to an article published last year by Next Avenue, less than 1% (7,300) of all physicians right now are geriatricians—and we will need AT LEAST 30,000 geriatricians by 2030 to adequately meet the demand, given the rapidly increasing population of Adults 65+.

The bottom line is EVERY PATIENT deserves to be treated as the unique individual they are, REGARDLESS OF THEIR AGE.

Because age is neither the cause of—nor the antidote to—disease. Period.

For more information about healthcare in aging, including some of the statistics included in this post, please click here.

#agingisliving #endageism #changethenarrative