50 years ago it was rare to see family’s taking care of late 80- 90 year olds. There weren’t that many around. And if they were, they weren’t taking 3 pages of medications and having numerous operations that were keeping them alive past their natural expiration time.
Right on.
The idealized view of “having Granny in the home” was more likely to be one of her in her rocker, helping out with the grandchildren and watching the pots on the stove.
Very few of our colonial ancestors were changing diapers and running back and forth to doctors/hospitals.
I think that geriatrics is a PERFECT place for the new group of PA’s and nurse practitioners to thrive. I’m no doctor, but it seems that medication management, chronic illness, post-op followup, etc. is a good place for these individuals, and a lot of money could be saved as well as more time per patient given.
You make a good point. I would also mention that “back in the day”, for the most part at least, not as many women worked outside of the home and so some had the time to take care of their infirmed elderly parents, but that’s not to say that this was an easy job.
My mother’s aunt’s husband suffered an on the job injury that left him paralyzed below the waste and later he suffered a debilitating stroke and was cared for at home until he died at around the age of 45.
Back then there was no worker’s comp or insurance or Medicare or SSA, in home therapy, but my great aunt managed to take care of him and their two young boys with the help of my grandmother and my mother who lived with her after my grandfather died at an early age (40 something) from a sudden massive heart attack. But my great aunt ended up going to work full time as a bookkeeper just to make ends meet for this extended household. And my grandmother took in laundry and cleaned houses for their more well off neighbors while helping to care for her BIL and the kids. My mother dropped out of high school in the 11th grade to get a job in a candy store because during the depression, a job was hard to come by and very much needed and more important than a high school diploma.
As a little kid, I remember my great aunt Serene was one tough cookie, loving and kind but very tough, she a very tough outer shell, a rather stern personality sometimes¸ but then she needed one to get through those very tough times.