Aging Baby Boomers Find New Wrinkle in Old Story

It isn’t true that the baby boomer generation, so infatuated with itself and so convinced of its own immortality, will never grow old.

The future will someday be upon us, and we will eventually utter the same sentence that every human being who lives long enough has uttered since the dawn of time: “I can’t believe it, I’m old.”

But what will it be like?

I suppose that was the source of my interest in wanting to attend a presentation by Age Wave Inc., a San Francisco Bay-area organization that is catching the old folks wave and marketing it to various companies and institutions.

The company sent Mark Goldstein, one of its seminar presenters, to Orange County where he spoke to about 20 administrators from St. Jude Hospital and Rehabilitation Center in Fullerton.

“We’re going to give you a chance to be 70 years old,” Goldstein told the group. By being old, if only under simulated conditions, Goldstein said, younger people can more easily understand what an older person may be going through.

It sounded like a fun little game. Goldstein gave us dark glasses, glazed a bit on the lenses to simulate both the dimmer light that older people experience as their eyes weaken and also the effects of cataracts.

We put in earplugs to hamper hearing. We attached nose clips and then tried to breathe normally through a straw to simulate the decreased lung capacity that comes with age. We wore rubber gloves to simulate less-dexterous or arthritic fingers. Wearing the gloves and dark glasses, we then attempted to sort out a confusing array of variously colored tiny pills that would represent our daily medications.

Suddenly, our world didn’t look the same.

The bright colors of life grew dim; shapes and sizes were less distinct; sounds and voices were more muffled; drawing a full breath was a chore.

So much for having fun.

By the time we were through, no one enjoyed being old, even for the few minutes of make-believe.

Goldstein asked for people’s reactions to the temporary impairments, and these were the responses: frustration, confusion, anger, anxiety, panic, embarrassment, reduced confidence that led to fear, and even physical discomfort resulting from the disorientation.

“Imagine how that might change your life,” Goldstein said.

I don’t think he had to suggest it. I think that’s what everyone was thinking. Almost immediately, it was easy to understand why older people, especially the sick ones, might appear to be chronically unhappy or disengaged from life.

Goldstein’s simple test showed how the world of an older person can dwindle, how loneliness and isolation can elbow their way into people’s lives. If seeing, hearing or simple breathing become laborious, you can understand why the most natural reaction is to withdraw from society, leading to the situational depression or chronic mild depression that commonly afflicts the elderly.

For the hospital administrators, the seminar has practical applications because they can apply it to dealing with their patients. But it’s too bad everyone else under the age of 70, whether they work in a packing plant or a high-rise office building, can’t take the same simple test.

Society has to enlighten itself about its older citizens, if for no other reason than there will soon be so many of them.

The times they will be a-changin’ as America’s baby boomer generation hits old age, or, at least, what used to pass for old age.

At the turn of the 20th Century, people over 65 accounted for about 3% to 4% of the population. Now, they represent about 12% of the population. In raw numbers, about 32 million people are now 65 or older; by 2020, the number is expected to grow to 55 million to 60 million. If only because of their raw numbers, they will continue to be a force in American life and will refuse to be ignored.

The next time an elderly relative or friend asks that something be repeated, I doubt that any of us who were at the seminar will act impatient. The next time our aging parents seem out of sorts or don’t want to join in on some outing, we won’t browbeat them.

No, those of us at the seminar got a good dose of consciousness-raising.

And for no extra charge, a glimpse into our own futures.