Getting old and being treated young.
I just found myself congratulating an elderly patient for going to the bathroom. And next to me was a nurse talking to her in the nurses baby voice. And while all this is going on it occurs to me that all of the elderly patients we have, mainly the ones that slipping into an altered mental status, are always treated in the way that you would treat a small child, “Did you just go to the bathroom? Good job.” I think we’re one step away from giving them a lollipop when we pick them up from the Doctors office. But my question is, do they know, and if so, why do they not say anything, why do they just smile at us and act as though they also are reverting back to their child like state of mind? I guess I’ll never really know. Well, I might know, but by then I’m not sure I’ll know to care.
