Geriatrics?: Why Not?

Abstract

GERIATRICS? WHYNOT? JOHN H. FELTS* Some time ago my department chairman asked the questions, "Geriatrics? But Why?" and offered answers for the concerned and curious [I]. For fellow faculty members he suggested that "the golden age of clinical investigation can be relived in geriatric research." As a senior member of his department resident in his seventh decade, a golden ager approaching the golden age, armed with an AARP membership card, a Silver Saver's Passport, and a Golden Age Passport for entrance into federal recreation areas, must I now consider myself a subject for my own geriatric investigations? I have been studying the matter, my own problem in particular, seeking to write a proper protocol. Although I have read and re-read Ecclesiastes , have pondered Job, and have marveled that Rabbi Ben Ezra could sincerely and lyrically invite people to "Grow old along with me," offering assurance that "the best is yet to be," preparing protocols defies mind and pen. But some observations can be offered. Receptor regulation. My intellectual membranes do not behave as I would like. My receptors for recent memory do not activate as quickly, nor can I unload ancient, almost useless information. If I could, there would be more room for the new and my intellectual traffic would be less constipated. Of what value is the knowledge of the life cycle of Plasmodium vivax in this country today, of schizonts, merozoites, and Schuffner 's granules, and of such verbal relics as pseudochancre redux? AARP. This acronym has swept its antecedent, American Association of Retired People (AARP), from our field of speech, possibly because one does not have to be retired to be a member, only to have thought about doing so. It makes one wonder what has happened to the seven ages of man. Middle age must now extend indefinitely from 25. Golden years, golden age, and other auric appellations. Golden age refers to the times of ancient societies living in harmony, innocence, and *Department of Medicine, Bowman Gray School of Medicine of Wake Forest University, 300 South Hawthorne Road, Winston-Salem, North Carolina 27103.© 1989 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 003 1-5982/89/3204-065 1$01 .00 Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 32, 4 ¦ Summer 1989 \ 565 serenity, far from the modern marketplace. But today's aches and pains nullify yesterday's utopias. We have swapped aspirations for aspirin in these our golden years. For they must be golden ifthe peddling ofcredit cards, gold, silver, or otherwise, by mail is any indication. My father-inlaw , 20 years dead, is still receiving application forms conferring prestige unavailable elsewhere. Even the living must wonder how prestige comes from clerks, cashiers, and waiters, those most skeptical of tradesmen. Demographics. We Nestorians (after Nestor, King of Pylos, wise and aged counselor to the Greeks at Troy) are learning about ourselves, about our mean incomes; our numbers in the Sunbelt, the rust belt, and elsewhere; our drinking habits; our sexual behavior; our political loyalties ; what we eat; where and when and how long we travel; what securities we own; and what we should buy or sell. We have learned that we are members of the market with our own physical and financial profiles and our own distinctive emotional needs. Perhaps Nestorian is the wrong word for us. We are the ones receiving counsel, based on wisdom generated by polls and statistical analyses. I did not realize until I reached my sixtieth year that I had become a demographic datum. That was the year that Human Sexuality and Hospital Practice disappeared from my mail within weeks of each other. The loss ofHuman Sexuality was not shattering. It tended to be repetitive, but I do miss the learned articles analyzing jokes, unconsciously humorous in their solemnity. Hospital Practice I miss more. Besides publishing wellillustrated , well-written articles, it offered the stimulating musings of Weissman and Morowitz. But their essays have been collected and published separately, so all is not lost [2, 3]. About the time I became a sexagenarian and lost Human Sexuality, I was invited to "join the growing numbers of people in North Carolina who have benefited from the latest medical update" offered by a...