No longer serve and continue to be

Old age is not a disease, it is a stage of life linked to the progressive loss of physical and psychic faculties. The polypathologies that older people suffer from can lead to a regression of physical forces and  intellectual faculties, which can lead to a state of dependence that is difficult to bear.

Losing your abilities

No longer feeling able to "do" and being at the mercy of others can lead to abandoning the desire to pursue a life deprived of any sense of responsibility, especially since the loss of capacity is often accentuated by the concern of the entourage to outpace disabilities. But no longer "being" in the eyes of others, of society itself, is even more serious and can generate the desire to disappear. To be considered useless, without the possibility of evolution, without hope, is probably the strongest feeling that projects the affected person towards nothingness, the desire to no longer live.

No longer serving is not only not being able to "do" but also no longer "to be" trustworthy of others to perform certain actions of everyday life, replace a light bulb, accompany children to school, use the internet, drive his car...

What's the point if we're not useful?

If you no longer recognize me any role, if you don't give me any status, if I can't occupy any place, what humanity do you recognize me? The older person feels the desire to be considered a living person, which means being respected, listened to as someone who has things to say that are  important to himself. The autonomy granted to him must allow him to decide for himself, to have personal thoughts, opinions, feelings, desires.

The role of our movements

Older people cannot react otherwise than by a feeling of uneasiness, if they are confronted with the negative gaze placed on them, they depreciate themselves, fall into despair. This probably explains the alarming number of elderly suicides.

Our movements must have the concern to continue to accompany the old people who expect from us a look, a word, in other words, a "non-abandonment".

after Claude Jonnet

Volunteer in the palliative care unit of the Bretonneau Hospital in Paris

Member of the association Jalmalv  (Association "Until death accompany life")

Excerpt from the MCR magazine,  "Nouvel Essor" No. 258 of March 2015