Keynote Speech - The Delivery of Healthcare to the Aging
Audience: Life Services Network, April 2005
Date: April, 2005
Location: Chicago, Ill.
Topic: The Delivery of Healthcare to the Aging
Dr. Hammerschlag recently addressed, the Life Services Network in Illinois. An audience of 2500 healthcare professionals who attend the needs of the aged and infirmed, listened to him speak about new ways to think about elderhood, and the delivery of services to the aging. His presentation was entitled, “Go Where There is no Path and Leave a Trail”.
There are 6 million Americans over 65 (about 1 in 12), by 2050 it will be 86 million (about 1 in 5). We are living longer and healthier lives, and medical/surgical advances are keeping people alive longer (maybe longer than we want to be). In the last decade the number of elderly Americans in assisted-living has tripled to nearly one million, half of whom have some degree of cognitive impairment.
With these exploding numbers, who is going to take care of these people and how do we, as care providers, help them and ourselves come to our days with joy?
Dr. H. spoke of The 5 C’s :
CHOICE
It’s not the events in our lives that do us in, but the choices we make about how we come to them.
COURAGE
It doesn’t matter what you face, remember it is you who have it, not it that has you. Don’t lose your sense of humor, if you can still laugh, you can find a way to move beyond your limitations.
CURIOUSITY
Everything has something to teach us. Look again at what you know and see it from another perspective. You don’t have to be sure about everything.
CONNECTIONS
Connect to something other than yourself, something or someone that reminds you, that you do not face the journey alone.
COSMIC
Get beyond what you can see, feel, and hear. Open yourself up to the mysterious. Discover the awesome.
This is the heroic journey, to Go Where There is no Path and Leave a Trail.
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