An Elder Funny

Things have changed a lot at my job over the last five years. The patients have changed, technology has changed, medical practice has changed, paint on the wall has changed, our carpeting has changed, family member types have changed, languages we speak have changed....among many more. And it's our job to just sort of roll with the flow.

Well there is one change I have noticed- increasingly present over the last year- that tickles my funny bone.

The geriatric population that I take care of now is now just as attached to their cell phones as the younger generations. Not only am I seeing 80% of my 80+aged patients with cell phones on their table, (or in their bed), but they charge them too. Now at bedtime, after the dentures come out, the cell phone gets plugged in, too.

Yesterday I had spent a little while with a patient and was just about to leave the room when she said, "wait!" I turned around, "yes?"

"can you bring me my cell phone from my bedside table?"

Not only that, but these aren't just cell phones. They are iPhones. And blackberries. Droids. And other really nice phones. They are attached.

In today's day and age, I'm not sure why I have noticed this change. Is it that when cell phones became popular, the 80 year olds now were then 70s and wanted a phone?

My guess is that its the cell-phone addicted children of these elders that are responsible for the change. I think the elders could get by without ever having had a cell phone. It's the children, the middle aged children that are so dependent on their cell phones that it makes them feel insecure and crazy that they can't just call their parents, wherever they may be. So they buy mom and dad a cell phone and teach them how to use it, and then they become dependent on them too.

I just laugh at the thought of what the generation of today, ages 15-40, what technology we will be bringing with us to the hospital. I've already seen laptops, a couple iPods...what else is next? Interesting funny. :-)

~WNB