Dona Tversky
My Health, My Self: Images and Words of Older Adults
Abstract
Globally and domestically, we are aging. A decline in fertility and a 20 year life span increase over the past five decades means that in the United States, the number of people over 65 is expected to rise from 12.4% of the population to approximately 20% by 2030. Because the number of geriatricians cannot expand in time to meet this surge, all physicians in adult medicine will be called upon to treat older patients and understand their concerns. Many different models have been proposed to capture what is meant by successful aging, including the biomedical and psychosocial as well as lay or personal models. However the dominant model remains medical, and explains why many physicians are unaware of the personal, emotional and psychological components of successful aging that are important to patients. This contributes to the stereotype of old age as a failing state of the body, and to the perpetuation of negative stereotypes towards senior populations.
One method of deepening understanding about older adults’ attitudes towards their health and aging is by asking them directly. This project used semi-structured interviews and photographs to illustrate participants’ experience of, and reflections on their health, bodies and sense of identity as they age. A collection of volunteers from the community and local assisted living homes were recruited for hour-long interviews followed by photo sessions in their homes. The project aimed to demystify these settings and increase exposure to the faces and perspectives of healthy older adults. A selection of photographs and excerpts from the interviews have been culled for public display to advance the medical fields’ understanding of health and aging from a personal standpoint.
Photos
Oleg: We every day say God bless America. We was working – hard working– for the Ukraine, and we did not receive any penny from this government. But we never ever worked for the United States. And they gave us everything that we need for life, this apartment and SSI and medical – everything that we need.
Rachel: Compare us to American old people, and it’s absolutely different because our life was so hard. Our salary was so small – it was enough to buy food and just a little bit for clothing – for nothing more. American people – when they retire, they still have a lot of power, they have money to travel, to start a new business, to go to some places. We have not money, not power, not good health.
Rakhil Moysey Macheret
9 December 1932
Slavuta, Ukraine (former USSR)
&
Oleg Andreyevich Macheret
1 April 1933
Kharkov, Ukraine
I will tell you a story. I was waiting for somebody on 59th street, between 5th and 6th in New York. And I was leaning against a wall and a very striking elderly person with white hair was there also waiting. And he started to say, “you see this beautiful woman…you see this beautiful gorgeous lady…” I said “gorgeous, yes.” He said “Twenty years ago there was no such thing as a young lady like this walking by without looking at me. I was alive! And now I can sit here for 3 hours and not one young woman will look at me.” He said “Do you know how bad it makes me feel?”
For you in America to become part of social activities you have to be a part of the social group in a certain age. Otherwise you are just a passerby. There is nobody who stops even to ask you how you are doing.
Rafael Ben Natan
24 January 1932
Berlin, Germany
I have arthritis, and I don’t think about it. I get up and go with the arthritis. I get up in the morning and go take me a hot shower, I love taking my shower. I wash myself real good, soap myself, and let that water run on me, clean myself up, and put my clean clothes on every day. Every morning, I get up like I’ve got a job.
Willie Marie Brown
Hammond, Louisiana
16 January 1926
We were in China this last summer for a month –– in the villages in southwestern China. I think the people there age a lot more quickly than we do because it was a hard life. I was in an elevator one day in the hotel, and there were these two men. And they were saying in Chinese, “I wonder how old she is.” They’re not used to seeing people with white hair. They’re not used to seeing older people out in the open, and here was one in a hotel elevator. So finally they couldn’t stand it – they asked me, and I told them, and they nearly flipped. And they said: “You have your teeth.” I didn’t tell them that some of them weren’t real.
R.W.
April 1914
Victoria, Canada
I think what happens with women, especially, as they live a little bit longer, so they are left and there is nobody. I could tell you at least 3 women I know who are my age or older and they are also alone in these big houses.
The things that I have enjoyed is that you can sit and eat your lunch, you can read while you are eating and you don’t have to get up and get food for everybody else at the table. So you can sit there for an hour if you want.
Janice Kelly
25 February 1925
San Francisco, CA
I miss driving the car. When I was 90 years old, I took the car. They had said, “you mustn’t go in to town – Palo Alto.” And I disobeyed, and I went. And do you know how Long’s– in the back there is that door, and they move by themselves. And I just fell like this. So I broke my elbow there.
Getting older, it’s boring, it’s like a prison. You live on memories. I try to remember always the good things and don’t remember the bad things, but sometimes they come, you know.
Raimonda Bartolini
19 May 1912
Florence, Italy
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