Why older people make better patients
No question, the internet rules the modern roost. The web has revolutionized commerce, education, dating and publishing, among many other worlds.
But it has not (yet) revolutionized the relationship between doctors and their older patients.
My source for this notion is the sainted Rebecca.
She has been an assistant to my cardiologist for some 30 years. Throughout that time, she has done my blood draws, scolded me about my diet, implored me to do something about rush-hour traffic (sorry, Rebecca).
She has helped keep me alive. She knows her job ice cold.
The other day, she added another honor. She taught me that older patients are generally better patients.
Huh? Those famously grumpy hypochondriacs? Those exaggerators of symptoms? Those demanding wrinkled creatures who want the medical profession to keep them alive forever, and who can’t understand why that’s impossible?
Why are they better patients, Rebecca?
Because they don’t live on the internet as often or as extensively as younger patients do.
Therefore, she says, oldies are less likely to challenge docs and their staff with some flimsy notion (often wrong) that they’ve picked up in cyberspace.
According to Rebecca, older patients still generally treat the word of medical staff as gospel. They want to hear it from the doc’s or the nurse’s lips. And once they do, they take that advice seriously.
Rebecca says that some older patients come prepared. They will bring notebooks to appointments. As the doc dishes out counsel, they will write down every word.
Never mind that most medical practices will now hand you a printed sheaf of exit documents. These pages make note-taking unnecessary.
But Rebecca says that older patients often follow advice better when they write it down themselves. As crusty as that habit may seem to some, there’s no arguing with results.
Of course, doctors aren’t gods. It can never hurt for patients to consult reliable sources such as the Mayo Clinic, NIH or a local library.
Yet the internet is soo-o-o tempting, and older people are increasingly tempted.
Why struggle to a shopping mall when one can order a birthday gift with just a few clicks? Why send a thank-you note through the mail (as we 20th-century folk were browbeaten into doing) when an email will do just fine? And why not glom onto some apparently reliable medical website, as the younger ones do?
Because in Real Life Medical World, older patients tend to want service delivered in the same old way, Rebecca reports. They sometimes ask for handwritten prescriptions. They want a harried doc to check just one more ache or pain. Some even wonder why docs no longer make house calls.
Yes, lonely or chatter-addicted older patients can treat medical appointments like social events. They will munch a busy doc’s time with copious details about a recent vacation. They will compliment a nurse’s hairdo at length.
Don’t we all know an octogenarian who dumped a world-class doc because he or she didn’t smile enough?
As for medical appointments that fail to start on time, no one complains more loudly about that than seniors, Rebecca says. Even though they no longer work full time and don’t have kids to pick up from soccer practice.
But the best way to appreciate older medical patients is to recognize how younger ones (mis)behave.
Let’s say that a doctor recommends a certain drug. Younger patients will often push back, based on a 30-second Google search or a TV commercial, according to Rebecca. Older patients almost never do that. Or let’s say that a doctor recommends a consultation with a specialist. Older people will almost always book an appointment right away, Rebecca says. Younger ones might counter with some online article that they think is sufficient.
Rebecca’s bottom line: Effective medical care is a cooperative venture. It’s not about medical staff handing down advice from a mountaintop. Nor is it about believing a cyber-doc whom a patient has never met.
It’s about basing advice and treatment on experience and careful, personal study. It’s about trusting Rebeccas. If a younger patient wants to believe some unsourced, unsigned rant on his computer, he’s doing worse by himself, not better.
So please take a bow, older patients. As cranky as you can sometimes be, Rebecca and her ilk respect you because you respect them.
The web might be fine for gamers and day traders. But seniors know that docs and Rebeccas are, if you will, the best medicine.
Bob Levey is a national award-winning columnist.
