To understand someone, you must walk a mile in their shoes

While now it is more important than ever for people of different faiths and political persuasions to try to fully understand another’s viewpoint, this column is concerned with how our society (which includes our friends and family) view the life experience known as aging.

This experience, which all living creatures share, is one of the least recognized and least understood of society’s many prejudices. Donna Fedus, a brilliant social gerontologist, innovative program developer, and a warm and empathetic mother of three girls, has, along with her cofounder, attorney and television producer Lauren Lewis, formed Borrow My Glasses, a company that looks at aging and caregiving from a new perspective. The name of the company reflects Donna’s deep belief in the importance of bringing new perspectives to work with older adults and caregivers and to help each person understand and empathize with another’s viewpoint. Sometimes Borrow My Glasses helps caregivers understand how people living with Alzheimer’s see the world and how to connect with them. Sometimes it helps siblings get on the same page in caring for their parents. Sometimes she will connect families with other experts or resources.

Donna offers caregiver training for families and eldercare professionals and designs programs, services and training for organizations. Currently, her team is working on a multimedia project, “Living with Palliative Care,” born out of the true experiences of a patient with stage 4 lung cancer.

Palliative care is a relatively new medical specialty, which focuses on pain and symptom control, quality of life, family involvement, and all aspects of the psycho/social/ spiritual life of a person with a life-threatening illness. Because it is a new specialty, at present there are a limited number of practitioners, but most hospitals and some homecare agencies have palliative-care specialists, if a family knows to request their help.

I recently took part in an exciting new program which pairs Borrow My Glasses with AARP CT to create the ”Disrupt Aging” campaign, an interactive curriculum designed to transform attitudes about aging and change behavior. It is the first time AARP has developed a cobranded program with a community collaborator.

Our group, ranging in age from 50 to 90, was shown examples of how people are portrayed in the media; often as old, poor, frail, grumpy, slow, boring, etc. We were alerted to be aware of negative messages and challenged on our own assumptions made from looking at pictures of other seniors.

We also learned that the stereotypes from the past do not fit how people age today. Of great importance as well is experts agree that what you think about aging does impact how long you live, how healthy you are and how well you take care of yourself.

I highly recommend the book “Disrupt Aging” by Jo Ann Jenkins, the CEO of AARP, as a reference on how to embrace opportunities and change the way we look at getting older.

For more information or to join the mailing list to be alerted to upcoming classes for caregivers, visit borrowmyglasses. com. Donna may also be reached at donna@borrowmyglasses.com or 203318-8100.