Resilience, the subject of a large-scale study published recently in The Gerontologist, reminds me of what a Supreme Court justice once said of pornography: It’s hard to define, but we know it when we see it.
We’ve all noticed resilience’s effects, haven’t we? Most older people cope with several chronic diseases and have encountered losses and challenges. Some seem to withdraw into isolation and inactivity even when they remain relatively strong.
Others respond more like the late Evelyn Nade, whom I met in a New Jersey nursing home a few years ago. She was 82 then, a wheelchair user who couldn’t rise from her bed without two aides using a mechanical hoist — yet she was the sunniest person in the place, the president of the residents’ council, the founder of a Red Hat Society chapter and a formidable poker player.
Age, health and finances can’t fully explain such disparities, so social scientists are constantly exploring other factors that might play a role.
[For more of this story, written by Paula Span, go to http://newoldage.blogs.nytimes...tntemail0=y&_r=0]
Comments (0)