Youth is the future, young people are consulted on all manner of things, and youth culture is so prominent that even politicians have latched on to it. Although this emphasis on those of us aged below 30 years is welcome and helps to get our views heard, blows away a few establishment cobwebs, and perhaps even helps mould our society, it also has a flip side: our attitudes to elderly people. Even the term “elderly” has negative connotations, let alone the other disparaging terms in common usage: “crumblies,” “geris,” and “coffin dodgers.”

We need to think only of our cultural images of older people: the near brain dead creatures who watch passively as two junkies steal their television in the film Trainspotting; the shuffling old lady who has to be reminded to keep warm in the winter; or the mad old duffer banging on about how things were great in his day and expounding views so right wing that even the German propaganda minister during the national-socialist era, Joseph Goebbels, would have drawn a sharp breath. These stereotypes are seen as valid depictions of older persons in Western culture.

In other cultures, older people are valued, and even revered, as repositories of knowledge and wisdom, and are deemed valuable members of society and accorded high status—perhaps in the same way as we would like to be seen as doctors. Their accrued knowledge and experience are seen as assets. So why, then, do we in Britain talk of the increasing “burden” of old people weighing down our already tax laden shoulders?

Perhaps the answer lies in a comment once made to me by a tutor: “We value the things that are rarest.” As young people become increasingly scarce their perceived worth increases. Conversely, the increasingly common older person is “devalued” in the societal “market place.” This perceived lack of worth has important repercussions, in the way we treat elderly people and the importance that we accord to their needs.

In one of the ancient pre-Hellenic civilisations, once old people had reached the end of their economically active lives they were confined to a small hut on the boundaries of the village and left to die. This seems barbaric to modern eyes, but it is not too hard to draw parallels to the nursing and care homes in which so many of our older folk spend their final years, resigned to a life of passivity that does nothing for their autonomy, let alone health.¹At a carol service in a care home this Christmas a friend of mine sat and watched while a local lady hammered out songs on a piano, while the residents sat listlessly, a few mumbling barely audible and half forgotten words. My friend spotted a box of instruments, handed them out, and before long the whole occasion had jollied up; people who had spent weeks or months barely speaking regained their energy and joie de vivre. This was an unusual event at the care home, however. Normally it was easier just to let the residents listlessly endure their autumn years.

In recent years a more tangible expression of our lack of respect for older people has come to light regarding the issue of abuse of elderly persons. Estimates suggest that there are 2.5 million cases a year in the United States, of which only 10% are reported.²It is an issue that has a much lower prominence than other forms of domestic violence and that, until very recently, was blamed on “caregiver stress.” Imagine the outcry if wife bashing was blamed on “husband stress.”

With ever increasing numbers of older people we should be reassessing our attitudes, viewing them as a valuable part of society. I remember working on a geriatrics ward and asking one of the nurses why she had chosen that branch of nursing. She said it was because she felt privileged to work with older people, who had so much more life experience. The thought that we are privileged to work with older people, rather than expecting them to be grateful for the care we give, is perhaps the attitude we should begin to take. We should stop thinking of elderly people as a burden and view them as people with a lot to contribute to society. Help the aged? Maybe we should be helped by them.