Aging Affects Communication

1. AGING AFFECTS
COMMUNICATION
Presenter: Jack Benke, Professional Advocate

2. I’M EXCITED ABOUT STARTING THE
CONVERSATION!
• My name is Jack Benke.
• I am a professional advocate and aging adult myself
• I have been putting on educational workshops for many years on
subjects I care deeply about.
• I have a accumulated a wide variety of complimentary disciplines,
and I put this knowledge and experience to work for my clients.

3. I LOVE SHARING INFORMATION I THINK
OTHERS CAN BENEFIT FROM…
I recently read a book titled How to Say it to Seniors
by David Solie. I am going to share with you some of
the information I took away from this book. This is a
book that has helped me immensely with the quality
of communication I have with my aging clients and
older friends.

4. “ A G E I S A N O P P O R T U N I T Y N O
L E S S T H A N Y O U T H I T S E L F,
T H O U G H I N A N O T H E R D R E S S .
- H . W. L O N G F E L LO W

5. OVERLOOKED AGENDAS OF AGING
ADULTS
Communicating with the elderly is sometimes frustrating. We need to develop skills and
strategies to work through these issues. We can learn to communicate effectively by
using different language, phrases, and vocabulary.
1. We need to understand the senior adults developmental agenda
2. We need to recognize how development tasks can interfere with our ability to
communicate effectively
3. There are easy to learn skills that enhance inter-generational communication
4. Use this book as a guide to becoming advocates for our elders

6. WHAT IS DEVELOPING IN THE ELDERLY
PSYCHOLOGICAL MAKEUP
What we observe with aging adults:
• Movement slows down and they show signs of losing strength
• Repeat stories and have difficulty staying on topic
• Fret the small stuff, and end conversations before finding
resolution
• They don’t act or talk the same as they age
• We see them declining right before our eyes

7. EXPLODING THE “MYTH OF
INCAPACITY”
Examining two elderly developmental drivers:
1. Maintaining Control
2. Searching for their legacy
These drivers can conflict with each other and with our own agenda. These conflicts
manifest themselves in their unique communication habits. As we begin to understand
these predictable dilemmas the elderly face, we realize how strong and brave our senior
citizens are.

8. SOME SEE AGING A SYSTEMS FAILURE
• Bodies don’t wok as well as they used to, so it seems reasonable to assume that the
brains don’t work as well either
• The brain’s physiology changes with age in ways that promote the person’s need for
reflection, insight, and innovation.
• Medical problems can have repercussions: mini-stroke, Alzheimer’s, and depression
can create diminished capacity. However, it is erroneous to assume that all changes in
behavior and communication in this group are the result or these or other diseases.
• Slowing down is not synonymous with diminished capacity.
• Research shows that most mental capabilities remain intact throughout the aging
process.
• Brain functions change with aging to enhance the more reflective demands of this
stage of life.

9. OUR ELDERS SHOW SOME CHANGES
IN PREFRONTAL CORTEX OF BRAIN
• Prefrontal cortex is the prime platform for working memory capacity and responsible
for processing new information
• All other brain activities, including IQ and the capacity for verbal expression, language,
and abstract thinking, remain gloriously intact.
• Changes in the prefrontal cortex of the brain will eventually result in the loss of doing
multiple mental manipulations. As a result, some things may begin to fade, distraction
sets in, and focus becomes compromised. However, slowing of these mental
processes enhances the ability to reflect and make informed judgements.
• Slowing can actually work to one’s advantage; that is, older people are better at
mulling over situations, reflecting, and drawing on life experiences to arrive at
decisions.

10. TIME LAG IN DECISION MAKING
ALLOWS WISDOM TO SURFACE
• Aging forces us to stop the frenetic pace
• This allow us to search for patterns of what’s
happening in our lives
• Elders turn from the external world, with pagers and
cell phones, and return to their internal world to begin
a lengthy life review.

11. WE NEED TO BECOME ADVOCATES
FOR OUR ELDERS
One of the primary challenges that face the elderly is creating their legacy; that is, how
they want to be remembered.
• Spoken or not, the elderly are reviewing the events in their lives from the perspective
of age.
• This can be an all consuming task, from two vantage points; 1, their lives have been
spent moving forward; 2, loss of the communal society that once enhanced this
process.
• The safety net with all their friends and family in one place gradually disappear.
• Seniors don’t really benefit from our ability to help them with end of life tasks because
we don’t take the time or possess the skills to do it.

12. WHAT IS “LEGACY COACHING”?
“Elder frustration” results from the inability of professionals to interact effectively with elders.
This is a result of professionals thinking they are asking the right questions, but they are not.
Due to their lack of understanding their client’s developmental agendas, this prevents them
from connecting with their client’s heartfelt concerns. Hence, their client’s tend to summarily
reject their advice.
David Solie suggests that; “… most of the unsettling behavior of our elders is the result of
developmental tasks operating intensely in a world that is hostile to them.”

13. COMMUNAL SOCIETY REVERED THEIR
ELDERS. LEGACY’S EMERGED FORMALLY
• Control not an issue because they were supported in dealing with their losses
• The term elder has been ripped out of our vocabulary and now we use “old”
• Elders now battle to express their age-appropriate desire to a culture that does not
know what their desires are, or what is truly motivating their behavior.
• We need to nourish our elders, as we do our children. We need open a rich load of
experience from which to draw, so they can be remembered the way they want to be
remembered.
• We need to use language that allows the person to reveal secrets. Contained in these
secrets are the clues that suggest legacy.

14. PERSONALITY CONTINUES TO
DEVELOP AS WE AGE
We can enhance our relationship with our elders by:
• Appreciating their age based agenda
• Minimize our clash with our own internal agendas
• Master a few easy communication strategies to facilitate their end-of-life
tasks
• Enhance our ability to offer the kinds of language and nonverbal
reinforcements that allow for better communication

15. W H AT S T O R I E S
W O U L D Y O U L I K E
T O S H A R E ?
WHAT QUESTIONS WOULD
YOU LIKE TO ASK ME?
My take away from the opening of David Solie’s
Book “How to Say it to Seniors”
Jack Benke, President
Advocates for Vulnerable Adults
www.AppointAVA.com
Direct: 651-398-3183
Email: jtbenke@pro-ns.net
Fax 651-344-0808