“All older people are vulnerable.”

The above statement is from the lecture notes of an established global nurse leader at a conference on institutional care of older people, which I attended recently. The statement caught me by surprise. No offense intended, but I could not disagree more.

First, it’s patronizing. I don’t think all older people hold similar beliefs about themselves. I think health professionals should be caring and empathic, but certainly not patronizing. We do not always know what is best for others. We would like to think we do, but we don’t, at least not always.

Second, the message seems to imply that people can be categorized purely on the basis of age, according to whether they are fully capable of looking after their own affairs or not. In our society, we generally agree that children and disabled people are vulnerable and require protection, but if we follow the conference speaker’s logic, it would mean that only those in the well adult population are fully capable beings. So where does that leave us? Should we allow only well adults to lead the world?

Vulnerability should be perceived as a multi-dimensional concept when applied to humanity and should be not used as a descriptive label. A disabled person can be physically handicapped and, therefore, vulnerable to environmental barriers they come across in their daily life. A physically frail person can be vulnerable, in that he or she easily falls ill. A terminally ill person may be vulnerable to “assaults” on his or her humanity when the need for analgesics is ignored. A cognitively impaired older person may be vulnerablebecause his or her power of discretion is compromised.

But not all older people are vulnerable. They should not be. An elder with no loss of mental faculties, even though physically frail, can adequately manage his or her own affairs. Whenever we refer to the vulnerability of older adults, qualifying statements are required so that we are not disempowering our older clients.

The first baby boomers reached 65 in 2006. Let us not forget that future cohorts of older people are better educated and economically more secure than their predecessors. They certainly are in a much better position to manage their own affairs, and we should respect that.

For Reflections on Nursing Leadership (RNL), published by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International.