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Health & Fitness

Senior Care | Who's Calling Who Old!

Every aspect of job performance gets better as we age.

Senior Care | Who’s Calling Who Old! written by Stan Lawson of Sequoia Senior Solutions  


Earlier this year we discussed the topic of ageism, Senior Care: Ageism--Bad for a Person's Health, and we want to revisit this topic again. Our post evoked a good deal of discussion and the subject of how to define aging and being old is definitely a tricky and touchy one.  As one person commented, older people tend to feel younger when they are treated as such. If you treat someone as frail and incapable they often end up seeing themselves that way.

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Related article: Senior Care: Ageism--Bad for a Person's Health

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It’s the teacher’s attitude that counts

Research has been done on this topic which helps prove this point. One such study involved using school children as shown below.

Different classrooms with a mixture of children who had made low to high scores on a standardized test the year before were given teachers who were told that their class this year had either low scoring or high scoring children.   
 
 
Tests at the end of the year reflected the teachers' expectations rather than what the children did the year before.  
 
 
 
What is amazing is that children who teachers had low expectations for in previous years scored higher if their teacher thought they were smarter. 
 
 
 
This same principle applies to our senior citizens.

In other words the things senior say to themselves about themselves can affect how they feel about themselves. Why wait for someone else to impose upon you his or her attitude?

“Get a Job” more than just the 1957 Silhouettes song

This brings us to the topic of employment, the way that it applies to this ‘ageism’ concept is that of hiring older people. It is definitely harder for people over the age of 50 to find employment. They are often told that they are too old to learn a new skill or to change careers.

The following informative article, Older Workers are More Valuable in the Workforce, Sept 2013, addresses this head on.

The common thought on hiring older workers is one of assumption as the article clearly states:

Other studies have shown that employers assume older applicants are less creative, less productive, slower mentally and more expensive to employ than early- or mid-career employees.

But Peter Cappelli, a management professor at the Wharton School of business is quoted as saying the following:

When it comes to actual job performance, Cappelli says, older employees soundly thrash their younger colleagues.”Every aspect of job performance gets better as we age," he declares. "I thought the picture might be more mixed, but it isn't. The juxtaposition between the superior performance of older workers and the discrimination against them in the workplace just really makes no sense.

Hit or a Myth

An article, 2013 AARP Best Employers for Workers Over 50, talks about plenty of myths and facts relating to hiring older workers. Some of the myths and facts talked about include things like:

Myth: Older workers are more likely to be burned out and less productive than their younger colleagues.

Reality: According to a 2009 report from the Sloan Center on Aging & Work, hiring managers gave older employees high marks for loyalty, reliability and productivity.

Myth: Older workers are unequipped to multitask and juggle the technological distractions of the modern office.

Reality: The cognitive skills that enable us to switch between tasks can be delayed with exercise and training. So a 75-year-old who is smart and active could easily outperform a 40-year-old couch slouch.

Leadership, Writing, Problem Solving, oh yes!

Older workers are often better equipped when it comes to dealing with topics that involve leadership, writing skills and using problem solving skills. Experience has a lot to do with this and is an important hiring skill for older people.

Research performed on the aging process and how it affects cognitive skills shows encouraging results for older workers.

According to neuroscientist Adam Gazzaley, M.D., at the University of California, San Francisco, "multitasking" is a misnomer. The brain can't actually do two things at once, he says. Instead, it switches from one task to the other, and with every switch there's a slight delay, or "cost." And the cost increases as we age.

Gazzaley's research, however, shows that this cognitive decline starts in the early 20s, and physical exercise can slow or even halt the decline. Given the wide variations between people, he says, a smart, active 75-year-old could score higher on cognitive tests than a 40-year-old slouch on the couch.

So keep in mind that you may not be ‘too old’ to learn anything new. Your outlook on life depends on just how well you handle your age!

For more great information, please come visit the blog at our Sequoia Senior Solutions website. 

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