Jennifer Carnahan, M.D., MPH, M.A., discusses the reasons LGBTQ+ older adults are more likely to go into nursing homes and the pressures of navigating life when they get there.
Transcript:
Sexual and gender minorities in particular are at a high risk of needing nursing home care. As they get older, they’re more likely to become disabled. They’re actually at high risk of economic disparities. They may even be at higher risk of dementia — the jury is still out on that — and they’re much more likely to be socially isolated. We know that all of these factors put older adults, any older adult, at higher risk of nursing home admission.
The problem is, when they go into nursing homes, they don’t know if they’re in a safe environment, and so many of them feel compelled to go back into the closet to hide who they are because they don’t know if the person who’s taking care of them is going to treat them equitably if they know who they truly are.
Dr. Carnahan describes the importance of assuming the best of older adults and how they will respond to inclusion of sexual and gender minority neighbors in residential care.
Transcript:
Sometimes we assume, in a very ageist way, we assume that older adults are not going to be comfortable with knowing that another nursing home resident may be a sexual and gender minority. Well, that’s assuming that somebody doesn’t want to treat people equitably, and that’s just not true of older adults too.
We know that many older adults, while they may have lived through a time when it was accepted to marginalize these people, a lot of times they have changed their minds. We are all able to change our minds about things, and so it’s really important that if the nursing home takes the lead in making their environment more welcoming, that that’s the standard. That being said, not everybody gets along in any environment, and so it’s really important for nursing home staff to recognize that and to respect everybody’s opinions.
