The young woman completed a master’s degree in the Senescence Psychology Unit (ULiège) directed by Professor Stéphane Adam, co-founder of the LyAge spin-off which offers assessment, training, support and consultancy services. linked to aging. For a year, she supported teams in several rest homes (MR) and/or care homes (MRS) in Liège before joining LyAge on October 1st.
It’s hard not to associate the idea of death…
It’s hard not to associate nursing homes with the idea of death. “Once we enter, we are already excluded from society: we only live according to the rhythm of the institution and, in a certain way, we no longer live there.says the psychologist. The care of residents is primarily focused on care and much less on life, she continues.
Are rest homes then dying houses? In her master’s thesis, Julie Mathot addresses the question – in particular – from the angle of the geographical location of MR-MRS. The results of this preliminary study are eloquent: the word “die”, which may seem provocative, is more than a symbol.
Patricia refused to let herself be “bothered by death”
An average distance of 1.58 km
The young woman used Google Maps to measure the distance, on foot, which separates each of the 542 Walloon rest homes from the nearest burial site. To verify her hypothesis, she applied the same method to the 309 accommodation centers for disabled people (CPH) – the residential institution closest to the rest home in terms of its operation and service offering.
The exercise is edifying. For rest homes, the average distance is 1.58 km (the longest being 6.9 km), compared to 2.34 km (14.1 km for the maximum distance) for CPHs. The institutions for seniors which come under the voluntary sector are the furthest from the cemetery (1.75 km on average). Private rest homes are on average 1.61 km apart and those dependent on the CPAS are barely 1.37 km away. One of them holds the record for the shortest distance to the cemetery: 30 meters. With a common neighbor: the funeral home. Just a few steps before the grave.
Neighbors of burial sites
“Geographically, the rest home is indeed the residential institution closest to the cemetery”notes Julie Mathot. Today there are around 2,190 cemeteries in the Walloon Region. Historically, burial sites have been placed outside of cities, and therefore excluded from society, for health reasons. In 2018, a report on the location of Walloon cemeteries, based on cadastral plans, showed that they were located on the outskirts, far from towns, in the heart of a landscape mainly dominated by agriculture. “The consequence of this evasion is the exclusion of death.points out the psychologist. This relocation testifies to the desire to keep death at bay, to keep it away from everyday urban life. Rest homes and their residents are therefore in fact housed in the same boat.
At the house of death, citizens surround death
We sometimes forget that people are at home
By entering a rest home, are we already putting one foot in the grave? “This somewhat crude exercise of measuring the distances to the cemetery serves to support the need for a paradigm shift, replies the consultant specializing in aging. Do we want to add years to life or life to years?”
Many rest homes are modeled on the hospital model. “The caregivers work like in a hospital except that here, in a nursing home, we are in people’s homes. They sometimes forget that people are at home. An example? If a resident has had a fall, we leave the door to their room ajar, to monitor, and too bad if the person loses privacy.”
Biased representations of the elderly
Most professionals have biased representations because they do not have training regarding the well-being of the elderly and adopt a paternalistic position. “We will aim for prevention, safety… We are always in fear that the elderly person will fall or run away. As if, as we get older, we can no longer take risks. If we applied this to all ages of life, looking at accident statistics, we would never take our car again.”
Extreme loneliness near death
It’s as if life is already withdrawing…”There is a kind of overprotection of elderly people in nursing homes. We wash the floor with Dettol three times a day. Do you do this at home? Even in terms of food, residents cannot do what they want. When the dietician says: no sugar, because the person is diabetic, even the small waffle as a snack is prohibited, even though it remains a source of pleasure after 80 years. This isn’t life anymore, that…”
We should be able to put the cursor back more in the middle, less focused on care and more on the person, insists Julie Mathot.
