Car­o­line C Rav­el­lo

I saw the win­dow treat­ments down in a few hous­es, a "coun­try peo­ple" tra­di­tion, and again I'm re­flect­ing on my Moth­er and the spe­cial joy she had about the hol­i­days.Mum­my rel­ished the hol­i­days as she bus­ied her­self paint­ing the things she had paint­ed just a year be­fore and chang­ing cur­tains that looked per­fect­ly in place to me.Un­for­tu­nate­ly, hav­ing al­ready in­her­it­ed my Moth­er's in­nate and ev­i­dent won­der­ful qual­i­ties for cook­ing, con­ver­sa­tion, wis­dom, and con­ge­nial­i­ty, the Christ­mas thing es­caped me.It's why I reg­u­lar­ly had blue, blue Christ­mases. Very ear­ly in life I had re­signed my­self to nev­er do­ing as much as oth­ers, in­vest­ing an over­whelm­ing amount of time and mon­ey for a hol­i­day that seems to end at around 2 pm–once lunch is served–on De­cem­ber 25.

Now I cel­e­brate Christ­mas, but I make my own tra­di­tions and try nev­er to spend more time nor mon­ey than is nec­es­sary in any one year.And so, the hol­i­day sea­son is up­on us once again. If you are a friend, rel­a­tive, or care­giv­er to any­one who has hol­i­day blues es­pe­cial­ly if that per­son is an old­er adult, 65 years and over, you may no­tice their de­pres­sion man­i­fest­ing as a lack of en­thu­si­asm around this time.Gen­er­al­ly, in the midst of the bus­tle, old­er adults with the blues ap­pear slug­gish and sub­dued. They may be de­tached from their sur­round­ings and may show lit­tle in­ter­est in things they once loved about the hol­i­days or fam­i­ly.While many peo­ple en­gage in fes­tiv­i­ties and count this as a joy­ous time, if we ne­glect how con­fus­ing and stress­ful hol­i­days be­come for the el­der­ly then we can fail to meet the needs of an en­tire con­stituen­cy whose spir­its de­pend on us to buoy them through the sea­son.

"Hol­i­day blues" are feel­ings of pro­found sad­ness that can be pro­voked by all the ac­tiv­i­ties of the hol­i­day sea­son. Sea­son­al blues can have a par­tic­u­lar im­pact in the lives of old­er peo­ple, ac­cord­ing to Bar­ry Lebowitz, PhD, deputy di­rec­tor of UCSD's Stein In­sti­tute for Re­search on Age­ing."In some peo­ple, the hol­i­day blues rep­re­sent the ex­ac­er­ba­tion of an on­go­ing de­pres­sive ill­ness," he says. "De­pres­sion is a dan­ger­ous and life-threat­en­ing ill­ness in old­er peo­ple. Trag­i­cal­ly, sui­cide rates in­crease with age, specif­i­cal­ly for old­er men. De­pres­sion is not a nor­mal part of age­ing and should nev­er be ig­nored or writ­ten off."Here are some tips for prepar­ing old­er adults in your care or cir­cle for the sea­son. These are based on ad­vice from spe­cial­ists in se­nior med­i­cine at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, San Diego (UCSD) School of Med­i­cine:

�2 Stroll down mem­o­ry lane. "Old­er peo­ple whose mem­o­ries are im­paired may have dif­fi­cul­ty re­mem­ber­ing re­cent events, but they are of­ten able to share sto­ries and ob­ser­va­tions from the past, says Lebowitz.These shared mem­o­ries are im­por­tant for the young as well–chil­dren en­joy hear­ing about how it was 'when your par­ents were your age...'." He sug­gests us­ing pic­ture al­bums, fam­i­ly videos and mu­sic, even theme songs from old ra­dio or TV pro­grammes, to help stim­u­late mem­o­ries.

�2 Plan ahead. If old­er fam­i­ly mem­bers tire eas­i­ly or are vul­ner­a­ble to over-stim­u­la­tion, lim­it the num­ber of ac­tiv­i­ties they are in­volved in or the length of time they are in­clud­ed. The noise and con­fu­sion of a large fam­i­ly gath­er­ing can lead to ir­ri­tabil­i­ty or ex­haus­tion, so sched­ule time for a nap, if nec­es­sary, and con­sid­er des­ig­nat­ing a "qui­et room" where an old­er per­son can take a break. As­sign some­one to be the day's com­pan­ion to the old­er per­son, to make sure the in­di­vid­ual is com­fort­able."

�2 Avoid em­bar­rass­ing mo­ments. Try to avoid mak­ing com­ments that could in­ad­ver­tent­ly em­bar­rass an old­er friend or fam­i­ly mem­ber. If an old­er per­son for­gets a re­cent con­ver­sa­tion, for ex­am­ple, don't make it worse by say­ing, "Don't you re­mem­ber?"

�2 Be in­clu­sive. In­volve every­one in hol­i­day meal prepa­ra­tion, break­ing down tasks to in­clude the youngest and old­est fam­i­ly mem­bers. "Old­er adults with phys­i­cal lim­i­ta­tions can still be in­clud­ed in kitchen ac­tiv­i­ties by ask­ing them to do a sim­ple, help­ful task, like greas­ing cook­ing pans, peel­ing veg­eta­bles, fold­ing nap­kins or ar­rang­ing flow­ers."

�2 Reach out. So­cial con­nect­ed­ness is es­pe­cial­ly im­por­tant at hol­i­day times. "Reach­ing out to old­er rel­a­tives and friends who are alone is some­thing all of us should do. Lone­li­ness is a dif­fi­cult emo­tion for any­one.Re­cent re­search with old­er peo­ple has doc­u­ment­ed that lone­li­ness is as­so­ci­at­ed with ma­jor de­pres­sion and with sui­ci­dal thoughts and im­puls­es."

�2 Mon­i­tor med­ica­tions and al­co­hol. If you have se­nior fam­i­ly mem­bers, be sure to help them ad­here to their reg­u­lar sched­ule of med­ica­tions dur­ing the fren­zy of the hol­i­days. Al­so, pay at­ten­tion to their al­co­hol con­sump­tion.

Old­er adults can feel or be made to feel ne­glect­ed and alone dur­ing the hol­i­days, but plan­ning ahead can en­sure a hap­py hol­i­day for all. For many old­er adults the hol­i­days can be high­ly stress­ful, con­fus­ing, or even de­press­ing if their men­tal, phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al needs are not tak­en in­to ac­count.