I have a lot to learn about working with the elderly on reading and memory. One big lesson for me is that reading in infectious. Left to its own devices, it can go viral.

Art said he would love to work on his reading with me, so we said down after Card Bingo and worked on a reading2connect workshop book, I read well-known phrases that end in a blank, and the reader completes the phrase. This exercise, like so many others, is showing me that I have to learn as much or more as the residents if I am to do this well and successfully.

Art is illustrative, an avid reader when he arrived to the Mansion, he had some eye trouble, and then simply fell out of the habit. He watches TV much of the day and plays chess. Since I’ve been working with Art as a volunteer, I’ve seen some confusion and memory loss creep in during our talks and visits, he was the one who pointed this out to me.

He is very sharp and intense and functions well. He has controversial views on religion and sexual preference, but we talk easily and openly and are starting a round of chess games together. He is very excited about that, i can see he is looking for stimulation.

I have seen some signs of the passivity that the experts talk about in assisted care life. I am thinking about taking the course reading2connect offers so I am be of more help. This is a challenge I love, and the work I have been doing with Joan and others is both successful and addictive. I want to do more and do it better, even though I’ve self-taught every thing I know, which is not much.

The workshop I used from reading2connect was written by Susan Ostrowski and Dr. Peter Dixon.  The goal of these specialists is for the residents to become less dependent on the “light” activities common in elder care – most  residences do not have the money for too many advanced activities.

On the blog and through the Army Of Good, we  raised several thousands dollars last year to plan “active” activities – boat and carriage rides, trips to farms. I hope to do more this year.

Part of my passion for this reading work might be that I am an author, I’ve written 26 books, I get the value of reading on many levels.

But part of it also that i identify with these people, struggling to keep their focus and creativity and memory while having left behind almost everything that they ever knew and loved. I have come to know and love many of them.  There are good deaths and bad deaths, and good times and bad times, but there are no happy endings ahead for them.

They well know their future. The task is to give them as much meaning and dignity as is possible, and reading does both of those things. The setting can trigger passivity, as does medications and the process of aging itself.

One thing that I was skeptical of was the idea that this reading should be guided to and taken over by the residents, not me or an instructor or staffer. The people who wrote these fascinating books – the residents love them – told me their goal was to get older people to read independently and with one another, this kind of reading, they believe, can restore some memory, promote voice and re-engage elderly care residents with reading.

This, I am coming to see, is somewhat radical. According to the Journal Of Aging, a number of doctors, psychologists and other specials have come together to try and change conventional ideas about elder care:

“We argue that residents represent a largely untapped resource in our attempts to advance the quality of psychosocial care. We propose overturning practices that focus on entertainment and distraction by introducing a new approach that centers on resident contributions and peer support. We offer a model—Resident Engagement and Peer Support (REAP)—for designing interventions that advance residents’ social identity, enhance reciprocal relationships and increase social productivity. This model has the potential to revolutionize current psychosocial practice by moving from resident care to resident engagement.”

It seems “resident engagement” is one of the ideas behind reading2connect.

Until these books, I had never seen the residents engage in any serious activity that was not supervised by a staffer or aide. They came together in the Activity Room and sometimes talked during meals, but they simply do not organize activities on their own, or engage with them independently.

And the Mansion is by far the most loving and compassionate Medicaid facility I’ve seen in a decade of volunteer and therapy work. They do so much with little, but their resources are severely stretched, and like refugee groups, their support is being slashed daily by the federal government.

I see that what  these books are challenging me to do was alter that very consistent reality – keeping the minds of the elderly engaged and active, and whenever possible, restoring memory and promoting support of one another.

I am beginning to see this. Yesterday, Barb quite enthusiastically read along with Joan, and I have seen Joan improve her memory and engagement radically and easily through these books. What I saw today was also remarkable in its own way.

Art and I were working together in the cafeteria, and as is often the case in the Mansion, no one is alone in a public room for long. The staff drifted in to set the tables, and the residents who were hungry came in to eat early. There was a lot of yakking and distraction, a consistent issue.

So Art and I started out alone, but soon, we were all working together, the residents were reading this workshop book together.

And today, I saw four or five residents insert themselves into the workshop work to help Art and also to answer the questions themselves. I didn’t ask them, they just jumped in and all together, answered questions even when Art could not. i noticed that everyone gave Art a chance to answer, and when he didn’t, they just jumped in. This support was offered quietly and with some sensitivity. That was startling and exciting for me.

I’m learning other things. I notice the staff often corrects the residents gently when they get something wrong. I am re-thinking this, although I know it is the accepted practice. This isn’t a pass-fail test, the residents aren’t going to be applying for Yale. I don’t need to be correcting them, quite the opposite. So I stopped.

When somebody is stuck, we just move on. I don’t want them feeling the sting of failing, as I did so many times in school. I’d like them to get up from this work and only know success and achievement. What difference does it make if they can’t finish a phrase.

What matters, what  I hope they feel, is what they can do, not what they can’t do. They already  feel enough pain and sorrow about that.

So come along and take a look at my reading interaction with Art – and everybody else in the room. Today, I purchased a portable voice amplifier so Joan and the other residents in our forthcoming skits can project their quiet voices without shouting. I think Julie Smith, the Activities Director, might want to keep it after the skits. It cost $39.99.

If you can, or wish to, please support my work at the Mansion. You can contribute by sending a donation to Jon Katz, Mansion Work, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816, or via Paypal, [email protected]. And thank you so much for caring about these people.