A prime example of elderspeak: Cindy Smith was visiting her father in his assisted living apartment in Roseville, California. An aide who was trying to induce him to do something — Smith no longer remembers exactly what — said, “Let me help you, sweetheart.”
“He just gave her The Look — under his bushy eyebrows — and said, ‘What, are we getting married?’” recalled Smith, who had a good laugh, she said. Her father was then 92, a retired county planner and a World War II veteran; macular degeneration had reduced the quality of his vision, and he used a walker to get around, but he remained cognitively sharp.
“He wouldn’t normally get too frosty with people,” Smith said. “But he did have the sense that he was a grown-up and he wasn’t always treated like one.”
People understand almost intuitively what “elderspeak” means. “It’s communication to older adults that sounds like baby talk,” said Clarissa Shaw, a dementia care researcher at the University of Iowa College of Nursing and a co-author of a recent article that helps researchers document its use.
“It arises from an ageist assumption of frailty, incompetence, and dependence.”
Its elements include inappropriate endearments. “Elderspeak can be controlling, kind of bossy, so to soften that message there’s ‘honey,’ ‘dearie,’ ‘sweetie,’” said Kristine Williams, a nurse gerontologist at the University of Kansas School of Nursing and another co-author of the a …