---Freedom, Independence, Liberty - Mobility

FTLComm - Tisdale - January 7, 2000

While doing a sociology class in the early seventies, my study group was given the assignment to study senior citizens as a minority group. Our work was a revelation, because at the time, we all thought of the oppressed minorities to be cultural and ethnic groups, and never realised that age itself can create extreme deprivation. Over the course of several weeks we put together a good deal of research and interviewed large numbers of senior citizens in various kinds of living situations. The results of our study was a shocker to us. Of the people we studied those living the best lives, where they had by their own account, quality in their lives and a reason to go on living effectively, were those people staying in older hotels and the folks we interviewed in Victoria park in the centre of Regina. Each of them emphasised their independence, their ability to make their own decisions and live their lives in their own way. Those people with the grim and hopeless outlook were in institutions, care homes, no matter how good offered the least. We visited and photographed, interviewed and examined carefully, retirement homes run by churches, the city, private ventures and the marginal difference between them fell far short of the poorest person living on their own. Our study is now dated and there is no doubt that a modern study would result in much different results, but I am convinced that the primary source of quality of life was what the many old timers on park benches told me. Independence and above all, the ability to move around unhindered is the key to freedom. It is restricted movement that prevents a person from caring for themselves and living independently and it is freedom of movement that gives a person the sense of being in control of their lives. In the seventies when we were doing our study, vehicles like the one in this picture (taken yesterday) were simply not available and nor were the various hand operated steadying devices that are in use by so many people today. It would seem to me that we as a society could offer our senior citizens so much more in their lives if we spent a little more on research and development of a whole range of movement aids that would further enhance simple mobility, both in ones home or apartment, or to move about the community.