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“The years teach much which the days never knew.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Last week, I went to New York Methodist Hospital to meet with the Recreational Therapist in the Geriatric Psych Department. She was interested in having a yoga instructor come into the department to do chair yoga with the patients that have the mobility to exercise. The Department is an acute care facility, meaning that patients are there following some incident that requires close monitoring by a medical staff. Their average length of stay is 3 weeks, and many of the patients are in their 70s and 80s.
I had my first class today with a small group of patients. “We don’t allow children here,” said Wesley*. In the next breath be threatened to kill me (in words only – he is physically harmless and apparently says that to everyone). He read the paper cover to cover every day of his life. Now he can no longer read (that is one of the saddest parts of dementia to me) though still insists on leafing through the paper and cutting out pictures that interest him. Another patient, Lola, told me she is 4 months pregnant and going home tomorrow. Minnie, the most coherent of the group, rolled her eyes at every comment made by the other patients. There was something both sweet and sad about the class.
My emotions on the train back to Manhattan were complex and jumbled. I’m fascinated by how the brain functions (or malfunctions), and supremely interested in how yoga, meditation, and breath work can alter the brain’s long-term health. “Where did they do?” I kept asking myself. Why can’t Wesley read any more? Why does this beautiful, blessed machine of a brain have to unravel?
If I could find a way to use yoga to help a mind stay calm and balanced and among us just a little while longer, then I would consider myself so lucky to have done work worth doing.
* All names have been changed to protect the patients’ confidentiality.
Christa Avampato 