COMMENTS: Words Hurt
"Honey"…"sweetie"…"good girl"…condescending endearments lavished on the elderly amount to a "grown-up version of baby talk," as CBS' Nancy Cordes put it. This type of presumption gets on the nerves of the anchor's father, Katie Couric herself told us, as Cordes concluded her report. It turns out that such words are worse than irritating; they are harmful. Cordes reported on research conducted by the School of Nursing at the University of Kansas. When caregivers infantilize nursing home patients by using demeaning intimacies, the patients are less likely to cooperate and their condition deteriorates.
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