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Thriving in Their 70s and 80s
Two Women Are Models for the Theme of Older Americans Month (May)

BALTIMORE, MAY 2004—One has been called “the Mother Teresa of Alzheimer’s.” The other is a pioneer in communicating with people with Alzheimer’s. These extraordinary women, authors and lecturers in their 70s and 80s, exemplify “Aging Well, Living Well,” this year’s theme for Older Americans Month, which is celebrated in May.

Not only has each woman made groundbreaking contributions to the care and dignity of the growing numbers of elders in our society, but each is an ongoing, engaging story unto herself.

VIRGINIA BELL, 81, is traveling to Kyoto, Japan, in October to speak at the Alzheimer’s Disease International meeting and will then join her husband in Vladivostok, Russia, to travel the length of the Trans-Siberian Railway. This is just one of innumerable adventures Bell has undertaken in her “twilight” years, including a storm-threatened boat ride to the southern tip of South America and a clandestine trip across closed Israeli borders into Lebanon.

Dubbed “the Mother Teresa of Alzheimer’s,” Bell modestly dismisses her many accolades. Nevertheless, in the years since she received her master’s degree in social work from the University of Kentucky at age 60, this minister’s wife has traveled the globe preaching and practicing the gospel of Best Friends.

Best Friends is a philosophy of caregiving that focuses on how people can stay connected despite the ravaging losses of Alzheimer’s disease. This care model was developed by Bell and David Troxel, her co-author on four books: The Best Friends Approach to Alzheimer’s Care (2003, revised); The Best Friends Staff: Building a Culture of Care in Alzheimer’s Programs (2001); A Dignified Life: The Best Friends Approach to Alzheimer’s Care (2002); and this summer’s release, The Best Friends Book of Alzheimer’s Activities (all published by Health Professions Press, Baltimore).

In 1984, Bell founded the Helping Hand Adult Day Center in Lexington, Kentucky, motivated by her experience at the University of Kentucky’s Sanders-Brown Center on Aging, where she counseled families coping with Alzheimer’s. Providing the kind of care Bell believed these families needed most, Helping Hand was one of the very first dementia-specific day care programs in this country. This award-winning program continues to be a model for adult day services across the nation.

Just like a smile, the Best Friends approach is universally recognized once people see it. It has been embraced as a care model in facilities in the U.S., Canada, South Africa, Israel, India, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, and Finland.

With a schedule and energy level that people half her age are hard-pressed to equal, Bell also finds time to run 10K races and to enjoy her 5 children, 12 grandchildren, and 3 great-grandchildren.

With a unique childhood, NAOMI FEIL grew up in the 1940s living in Cleveland’s Montefiore Home for the Aged, where her father was the Home’s administrator and her mother was the head of the social service department, the first master’s–degreed social worker to work in a U.S. nursing home. Here, the seeds were quietly sewn for the groundbreaking ideas Feil would develop for communicating successfully with people with dementia—ideas that became known as Validation.

The young Feil made friends with many of the Home’s residents, some of who had “senility,” as it was then called. The story of her closest friendship with resident Florence Trew—and the reason she began looking for effective ways to break through the confusion experienced by people with dementia—is poignantly recounted in the Introduction to Feil’s bestselling book The Validation Breakthrough: Simple Techniques for Communicating with People with “Alzheimer’s-Type Dementia,” now in its second edition (2002, Health Professions Press).

“The very old disoriented people, especially Mrs. Trew, taught me,” Feil says. “I learned that they have an intuitive wisdom, a basic humanity that we all share.” Following in her mother’s social work footsteps but dissatisfied with the traditional methods of working with severely disoriented old people that she learned at Columbia and Case Western Reserve Universities, Feil developed her own method of communicating. It was grounded in empathy and aimed at helping old people retain dignity, reduce anxiety, and prevent withdrawal into “vegetation.” The Validation method also benefits caregivers, reducing depression and burnout that often result from living and working with people with dementia.

In the 1980s, Feil created the Cleveland-based Validation Training Institute to educate professional and family caregivers about people with dementing illnesses and about this radically better way to communicate with them. In the 1990s, Feil and her daughter, Vicki de Klerk-Rubin, established the European Validation Institute, headquartered in the Netherlands. Her videographer husband, Ed, also joined the family effort, producing nine award-winning films on Validation.

Feil’s methods are now as popular on the other side of the Atlantic as they are here. Over 10,000 agencies in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Japan, and Australia use Validation. Feil’s books have been translated into French, Dutch, German, Italian, Japanese, Finnish, Danish, and Swedish. Nearly 100,000 people have participated in Validation workshops worldwide and witnessed Feil’s uncanny, memorable role plays of very old people in need of Validation. Her trademark role playing evolved from early years acting in Off-Broadway productions and lends realism, immediacy, and profound humanity to her trainings.

At age 72, Feil’s enthusiasm for Validation is indefatigable. She travels much of the year between the U.S. and Europe and in the coming months will be inspiring both formal and informal caregivers in Israel, parts of Western Europe, Japan, and Singapore.

Share the Dynamic Stories of these Older Americans Making a Difference! Schedule an interview today. Contact Amy Perkins, Marketing Manager for info.

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