Years ago I was talking to Robert St. John. He made an interesting comment on working on the aged. His question was simple. How much do you put an older person through?
I was working on an 84 year old yesterday. That question crossed my mind. Clearly there were very distinctive stress cues.
Aggressively pursuing them would have caused her a great deal pain. So instead I went for a relaxation effect. She fell asleep about half way through the session.
Was this the way to go? I think so. "Going for it" could have triggered more of a "fight or flight" reaction. This could have been a negative stressor on a already difficult situation.
