An article on the CNN newswire recently caught my eye. Entitled Aging Workforce Means Dementia on the Job Could Rise, the article also links to several Alzheimer diagnosis sites.
The part I found most compelling was the very last two paragraphs.
Mary Sano, PhD, the director of the Alzheimer’s disease research center at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, in New York City, worries that the legitimate concerns about rising rates of dementia in the workplace could spill over to older workers who are still competent.
“The awareness of a progressive disease with likelihood of further deterioration would impact on the ability to continue in many types of jobs,” Sano says. “Raising the retirement age could increase the likely occurrence of the working population being at risk for the disease, but most problematic is the potential stigma that this risk may impose on an older worker.”
I think she’s hit the nail right on the head. Older workers staying on the job longer to meet their own financial needs (among other reasons) are already increasingly under the spotlight to prove their continued value and job performance. Given the rise in Alzheimers and other dementias as a product of the graying of America, it’s no surprise that the disease will be detected more frequently in work areas.
How will HR departments deal with this issue? Hopefully by having assessment centers, senior care advisors, their local Alzheimer’s Association chapter and dementia care experts in their contact list, and a plan already developed to help workers and their families.
They also must actively guard against the assumption that just because workers are aging, they are automatically becoming less mentally nimble and able to perform. The senior workforce has proved more reliable, more discerning and more loyal than their younger counterparts on many occasions.