Editorial
Language that puts people
first (2)
Friday, May 10, 2005
To borrow once again, without claiming to adequately represent, Kathie Snow’s idea of person-first language, consider the question of suffering.

Aging is a part of life, and so is dying. Our health certainly changes. Yet, is a person with dementia to be valued any less than one without? Is a person who requires long-term physical support any less a person because of the support he or she receives? If the answer is no, and it is, even a person-first statement like, “He is a person who suffers from dementia,” can be improved by removing the ‘suffering’.

Aging is natural, and comes to us in many different ways. To see those manifestations as an anomaly, as something terrible or unnatural, further conditions the way we see an aging person in ways we might not wish or expect.