Geriatric Mental Health Disaster and Emergency Preparedness

310 Geriatric Mental Health Disaster and Emergency Preparedness
ABERFAN
Aberfan exemplifies a disaster in which the geriatric survivors were not
themselves placed in physical danger. The children killed in 1966 were
between 5 and 11 years old. Their parents are now in their 70s and 80s.
They are reluctant to be interviewed, and studying them systematically
has presented ethical problems (Morgan, Scourfield, Williams, Jasper, &
Lewis, 2003). Anger remains a salient emotion among the parents of these
disaster victims, and there is guilt— entirely misplaced but real enough—
on the part of those who tried to save their children but failed. They did
everything that could possibly have been done but they will not forgive
themselves for failing (Humphreys, 2006).
Clifford Minett lost two children at Aberfan. He estimates that he
and his wife are 2 of around just 30 surviving parents left in the village:
We have buried quite a few of them in recent times. I estimate that we lose
a higher number every year because of what happened here.
I know for a fact that it puts a lot of them in their graves with broken
hearts. They just can’t forget what happened, and it can take years off their
life. A lot of them—friends of mine —should have lived a lot longer than
they did. But I think quite a few of them couldn’t put up with it any longer.
You see it’s not like the outside world. We will mark what happened this
year as we always do with the annual memorial service. But there is no 40 th
anniversary, or 30, or any special anniversary, because for us it’s here all the
time. It never goes away and it happens every day. (Humphreys, 2006)
SUMMARY
In disaster situations, grief and PTSD often occur together. Grief particularly
affects older survivors who may not have been in physical danger.
Disaster workers should be familiar with the manifestations of grief. The
features are similar to those of clinical depression and can include severe
agitation, sleep disturbance, and hallucinations. Several writers have descried
methods of grief counseling, but their effectiveness has not been
proven by controlled trials. Some feel it is inappropriate to treat grief as
a mental illness. Many forms of mourning are ritualized and even socially
sanctioned or obligated.
Few controlled trials on drug use in the treatment of grief have been
undertaken. Benzodiazepines are often used in large doses to deal with ag-