Profiles in Social Work

A Lifetime of Dedication to Older Adults and Their Families
Elaine Brody, DSc (Honorary), MSW

Elaine Brody, DSc (Honorary), MSW, former Associate Director of Research at the Philadelphia Geriatric Center and past president of the Gerontological Society of America, has been a force in gerontological social work research for decades. She is most well known for her work exploring the roles and struggles of "women in the middle," women caught between the conflicting responsibilities of work, family life, and care of an ailing, aging parent.

Brody became interested in exploring the effect that caregiving has on the families of dependent older adults during her years as director of the Department of Human Services at the Philadelphia Geriatric Center, now known as the Madlyn and Leonard Abramson Center for Jewish Life. Families placing a parent with dementia at the center were often wracked with guilt and exhausted after years of struggling to care for that parent in the parent's or their own home.

"My heart was with those families," says Brody. "They were trying so hard, yet they were being blamed for 'dumping' people in a nursing home." Intrigued by their struggles and hoping to help them, Brody examined the effects of caregiving on the mental health, careers, and family life of women, who provide the majority of parent care. She found that caregiving has a profound impact on their lives. Although many female caregivers derive satisfaction from helping a parent, the added responsibilities often lead to stress, depression, and curtailed employment, as well as conflict within their own families. Her work attracted attention from large companies, who began to realize how family care responsibilities could impact their employees. Much of Brody's work on the subject has been collected in her book Women in the Middle: Their Parent Care Years, originally published in 1990 by Springer Publishing Company, New York, and re-released in 2004 in a thoroughly revised second edition.

Brody notes that unfortunately, little has changed. "Women are still knocking themselves out to care for elderly parents," she says. "And now, the number of older people is growing, with fewer children to take care of them."

Brody began her 35-year career as a clinical social worker at the Philadelphia Geriatrics Center, originally a residential home for healthy older adults. Her first research project was self-motivated and unofficial: concerned about demented individuals rejected for residency by the center, she began tracking what happened to them. Her data soon revealed that they and their families fared poorly. The strength of these findings helped persuade the center's board to alter admission policies to allow demented and/or physically disabled residents. A few years later, M. Powell Lawton, head of research at the center's Polisher Research Institute, encouraged Brody to publish her results. A National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) grant to study the treatment of Alzheimer's patients followed.

Over time, Brody reduced her clinical duties as her research program grew, publishing more than 200 papers and book chapters on the care of Alzheimer's patients, issues confronting caregivers of demented older adults, and the mental and physical health practices of older persons. She also investigated the role of social work in long-term care and wrote the first set of guidelines on the subject, which were published by NIMH and distributed nationally.

Brody is pleased that her research not only enabled her to help older adults and their families, but also allowed her to advocate for policy improvements. "Medicare was a tremendous victory," she says. "Before Medicare, older people used to have to wait for hours in clinics, and their children had to pay the bills." She worries that in this era of tight budgets and partisan politics, gerontological social workers and researchers may find the policy gains they worked so hard for in the 20th century eroded in the 21st.

"I would like to see social work get into the business of advocating for health, to become more involved in social action," she adds. She sees social work as a continuum, with clinical practice on one side and policy on the other, united by the desire to use the knowledge gained from clinical work to help inform policy. "That's why research is important," Brody explains. "It lets you listen to what individuals are saying in a larger way, to verify what the clinical work is telling you. Research is what gives you the confidence to recommend policy changes." If the social work field can continue to produce researchers as dedicated and insightful as Elaine Brody, the future of gerontology will be in good hands.

Posted on May 28th, 2004

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