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With Age Comes Resilience, Storm's Aftermath Proves
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"In 24 hours, we were surprised to see that it cleared up," Bramlet said. "We saw a much better outcome with the elderly patients than I thought we would when they were taken out of that van. We have released most of the elderly to their families, while many of the younger adults are still in the hospital."
According to Cohen, the psychiatrist at George Washington University, recent CT-scan research on a structure of the inner brain called the amygdala, which is believed to process emotions, suggests that older people tend to filter out painful experiences more than young people.
"Most people would intuitively think that older people would not be able to handle adversity," Cohen said. "But they have survived the death of a significant other, loss of prestigious work, loss of health. They are very high on the scale of creatively adapting to adversity."
Harold Gerkin, 82, knows adversity as only hurricanes can dish it out. Counting Katrina, he has lived through five major hurricanes while refusing to leave his home in Pilot Town, La., the southernmost human habitation in the swampy archipelago that juts south of New Orleans.
"I survived Camille in '69, with 200-mile [per hour] winds, so I figured I could handle this one," Gerkin said.
Katrina, though, demolished his house under 25-foot waves. When he saw water rising on the road near that house, he and his son, Charles, 47, fled to a nearby two-story structure protected by hurricane-storm sheathing.
Katrina, though, tore much of that structure apart.
"The damn building kept shaking so much, pilings were rammed through the floor and waves broke over the balcony on the second floor," Harold said. "At dawn, with the wind blowing like it blew with Camille, we saw two houses and a big barge float past us. If that barge would a hit us, we were gone."
After Katrina passed, the Gerkins were rescued by a Coast Guard helicopter and are now living as evacuees in a hotel in Baton Rouge. Friends say that Charles seems numb since the storm and has had a hard time calming down.
But Harold, his father, said he does not have nightmares about the storm and he does not regret having tried to weather it.
"To tell you the truth, I never even thought about that stuff," he said.
