Hairstylists could be early-warning systems for senior health problems

Researchers at Ohio State University have studied the relationship that hairdressers have to older clients, who are apt to discussing all their problems during haircuts. As such, the stylists are well-situated to act as early-warning systems for dementia, neglect and poor health.

"Hair stylists are in a great position to notice when their older clients are starting to suffer from depression, dementia, or self-neglect," said Keith Anderson, co-author of the study and assistant professor of social work at Ohio State University.
"While not expecting too much beyond the scope of their jobs, we may be able to help stylists direct elderly people in trouble to community services..."
"Their older clients may sit in a chair for an hour or longer while they're having their hair done, and this may happen once or twice a month. So stylists are in a good position to recognize when things change with a client, and when they may need help."

Hairstylists Can Help Identify Older Clients Who Need Health Services

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Simon Bradshaw

Call me unduly cynical, but how long before this is spun into HAIRSTYLISTS TO GIVE EVIDENCE AT OBAMA’S DEATH PANELS?
AnoniMouse

@13
THANK YOU so much for the scan!!

Hairdressing history is something I do apart from my current research- so this really cool.

Bravo for contributing to the community in a really meaningful way.
AnoniMouse

@16
The head tilting lasts no longer than 3-4 minutes for a shampoo or 5 minutes when rinsing out a perm.

I have no idea how long it would take to cause a stroke, but I would imagine it would take longer than 5 minutes. I’m thinking the writer may be linking it to a blood clot- and they take longer than 5 mins to develop.

There are also many apparatuses used for the elderly at the shampoo bowl, and those with back problems, so they don’t have to lean back at all.

Sorry, but that just seems silly.
David Bruce Murray

The thought of Annelle Dupuy Desoto from Steel Magnolias (or even Truvy, for that matter) being told she’s in a great position to make medical recommendations is scary.
apoxia

This is an interesting idea. I’ve spent a few dozen hours with older people with dementia in the last month and a half, and I can usually tell through conversation whether they have dementia – sometimes from a phone call (all backed up by then completing hours of neuropsyc testing with each one). I’m all for increased detection and referral. The question is if hairdressers really can detect these problems, not just if they think they can. In my experience general practitioners aren’t always the best at detecting dementia and they’ve had specific mental health training (actually very little here in New Zealand). This would make a really great pilot study – Masters degree anyone?
Anonymous

uh, YEA!? It’s called having a sense of community. How sad for those of you so removed from this basic human experience that you fear it. Thanks go out to all of you who care for others even if (Gasp!) you don’t KNOW them.
Lars Haeh

Barbers have always been a good way to know what their clients are thinking: I was reading The Tunnels of Cu-Chi a while back. According to it, there was an incident where the majority of Vietnamese barbers on base at Saigon were found to be VC spies. There are other incidents of this sort of thing throughout history, I’m glad to see this being put to good use.
Gilbert Wham

Um, wouldn’t a prime symptom of self-neglect be no longer going to get your hair done?
AnoniMouse

I was a hairdresser for quite awhile, although now I am in grad school. I can take credit for strongly encouraging a senior client to visit a dermatologist regarding an unusual mole on her hairline. My client was unable to see it well, and didn’t really have family to watch it for her. I, however, watched it for many weeks. After my encouragement, she went to the doc and had it treated. It was cancerous.

Many hairdressers are already caretakers to many elderly clients. I visited some elder clients in their homes and hospitals. I knew some hairdressers that would drive elder clients to events and doctor appts. Hairdressers are already recognizing these problems, and helping their clients.

Good thing science is recognizing hairdressers as more than the idiots who couldn’t finish high school, though.
Pantograph

I think this is a step in the right direction. Hairdressers should be medicalized even further and return to their venerable traditions of leeching, amputations and pulling teeth.
Little John

s/apt/prone/
AnoniMouse

@20,
Thanks for the info. I had never heard about torn arteries as a result of shampoo bowls. I’ve heard of pulled muscles and soreness from lazy hairdressers who don’t properly line the neck rest.

Hairdressers should be using a towel or cushion (they make these specifically for the neck) in the shampoo bowl. That’s why the neck rest is so deep, to accommodate one or more towels wrapped around the neck.
Takuan

got a nosebleed once after a chiropractor’s “neck adjustment”.

Who watches the hairdressers for early signs of cancer etc. from all the chemicals they are exposed to?
caitifty

I have in my hot little hands a 1939 edition of the Associated Master Barbers of America ‘Standardized Textbook of Barbering’ which, between chapters on how to upsell facials to your male customers and how to sharpen a razor, includes a fascinating chapter included at the request of the US Public Health Service on “Syphilis: Public health aspects for the barber profession” which is basically a guide to the detection and appropriate referral of secondary and tertiary syphilis. I’ve put a poorly-scanned pdf of the chapter at https://php10.ucsf.edu/library/UnitedStatesPublicHealthService1931.pdf (2Mb) for the curious. So not the first time there’s been an active attempt to use the point of contact between hairdressers and the community as a public health surveillance site.
Antinous / Moderator

That’s a slick chancre you’ve got there, Floyd.
Anonymous

It’s true a hairstylist can be more alert to health issues in the elderly, but I remember reading somewhere that they can inadvertently cause the old folks to have strokes, because they make them tilt their heads back for a long time. So hairdressers, don’t make your elderly customers tilt their heads back!
Anonymous

Why stop at the old folks? We can use them to infiltrate drug dealers, chronic drunk drivers and other scofflaws. We can do it pilgrims! Watch your neighbors friends and family and do not hesitate to call your local enforcement!
Freddie Freelance

Don’t they already train you for this in Cosmetology class? I’m pretty sure they already do in California, with training to recognize moles gone bad (like AnoniMouse did) and other dermatological abnormalities.
bklynchris

As much bitchin’ as I do at Corey I must throw him props where props are due.

Whilst doing an MPH, one of my fellow students won a well deserved award for delivering community based health education to clients in hair salons.

In the African American community, getting your do done can be epic. Plenty o’ time to discuss matters at hand that are discussed no where else.

Her thesis was titled something along the lines of ‘take advantage of those rare opportunities when women let their hair down, literally and figuratively’.
joey

I first read this as “Hairstyles could be early-warning systems for senior health problems.”
Anonymous

They shouldn’t be making diagnoses, but it makes sense for them to look out for their clients. I go to my hairdresser partly just to have someone to chat with. If she didn’t care at all about my life, I would use someone else.
Anonymous

#19 “sorry, that just seems silly”

here’s what I read:

The risk of suffering a torn artery at a beauty salon is even more remote, but Marilyn Noonan, 47, of La Jolla, California, is proof that it can happen. Two years ago, she was getting ready to go to a dinner party when she looked in the mirror and noticed that one pupil was much larger than the other. “I’m in the insurance business and had just been to an educational seminar on strokes, so I knew that pupil asymmetry wasn’t good,” she says.

Marilyn felt fine, but she called a neurologist friend anyway. The second question he asked her was, “When was the last time you had your hair done?” Her answer: Just a few hours ago. “He said, ‘Marilyn, you need to get to the hospital right away,’” she recalls.

An MRI revealed a tear in her carotid artery. Fortunately, a large clot hadn’t yet formed, so Noonan’s doctors put her on blood-thinning medication for six months until the artery healed. “She was lucky,” says Shirley Otis, M.D., her neurologist. “She could very easily have had a stroke.”

The most likely cause of the tear — tilting the neck back too far during a salon shampoo — is simple to avoid, Otis adds. “Make sure there’s a towel or some other support under your neck so you don’t have to tilt so far,” she says. Researchers at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey reported several years ago that, while tilting your head backward into a sink while shampooing can alter blood flow to the brain, using a support minimizes the problem.