Yes, you can use old and new in a trigger, and triggers can be setup to be assoc. with just one column or the whole table. Below is an example of a trigger that is setup for one column:
CREATE TRIGGER "informix".rss_onld_enc_upd_trig
UPDATE OF encrypt_card_num
ON "informix".rss_onld_encryp REFERENCING OLD AS O NEW AS N
FOR EACH ROW
(
execute procedure "informix".wegcardlog('rss_onld_encryp', 'update',
(o.proc_dte || o.proc_seq ) ,n.card_acct_num ,o.encrypt_card_num
,n.encrypt_card_num ));
This is an example of an update trigger, where the trigger is referencing the "old" and the "new" data.