When first hearing about this course and signing up for it, I was very excited to spend more time with older adults considering the fact that I enjoyed it a great deal last semester. Before the beginning of the semester, I did not feel as if I had really gotten into depth into my study of aging and what that means for all involved. I now believe, that through this course and the other courses that I am taking for my gerontology minor, are really beginning to fall into place in my life. With the cohesion becoming exident, I am beginning to understand what it means to age through finally understanding that this topic is not as distant to me as i originally thought. I am very lucky to have been able to gain a great deal of experiences about …show more content…
While on my mother’s side, my great grandmother also lived to be 96 and passed when I was 15 as well. My grandparents on my father’s side have both passed, but my father’s step mother is still a very active participant in my life and is very active taking care of a 98 year old man in her free time. Both of my grandparents on my mother’s side are still live and well as well and contribute a great deal to how I belive I see older adults today. They are the most loving and caring individuals I have ever met and I cannot imagine who I would be today without them. I also volunteer at an day center for older adults when I am home, and this has truly given me a more well rounded experience of my veiw of older adults. Before spending time there, I had the idea that all older adults were sweet, kind, and loved talking to younger adults and especially kids, from widening my horizon of older adults I now know that this is not true. Many of the elders at the day center do enjoy talking to me and are very kind, but not all of them. One woman who sits very close to the therapy room where I am volunteering with an occupational therapist, is a perfect example of this. She is about 70 years old, and is very …show more content…
In a majority of the classes I have ever been in, they have not been very diverse with age, race, or any other aspects. I believe taking an intergenerational course offers a great deal for all of the parties involved. For the Nazareth students, it provides time with an older adult that they are not related to. This relationship also is more professional than that in which students have with their grandparents which offers a whole new level of learning for the Nazareth students. For the elders it allows the same opportunity, due to the great deal of intergenerational separation in our country as a whole. This also allows both parties to abolish any stereotypes that they may have about the other. There is no better way to learn, then from a hands on experience with the subjects that are the focus of the study itself. This allows us all as students to learn from each other. The Nazareth students learn about the older adults in which they are studying. The older adults learn what young adults what to know about them, which may not be what they thought that we would want to know. These questions that we ask of older adults may be things that they have wondered about themselves or not. This intergenerational course format allows both generations to learn from each other. The simple fact that I am in a course that allows me to learn about older adults from older adults
...bserved interactions between my grandfather and my sister (26) and my nephew (5) and I can see positive outcomes on both sides. The old can always offer something to the young; experience, knowledge, or what have you. Just as the young can influence and sustain the elderly's ties with society. We are active agents, that must remain active, of society, and we create the world around us (Social Constructionism). It is up to every individual to somehow remain tied to the active world, memories of past positive life events alone cannot solely sustain a successful life in old age.
So in conclusion, in this course I am looking forward to learning all about gerontology, how older adults function and how they feel when they are in those situations listed above.
The focus of this paper is to compare and contrast a well elder and a frail elder while using Occupational Therapy Practice Framework language. For this assignment I chose to conduct a semi structured interview using the Canadian Occupational performance Measure (COPM) to gather information about my chosen elders perceived problems and priorities. For this assignment I will be using pseudonyms in order to protect the privacy of both individuals.
Aging affects every individual and is inevitable, despite our valiant attempts to prevent it. The aging process beings the moment of conception however some can argue it begins at birth. The process of aging is heavily impacted by health, genetics and environmental factors. As people age we have to become accustom to the changes associated with life. The question becomes what changes happen and how? Although we cannot predict what will happen to us we can work to prevent specific things from happening by living healthier lives.
“Have patients and resistance, mija” my 90 year old great grandmother Elizabeth said. She has been one of my motivational supporters pushing me towards my goals, continuation of my education, and living life. Just one phone call, can’t explain how much I dearly miss her. As part of my gerontology interview assignment I had to ask her a couple of questions. One question was: “what is the most significant world event you have experienced and why?”, but my great-grandmother didn’t mention a world event but her own. She explained that she doesn’t know how to read, nor write. She self-taught herself to write her own name and to this day she still does. In the small town in Mexico in which she resides in long ago, lacked education badly. There were no instructors whom taught in schools in town or her surroundings. Few schools were hours away, but with the lack of sufficient resources such as transportation and in town schools those opportunities were never granted to
An interview was arranged with an older adult to discuss issues related to aging. The interview was designed to gain appreciation and understanding of an older adult. One theory of aging came into mind when I thought about this topic. Erik Erikson Life-Course and Personality Development theory, “Erikson described the task of old age as balancing the search for integrity and wholeness with a sense of despair.” NS is the older adult that I conducted the interview with. I’ve decided to pick NS to interview because she is very positive about life and her age. Everything that I have come across about aging is negative such as depression, isolation, and illness.
People in their seventies and beyond have lived through many life experiences younger adults such as myself, could only imagine. While working closely with my partner, I believe I will strengthen my ability to communicate to others. I want to be able to openly express my thoughts on any given situation. Elderly people have so much wisdom and I am curious to view the world of the new generation through the lens of older people. This experience will gradually allow me to be more comfortable with story-telling about myself and how I am truly feeling without feeling the need to shield my emotions. In the same token, my partner may have some great life lesson to share or similar experiences when they were younger. Senior citizens are the people
The older adult interviewed for the purpose of this assignment was Alice Margaret Cox, the interviewers grandmother. Alice was born on February 17th, 1932 in Brown County, Minnesota. Alice was the daughter of Rose Veldman and had three brothers and three sisters. In 1942, Hikel Veldman, after marrying Rose, legally adopted Alice and her six siblings. He brought four children of his own, making a family of 13. After the family was adopted, the majority of their childhood to early adult life was spent living in Hollandale, Minnesota. Alice spent the majority of her life farming and now helps out part time at a family owned thrift store. Alice currently resides in Lake City Minnesota, in her home of twenty plus years. Only four of the eleven
Aging and old age for a long time presented as dominated by negative traits and states such as sickness, depression and isolation. The aging process is not simply senescence most people over the age of 65 are not Senile, bedridden, isolated, or suicidal (Aldwin & Levenson, 1994). This change in perspective led the investigation of the other side of the coin. Ageing is seen as health, maturity and personal Royal growth, self-acceptance, happiness, generatively, coping and acceptance of age-related constraints (Birren & Fisher, 1995). Psychological und...
As the years pass and we began to age we all notice a change and this change that comes is not the apparent physical change but rather the attitudes and personification people have as we enter our old age. It seems as though, as we begin to age we notice that a sense of respect begins to build from the younger generation. According to the book “social perspectives on aging, “ it states that ‘today most social gerontologists prefer activity theory, which assumes that older people benefit both themselves and their society if they remain active and try to continue to perform the roles they had before they aged.” In other words the elderly are benefiting from what they built on their own over their lifetime and they are also benefiting from society
Ageing is a continuing life cycle, it is an ongoing developmental event that brings certain changes in one’s own psychological and physical state. It is a time in one's own life where an elderly individual reminisce and reflect, to bask and live on previous accomplishments and begin to finish his life cycle. There is a significant amount of adjusting that requires an elderly individual to be flexible and develop new coping skills to adapt in the changes that are common in their new life. (Dhara & Jogsan, 2013).
Late adulthood should be a time in a person's life where they feel fulfilled. They can look back on their memories and be happy with the way they have lived their life. Now, too many elderly people are not satisfied and look at this stage as depressing. Most fear death of either a loved one or for themselves. This topic is interesting to me because elderly people should make the best of their last stage of life. This topic discusses about getting older, the life changes that they go through physically, emotionally, and mentally. We should know more about it so that we can help our family and friends get through one of the best, yet toughest part of our mortal life.
When elderly people move into the last of life’s eight stages of psychosocial development, they enter the ego-integrity-versus-despair stage. This process is defined by looking back over someone’s life, evaluating it, then accepting it. People who become successful in this stage feel a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment. Erikson refers to this acceptance as integrity. This differs from generativity because one is accepting the end of their life, instead of accepting where their life will start in a sense of career and self. However, if one is to look back on their life with dissatisfaction, they may feel they have been cheated or missed opportunities. Such individuals will mostly be depressed or angry about the way life turned out and
They participate fully in many public arenas of society. They pursue meaningful activities and they still have much joy in them, and much to offer. That stereotype derived from cartoons that older adults are meaner/grumpier is completely false and that’s why I believe there should be a greater connection between the younger and older population. It seems like a lot of the younger population interacts with older adults only when they are family and not with unrelated older adults. The younger population is often seen as the leaders of our future and the older population is disregarded because they are supposedly a thing from the past. However, the older population has much to offer. I saw that from watching them volunteer and observing that they had much to give in forms of ideas and guidance. I definitely think that there should be more programs in place where the older population can interact more with the younger population in a more meaningful way where both parties benefit greatly from those interactions. The older population should very much be included in the direction of society’s future. If the younger generation is the future then the older generation should collaborate with them to offer guidance and assistance in creating a better future. Society would greatly benefit from the older populations’ input and the older individuals could benefit from feeling more included in
My grandmother has always been my biggest supporter throughout my life. My Grandmother is my back bone; she is the reason why I am the person that I am today. Most people hear the word grandmother and expect to see older lady with possible white hair, standing in the kitchen cooking and baking, evening sewing. My grandmother is the exact opposite of those things, she is still employed full time, enjoys making jewelry and furniture. Although she is only five two she is very witted and outspoken she never bites her tongue and will always give her opinion even if you don’t ask for it. There is a softer side to her, she will give you her last and be a listening ear day or night. Like the saying goes “to know me is to love me” and believe me