Attitudes Towards Older People

Attitudes towards Older People

Attitudes and treatment towards elderly people can be said to vary drastically

across cultures. From Europe, Asia, the Middle East, the America's, Africa and

Australia, the attitudes expressed by the community towards older people are very

different when compared to one another.

An `attitude' can be defined as `a mental view or disposition' (Wilkes & Krebs,

1987), or if the content is used in has a psychological basis ` the learned, relative

stable tendency to respond to people, concepts, and events in an evaluative way'

(Gerrig & Zimbardo, 2002).

When discussing `older people' there is no way of determining an exact

definition that all people will agree on, as it is a socially defined term. However,

characteristics of old age include the deterioration of sensory processes. That is,

vision, hearing, smell and taste may show signs of decline in strength. Vision may

become clouded or even faded, the eye begins to have greater difficulty focusing and

bright light or glare becomes harder for the pupil to adapt to. Loss of hearing can also

become a major problem in old age as high frequency sounds become harder to

detect. The ability to maintain balance becomes more difficult which relates and is a

result of ear problems. Both taste and smell may deteriorate also. The sensation of

touch diminishes, including elements such as pain, muscle movement and vibration.

Reduced muscle strength, memory loss, slower reaction time and slower processing

of data by the brain include some functional losses that may occur as a result of

aging. These characteristics can be applied to the elderly population as a whole.

Although not all individuals will experience these ...

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