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Depression in older adults term paper
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Polly Connelly starts her morning with a cigarette in her hand and a diet coke by her side. She lives alone, her husband recently passed away and her son moved out. After her husband passed away Connelly’s days became longer and lonelier. “Living alone is like not knowing how to swim, you feel as if you cannot escape the force pulling you down,” Connelly said.
She became depressed once she started to live alone after her husband died. She spends her afternoons wearing a black oversized apron, her slender arms and short gray hair preparing a small meal for herself. Polly’s life style began to change. She started to develop smoking habits. Since then she started to develop health problems because of her isolation. Nearly 37 percent of elders
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She used to spend long days in the front yard pruning the trees, tending to the blossomed flowers and planting new plants. She eventually stopped her hobby after her husband died. She started to feel light headed and weak. She went to the doctor and he diagnosed her with depression.
Around 28 percent of Americans over 65 live alone. Research shows elders who live alone are three times more likely to have heart disease because of lack of exercise and poor diets (Squire). Also, elderly woman who feels neglected often develop depression and coping methods regarding isolation. A method of coping would is smoking cigarettes. Loss of a spouse can lead to social isolation and living alone (Singh). Women are more likely to receive health treatment compared to males resulting in females living longer which can cause depression if their spouses are dying.
Connelly is not happy in her new life. “I feel as if everything I used to do with my husband is a constant reminder of how lonely I am,” Connelly said. When she sends birthday cards, she addresses only her name. She wants to communicate with other people but they don’t call her back. She calls her son but he never returns the voicemail she leaves. She is lonely and the only voice she hears in her house is the television playing in the
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Participants from the ages of 60-80 years old living alone took a test to determine depression. Both males and females were slightly more depressed due to the fact of them living alone. Women were typically more affected because of living alone and displaying negative mood and limited social communication. Traveling would help eliminate stress and isolation in the household (Karin).
For the future Connelly desires to travel around the world. “Traveling would fill the void of this empty house,” she said. It would be a new adventure for her, an adventure where she could escape her loneliness. Connelly couldn’t travel so instead she bought a dog. She bought a small dog and named him Connell. Connell and Connelly go on walks every morning and watch television. Connelly is trying to change her life to positivity and eliminate sadness, “I just do not want to feel sad anymore,” she
How many individuals allow the fear of loneliness overtake their whole lives? Life is fickle and most people will be a victim of circumstance at times. This is why “ A Rose for Emily” is such a great read because it allows readers to stop and analysis if they are the type of individuals which allow loneliness take over their own personal life’s. However, some people choose not to let circumstance rule them and, as they say, “time waits for no man”. Faulkner’s Emily did not have the individual confidence, or maybe self-esteem and self-worth, to believe that she could stand-alone and succeed at life especially in the face of changing times. As a mater of fact, she had always been ruled by, and depended on, men to protect, defend and act for her. From her Father, through the manservant Tobe, to Homer Barron, all her life was dependent on men. In this story I will be discussing how fear can make indivuals due senseless things.
Within the thin exterior of the cold dark building she called home, she wanted to keep the bodies of those in which she felt she had a connection. Whether it be a reasonable connection or not, she didn’t want to be alone. Her connection with her father brought her to keeping his corps in the house as well as the other man. Her distance from other people around her only drove her to madness causing nothing but isolation and a craving for any type of relation she could hold or be close
The main character’s husband takes her away to the hereditary estate. He chose this spot because there is nobody around and “[the wife] was to have perfect rest and all the air [she] could get.” John thinks that this house will be the best for her because he is a highly sought out physician and knows how to diagnose her so-called disease by shoving her in a room. Most women had this disease if they were not acting like a stay-at-home mom that does all the house chores and cooks. Anything a woman would do that the husband or society, at the time, did not think was women-like then one was considered to have this depression disorder. What happened to this narrator was very common in the older society but not to this extent. The question is who truly is to blame for her becoming hysterical? Is it society, John, or just the wallpaper in general?
It is estimated that 11-78% of residents in nursing homes are suffering from depression, especially those with dementia (Volicer, Frijters, Van der Steen, 2011). Elderly depression can have many causes, however it is widely believed a decline in physical health, and reduced contact with family and friends are two of the most prominent reasons (Llewellyn-Jones, 2007). With limited to no family contact, elderly like the rest of us feel lonely, forgotten and unimportant. On the contrary, a study conducted by researchers Holahan and Moos found with family support, depression in elderly people decreased over a one year time span (Greenglass, Fiskenbaum, Eaton, 2006). Therefore, if more elderly residents of nursing and retirement homes are visited by their family members, their mental and physical well being will likely increase. I have witnessed at the retirement home I work at, some of the residents consistently have family visit them while others I have ever seen them have a visitor. The ones who are visited, often tend to be noticeably happier and healthier, while the ones who usually remain alone tend to be more unhappy and physically unwell. For instance, I worked last Christmas and I was surprised by the amount of residents who remained in the facility on Christmas day. Although the majority of the residents went home, there still were about 25-30 out of approximately 100 residents who remained on Christmas Day. The fact that these residents had no family to spend the holiday with, or were not invited by their family members was heartbreaking, especially since holidays like Christmas are heavily focused on family relationships. Exclusion and isolation, similar to what the remaining residents experienced on Christmas day, can be interpreted by the elderly as a loss of their family 's respect and may feel as though they are a
Looking back on the death of Larissa’s son, Zebedee Breeze, Lorraine examines Larissa’s response to the passing of her child. Lorraine says, “I never saw her cry that day or any other. She never mentioned her sons.” (Senior 311). This statement from Lorraine shows how even though Larissa was devastated by the news of her son’s passing, she had to keep going. Women in Larissa’s position did not have the luxury of stopping everything to grieve. While someone in Lorraine’s position could take time to grieve and recover from the loss of a loved one, Larissa was expected to keep working despite the grief she felt. One of the saddest things about Zebedee’s passing, was that Larissa had to leave him and was not able to stay with her family because she had to take care of other families. Not only did Larissa have the strength to move on and keep working after her son’s passing, Larissa and other women like her also had no choice but to leave their families in order to find a way to support them. As a child, Lorraine did not understand the strength Larissa must have had to leave her family to take care of someone else’s
Using the murder of Dee Ann’s mother as a means to intertwine the lives of the characters together, Steve Yarbrough examines the nature of relationships in “The Rest of Her Life.” The relationships in the story take a turn after Dee Ann’s mother is killed, with characters seeking to act more on their own, creating distance between many relationships throughout the story. Independent lifestyles prevent emotional bonds that hold relationships together from forming, thus preventing the characters from maintaining healthy relationships. The dysfunctional relationship present between Dee Ann and Chuckie in “The Rest of Her Life” is the result of the characters ' desire for self-gratification.
Life event such as retirement could cause social isolation. Most elderly people are vulnerable and living in isolation. They are not physically active. They are lonely and they have minimal contact and access to things around them. Living in isolation can impact the lives of elderly, which can then lead to suicide. It is true that different types of diseases emerges during late adulthood, but I am not really knowledgeable about those diseases because it is not as rampant as it is in western world in comparison to Nigeria, my home
Evidence suggests that depression is associated with high levels of morbidity and mortality and adversely affects the quality of life and social functioning (Katona, 1994). Some of these patients do not move about much, and with depression added to this premise, the transition from what these patients were used to, to a completely new environment is usually traumatic.
Her husband rejects the idea of her having any social interaction and does not allow her to have contact with anyone other than himself and Jeanie. She attempts to write for entertainment but she becomes too tired and soon the only source of entertainment for the Narrator is the wallpaper. She begins to look for patterns to ease her
She continues in this sequel to talk about the abuse she faced and the dysfunction that surrounded her life as a child and as a teen, and the ‘empty space’ in which she lived in as a result. She talks about the multiple personalities she was exhibiting, the rebellious “Willie” and the kind “Carol”; as well as hearing noises and her sensory problems. In this book, the author puts more emphasis on the “consciousness” and “awareness” and how important that was for her therapeutic process. She could not just be on “auto-pilot” and act normal; the road to recovery was filled with self-awareness and the need to process all the pieces of the puzzle—often with the guidance and assistance of her therapist. She had a need to analyze the abstract concept of emotions as well as feelings and thoughts. Connecting with others who go through what she did was also integral to her
Charlotte will never be anything but a wife and mother with no room to become a writer. Dependent on her husband for emotional support as well as financial support, Charlotte did not outwardly disagree with John's diagnosis. Without much protest, Charlotte stays in one room for fear of being sent to Dr. Mitchell's for the Rest Cure. (4) Trapped in a room with no aesthetic pleasure, she was left to her own thoughts. Societal norms said th...
Susan, the protagonist in “To Room Nineteen” feels trapped by her life and her family, and afflicted by her husband’s infidelity. Everyone assumes Susan and her husband are the perfect couple who have made all the right choices in life, but when Susan packs her youngest children off to school and discovers that her husband has been having an affair, she begins to question the life decisions she has made. Susan chooses to isolate herself from her own family by embarking on a journey of self-discovery in a hotel room that ultimately becomes a descend into madness. Unlike Susan, the woman in “The Yellow Wallpaper” initially wants contact and interaction with people, but is
There has been a considerable amount of inquiry which has associated loneliness to depression, low self-esteem, and physical illness (Hawley & Cacioppo, 2007; Sorkin, Rook, & Lu, 2002). Loneliness can also be detrimental to health as well as overall well-being later in life due to recent evidence implying that it accelerates physiological deterioration and advancement of chronic diseases in the elderly (Hawkley & Cacioppo, 2007).
Poon, L. W. (2011). Affect and loneliness among centenarians and the oldest old: The role of
There is a relationship between old age and late life loneliness; whether is perceived or actual is irrelevant, as society views elderly people differently