Perspective of aging: A phenomenological approach Introduction Aging is the process by which the human body undergoes changes and maturation over time, mainly because dead cells are not replaced in sufficient amounts to maintain optimum performance. In addition, changes in behavior are expected, (Gall, Beins, and Feldman, 2001). Due to the distinctive physical and psychological changes, this period of life can be one of much confusion for the elderly. Fortunately, technological advances in medicine and lifestyles have made life expectancy increase significantly since the fifties to the present, (Hiller & Barrow, 2011). For this project I used a phenomenology method. Phenomenology is the study of life events as they appear in the consciousness of a person or group of people; moreover is the study of experiences as they come to pass in our lives, (Desjarlais & Throop, 2011). This paper aims to analyze, visualize and illustrate various aspects of aging from the point of view of older adults. Methodology This brief study involved the participation of 3 subjects between 69-74 years of age, from two different ethnic groups: Whites and Hispanics. Participants were a Hispanic woman (HW) 71 years old (divorced and then widowed), a Hispanic man (HM) age 74 (divorced), and a White man (WM) 69 years of age (divorced and recently widowed). Due to Alzheimer’s, for the interview with WM participant I required the assistance of his son (40 years old) for corroboration of obtained facts. Subjects did not receive any compensation for their participation. In-depth phenomenological interviews were conducted to gather the information. Findings One of the most notorious observations was that not all people age the same way, and that chronological ... ... middle of paper ... ...atry, 58(4), 225-232. Retrieved April 7, 2014 from http://search.proquest.com/socialsciences/docview/1347616926/fulltextPDF/1C3704213B01420EPQ/22?accountid=35796 Davis, S. F., & Palladino, J. J. (2003). Psychology. (4th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall. Desjarlais, R., & Throop, C. J. (2011). Phenomenological approaches in anthropology. Annual Review of Anthropology, 40, 87-102. doi: 10.1146/annurev-anthro-092010-153345. Gall, S. B., Beins, B., & Feldman, A. (2001). The gale encyclopedia of psychology. (2nd ed.). Detroit, MI: Gale Group. Hiller, S. M., & Barrow, G. M. (2011). Aging, the individual, and society. (9th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning. Snodgrass, J., & Sorajjakool, S. (2011). Spirituality in older adulthood: Existential meaning,productivity, and life events. Pastoral Psychology, 60, 85-94. doi: 10.1007/s11089-010-0282-y
Schacter, D. L., Gilbert, D. T., & Wegner, D. M. (2010). Psychology. (2nd ed., p. 600). New York: Worth Pub.
Van Dussen, D. J., & Weaver, R. R. (2009). Undergraduate students’ perceptions and behaviors related to the aged and to aging processes. Educational Gerontology, 35, 340–355. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03601270802612255.
Gall, S. B., Beins, B., & Feldman, A. (2001). The gale encyclopedia of psychology. (2nd ed., pp. 271-273). Detroit, MI: Gale Group.
This reflection paper is based on the life history interview conducted on me and a 78-year-old woman who is soon going to celebrate her 79th birthday on Sep 21st. I would call her with a fictitious name “Smita” in the entire paper to maintain and protect her privacy. The interview was about our life. It was divided into six major life categories: childhood, adulthood, identity, the present, aging, and life lessons. Having an opportunity to interview a 78-year-old woman and writing this reflective paper about the life history and experiences had made me realize that I have a lot to learn about the stages of human life. Every individual lives are different and it varies tremendously. As an interviewee my goal was to collect the details of life, different stories, and experiences that makes our life unique from the rest of the people.
Aging is defined as a systemic limitations of human biology that is vulnerable to wear & tear, and diseases. Aging studies can be performed in two ways : cross sectional or longitudinal. A cross sectional study can allow a snapshot of entire life without taking the time. It usually comprises large samples. A limitation of these studies include cohort effects and secular trends. Cohort effect are the effects of being born at the same time, exposed to the same events in society, and influenced by the same demographic trends and thus, having similar experiences that make the group unique from other groups. Normally, there is no measure of true change and variability in this technique. Individual differences are confounded with age differences.
Everyone will grow old, as the aging process of the human body is inevitable. However, each day in our life can bring on new adventures, new friends, and knowledge of the world a round us. Yet, many people have negative views towards those who are considered older adults and thus, have a negative belief on the aging process as a whole. Throughout the quarter, COMM 119 has taught us why there is this negative stigma around the aging process and specially, on older adults as a group. This paper will address my stereotypical views of the aging process before COMM 119, the effect of improperly discussing death and dying, as well as what it means to be a successful ager. Understanding these topics have helped me realize that my viewpoints of elder
I decided to compare and contrast the elderly and college students, not to show ageism, but to see the similarities and differences in their lives. To observe students I went to Ventura College and to elderly home observed how both groups interacted in certain areas I concentrated on transportation, workforce, friendships, dependency, and time management, their lifestyles, dress style, diet, education and attitude towards life.
With aging comes the stereotyping of people of their age, additionally known as ageism (DEFINITION) for example, youth are intentionally rowdy and rule breakers. The stereotypes in today 's western society are that being a young adult is expressed the best, being skinny, use technology that prevents anti-aging and keeps a persons youthfulness. Aging has a negative connotation with older adults receiving the blame for most of the problems in today society, from election results and the apocalyptic demography making it worse, “which is the oversimplified notion that a demographic trend has a catastrophic consequence for society” (LEC). This has led people to think that aging is a social problem where they age blame that to much resource go towards older adults such as the large amount of taxpayer money for medical services and pensions.
The article “What is Successful Aging”, thoroughly explained the author’s thoughts on what aging successfully actually means. I think it is extremely vital to try our best to be content with our lives and what we have done at a later age. Integrity versus despair, as we learned in class kept coming to mind while reading the article. It is important that when one reaches this age he or she doesn’t feel like there is more to look back on than to look forward to. I agreed with the author’s views on self-efficacy and different opportunities in aging successfully.
Older adults are a very knowledgeable population and have had a lot of life experiences. As people age, things start to change physically, mentally, and socially. It’s important to understand the process of aging, so that older adults can be taken care of properly. I interviewed P.R. who is a 71-year-old male that lives alone in his home. P.R. is a retired coal miner, and is currently living off his social security and savings. He lives close to both his daughter and son, who frequently help him out with things that are needed. P.R. was able to give me a lot of insight about specific challenges that he has experienced in his life that is associated with aging. I will be discussing challenges that P.R experienced physically, mentally,
National Council of La Raza Headquarters. 1990. “Hispanic Elderly.” Hispanic Elderly. Retrieved May 27, 2014 (http://cas.umkc.edu/casww/hispanic.htm).
Erikson's theory of aging adaptation will be applied to this semester and journal entry. According to Erikson, people transition through "life stages" and face "conflicts" (Wilkinson, 2013, p. 1109). According to this theory, elderly individuals will face the challenges associated with integrity versus despair. This theory serves as an ideal framework to base the semester's learning because it specifically relates to the core competencies of an adult-gerontology advanced practice program and course objectives. As a student, it is critical to recognize how the body and mind will adjust
The biological theories of aging support categorizing individuals according to chronological age as they take into account the common physiologic changes that appear as an adult ages. For example, the gene theory suggests that each cell, or whole person, has an inherent aging code that already knows the age at which the cell will no longer function (Lange & Grossman, 2014, p. 80). Some sociological theories of aging enforce the categorizing of older adults, such as the age stratification theory. This theory separates the categories according to the historical context in which the group develops postulating that each generation has different ideologies, attitudes, and values, as well as, expectations of aging (Lange & Grossman, 2014, p. 70).
Aging and being old was dominated by negative characteristics and conditions such as illness, depression, and isolation for a long time (Eibach, Mock, & Courtney, 2010). At first glance the terms “success” and “aging” seem to be in conflict to each other. When asking people about aging, their answers have many facets that are also found in psychological definitions: successful aging is seen as health, maturity and personal growth, self-acceptance, happiness, generativity, coping, and acceptance of age-related limitations. In the psychological sense successful aging is also often seen as the absence of age-associated characteristics (Strawbridge, Wallhagen, & Cohen, 2002). It seems that successful aging means is not aging.
As a result there is a blurring of old-age life stages, with little social understanding of this age except what society gleans from cultural mythmakers, filmmakers, novelists, dramatists, and artists (Neugarten, 1986; Barnes, 2002). It has been described as a period of developmental ambiguity, time of life that is both old age and not old age. Research on the older adult tends to focus on ageing as a problem. As structured discrimination, ageism is perpetuated through institutions an social constructs such as health care, work, education, retirement, media, language, and government policies. The diversity of old age has not been recognized and often the aged are portrayed as unproductive, inflexible, senile, and lacking power or influence (Bytheway, 2005; Nelson, 2005; Cuddy, Norton, and Fiske, 2005; Achenbaum, 2008; Filinson, 2008; Blaine,