Nowadays, in times of medical and technical progress, when many diseases can be cured and when people pay more attention to healthy lifestyle, the life span in getting longer. Especially in Western and North Europe, where people have better quality of life, we experience the phenomenon of aging of the population. There is less number of births, because women prefer to improve their education and start career path, so they decide to begin family life later, and also the number of death due to higher life standard is much smaller. In the constant cult of youth, elderly people face the problem of accepting themselves, as weaker and not necessary in the society. Aging is quite sad and depressing period of life. The process of aging is difficult to accept for older adults. They experience many disappointments in connection with physical and mental health. They are not as bright as they used to be, they keep forgetting many things and physically they may not recognise themselves as attracting and interesting. Due to the phenomenon of aging of population, scientists were forced to change tactic and focus more on older adults as they need more care and attention, and also make older people realize that the last period of life does not have to be associated with loss, illness and unpleasant experiences. In fact, this is true that during the last years of life memory decline occurs and physical abilities are limited, but every development brings both gains and loss. It is essential to focus on positive aspects. Older adults, as they retire, have more time for social life. They can spend more time with family and they are able to become a part of a social group, for what they had not had time before. Elderly people can enjoy their free ti... ... middle of paper ... ...oking. Having positive attitude for life and reducing stress is essential in general, and an old person should not be afraid of attending to psychologist and using other health care. What is more being socially active, for example taking part in volounteering, create the feeling of beeing needed and gives satisfaction. It is certain that in later development the balance between gains and lossess will be less positive and an old person will experience many unpleasant results of aging. But the model of selective optimization with compensation can contribute to positive aging. On the one hand biology and time are merciless, and tend to deprive the most important things. On the other hand the last phase of life, does not have to be disappointing. Implementation the strategy of selective optimization with compensation can bring satisfaction to life and make it simplier.
There are many environmental influences as well as human behaviors that contribute to one’s expected life span. Health and lifestyle are two major factors that play a role in determining what life would be like during the senior years of life. There are many advantages to having a strong social support network that consists of caregivers paid and unpaid. Seniors with this tend to live longer, remain independent and stay active in their later years. Citizens in today’s society are living longer due to technology, medications and an overall healthier lifestyle. Many reach the age of 100 but the maximum human life span is 120 years old. One’s personal data, career choices, environmental influences and amount of active interactions will determine how those of the older population will experience the aging process.
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
Aging is universal and it is a process that everyone has to go through. The only difference is that everyone goes through this process at their own pace influenced by factors that will be discussed later on in this paper. When we think about factors that have an influence on older adults and how their life may be affected, we must consider the different social institutions while analyzing influences from social factors, cultural factors, and personal values. Abuse to older adults, stereotyping and informal care and technological advancements that affect older adults are the three topics that will be discussed in this reflection. Furthermore, will connect the three topics I have chosen to the knowledge that I have gained from my interaction
The thought of aging is not void of hesitance given it produces questions deprived of answers in the absence of a crystal ball. Subsequently, aging parallels the unknown; thus, faced with uncertainty adopting a positive perspective remains elusive. Although, it’s preferred to view aging optimistically one cannot escape its negative connotations. Will I be an active agent or isolated burden remains a noteworthy unknown that enervates my optimism. Another consideration leading to my vacillating view on aging is, not knowing to what degree personal competencies and capacities will carry forward, thereby affording autonomy in the elder years. However, as research suggest, the aging process transforms healthy adults into frail ones; thus, dashing one’s hope that such traits will endure (Friis, 2010). Incidentally, at age 48, these lingering questions will soon be answered. In the interim, there is an inherent responsibility to prepare physically, psychologically, and financially for entry into the aging population. Ideally, the goal is to
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.
Analyzing late adulthood and the death of an individual as a culmination of the life span development process one must understand late adulthood consists of. This paper will give a brief overview of ageism and stereotypes associated with late adulthood. This will explain how health and wellness techniques in the late adulthood stages can mitigate the negative effects of aging. As people age the social views and experiences changes in relationships and interactions with people, as he or she nears the end of life. When closely approaching the end of life, a person has cultural and personal attitudes about death and dignity in late adulthood.
More specifically, the transitions associated with later life like retirement, medical problems, death of a loved ones, reduced social networks leads to depression in aging population (National Alliance on Mental Illness, 2009). It is seen that depression is one of the most common mental disorder among adults aged 65 and older (National Alliance on Mental Illness, 2009).Depression is associated with anxiety and suffering that can lead to physical, mental, and social impairments. The presence of depressive disorders often negatively impact the course and complicates the treatment of other chronic diseases too (National Alliance on Mental Illness, 2009).According to National Alliance of Mental Illness there are more than two million of the 40 million Americans age 65 and older who suffer from some form of depression (National Alliance of Mental Illness (NAMI), 2009).
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...
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.
“The Golden Years? You've got to be kidding...(Nelson)” Ageism is the main influence for how older people view the aging process. Despite stereotypes, today, for the first time in history, most people can expect to live into their sixties and beyond. A longer life represents an important opportunity, not only for older people and their families, but also for societies as a whole. Additional years provide the chance to pursue new activities such as further education or a long-neglected passion, while continuing to make valuable contributions to family and community.
One of the aspects of gerontology that makes for such interesting studies is the various social theories of aging that pertain to the issues and topics of the aged. Since the earlier days of the discipline at the dawn of the twentieth century up until today, the biomedical study, concentrating on the diseases and the decline of the aged has been a primary focus of gerontology. However, since the 1950’s over a dozen social theories, explaining the changes in social relationships and interactions as people age has been developed. The ideas behind these theories have evolved over time grouping them into categories of first, second and third generation or modern and postmodern (Hooyman & Kiyak, 2011, p. 313). Two theories that emerged in the
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.
In today’s society, what was once said to be true and taken as fact regarding older people is no longer the whole story. As Laslett states, “At all times before the middle of the twentieth century and all over the globe the greater part of human life potential has been wasted, by people dying before their allotted time was up.” (1989a), and to a great extent a lot
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).
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.