She points out facts about different methods of curing human imperfections, such as ageing, impotence and organ failures, and how the idea of ageing has evolved over the years: “old age was so rare in less-developed societies that people who achieved it were granted a certain amount of status and even a mystical cachet. Later, the elderly might have been mocked or isolated, but age was still not seen as an illness. It’s only in recent centuries, as old age has become more and more commonplace, that we have started to venerate youth; ageing is now associated not with fortunate longevity but with decrepitude and disease.” These facts introduce and support the idea that ageing is certainly a problem now compared to earlier in life and is in need of a cure. Zimmerman continues by presenting the effort of others, who are credited, who have put there life work into finding ways to better the effects of ageing, such as the San Quentin prison experiment involving the implanting of executed prisoners’ testis to promote “youth, health and vigour (Zimmerman 2014).”
The book explores the feeling and experience of one 's later years: when one feels both cut off from the past and out of step with the present; when the body starts to give up but the mind becomes more passionate than ever. The book offers a wide vision of the issues that we go throughout our lives: the struggle to achieve goodness; how to maintain individuality in a mass society; and how to emerge out of suffering, loss, and limitation and so on. The book is an important contribution to the literature of aging, and of living. Scott-Maxwell’s book is compelling.
Chapter 13 was all about the elderly and their place in society. Gerontology is the study of elderly people and the hardships people are faced with once they start aging. More specifically Social gerontology is a subclass of Gerontology that specializes in in what changes a person makes in society once they start aging into the later years. Industrialization is believed to be one of the causes of elderly people losing superiority and power in society. What once was wisdom and knowledge that defined an elderly person is now something like old fashioned.
My grandfather is socially active and if ever he becomes socially disengaged the health care sector will try and help him find a solution where he could prevent becoming more disengaged to the public. Also, the health and social care sector still encourages elderly who are active to stay active in order to prevent social disengagement. To conclude, old age people feels that sometimes society shuts them off because they have limited set of skills but they need to make sure that they would try to avoid being socially withdrawn by being more active to prevent them from being fully disengaged.
D2 critically compare the value of ageing theories to individuals in differing health or social care settings In this assignment i will be comparing two ageing theories in 3 different health and social care settings. I will look at the advantages and disadvantages as well as the strategies put in place within these settings. Activity theory Social disengagement Care Home Residents tend to form close relations with their staff as well as getting all the residents to socialise, which contributes to their social lives and allows them to follow the activity theory easily.
In middle adulthood, ages (40-65) known as generativity vs. stagnation Erickson proposed this life span theory as struggle in middle adulthood. “Generativity is the ability to transcend personal interests to provide care and concern for younger and older generations” (Crain, William, 2011). This theory suggests that older people have the ability to give care, guidance, and inspiration to the younger generation, in addition, to providing for the older generation, such as aging parents or family members. In her middle adulthood years Kathleen experienced many losses.
Growing old is something to be proud of, because of the richness of the experience. Whether, it is bad or good as long as the person grows old gracefully and being fulfilled in his or her life. Achieving integrity is a continuum and challenging throughout the aging process and this last stage of life remains to be unclear in the literature. The characteristics of a successful aging can be identified as absence of anxiety towards death, can easily adapt in terms of disappointments and triumph during success, satisfaction with life, no regrets in the past (James & Zarrett, 2006), financial security and spirituality (Bowling & Dieppe, 2005).
Part Two The mutual disengagement and withdrawal between the older adult and society are one of the sociological theories of aging; the disengagement theory (Touhy, Jett, Boscart, & McCleary, 2012, p. 93). This theory does not apply to Gurdeep’s life as she moved in with her son’s family and constantly interacts with each of them every day. She also volunteers at the gurdwara daily and is still engaged in her spiritual and religious activities helping her increase her social interactions with those other than family. Due to the distance and her age, however, she has lost contact with many of her friends which applies to the disengagement theory where the older adult withdraws from their normal activities and interactions with society.
Ghimire’s entire performances, ‘activity theory’, under the sociological theory, is applied in her case. Sociological theory of aging attempts to explain and predict changes in roles and relationship in middle and late life, with an emphasis on adjustment (Touhy et al, 2013). Likewise, activity theory is based on the belief that remaining as active as possible contributes to successful aging. Evidence from gerontological research links continued physical activity, social engagement and productive roles to better health outcomes (Touhy et al, 2013). According to this theory, if the older people are mentally as well as physically active, they are supposed to be happy and healthy.
The events that occur throughout the span of a person 's life influence their process of aging. Cumulative disadvantages, finances, filial responsibility, and concerns about generational equity all give to the life course perspective theory. These concepts are demonstrated in the interview of Barbara Thomas, a 70-year-old retiree. Barbara does this through her personal anecdotes which shape her attitude towards becoming older. Consequently, Barbara discusses her aging process in terms of successive stages, and not a concurrent period.
The social environment is no more immune to the passage of time than is the human body” (Teas and Benignton, 1982, pg. 12). Teas and Benignton discuss the industrial and political world developed the idea that the old are less valuable employees then the youth (1982, pg.17). The late adulthood stage needs to express the importance of self-sufficiency, individualism, and even privacy in the psychosocial development. During this time in one’s life they are possibly experiencing great loss of individualism. Kaufman discusses the observation of family members of the elderly who feel they must be the decision
Age is the length of time that a person has lived that is the marker of biological and developmental advancement. Aging refers to the gradual and continuous accumulation of changes which eventually increases one’s risk of illness or death. Aging begins right from fertilization. The primary life stages can be classified broadly as prenatal life and postnatal life with the bridge being the process of birth. Once the fetus is mature, after 38-40weeks of gestation, the baby is born and up to one year of age is referred to as an infant.
Gerontology can be expressed in mainly three aspects that can be Longevity (span of life of an organism), Aging (sequential or progressive change in an organism that leads to an increased risk of debility and disease), and Death. There are many questions that are often pondered by the mankind in the past couple of hundred years like Why do we age? When do we start aging? What is the aging marker? Is there a limit to how old we can grow?
When initially asked to interview a person over the age of sixty-five whom I thought was aging successfully, I immediately thought of my maternal grandfather, Anthony George Turegano, or as I grew up knowing him, grandpa. Growing up I was, and still am, very close to my grandfather, as he is a mentor in my life and helped raise me whenever my parents needed help. Due to this, I have been fortunate enough to see him age with grace for the past twenty-one years of my life to the place where he is now, happily living with my grandmother at the age of seventy. When considering what aging successfully means, I thought of the qualities my grandfather possesses in regards to his physical, mental, and social well-being.
The last two approaches are commonly used in developing measures of quality of life. This process of measurement has replaced the individuality, which Mill (2001) considered as an essential constituent of well-being, with a multi-dimensional approach: objective (e.g. consumption behavior), subjective (e.g. leisure activities) and collective (e.g. governmental policy) dimensions. One of the influential conceptualization of quality of life is that of Lawton (1991) who described it as ‘the multidimensional evaluation, by both intrapersonal and social-normative criteria, of the person environment system of an individual in time past, current and anticipated’. The dimensions were arranged in a continuum of objective (objective environment, behavioral
