Gerontology Chapter 13 Outline

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.

Ageing is something that can be split up into many groups like aa variety of things in society. Older people can be categorized into the young-old, the middle-old and, the old-old. That last one seems ridiculous to me. People in each of these groups are generally happier in this time period rather that the previous one because the United states has given the resources for us to be more prepared for aging. Also nowadays people can start planning for their retirements before they even think about getting old.

Aging that can not be helped like cells changing and, biological changes are called primary aging. The opposite of primary aging would be attributed to something like not enough exercise or lack of vitamins would be secondary aging. The chapter explains that a yound adult gains new responsibilities when they reach adulthood and the opposite is true once you reach the golden years. Elderly people soon hit retirement where they get pulled out of their paying jobs to be put on government support. This occurrence was very different from how it used to be. Most people would put in an enormous amount of hours until they physically could no longer