This article, “What is Successful Aging,” was an interesting read that focused mostly on what is viewed as successful aging, the variables that determine successful aging, and how we as a society are trying to enhance the process today.
As the author points out, there are many features of life that people relate to successful aging, and the degree of satisfaction reached with each one is different with everyone. These features range from physical health to financial security, to simply staying active and social. I have two grandmothers who exhibit these features perfectly. My father’s mother turned 98 last week and her mind functions perfectly. She can hold her end of an intelligent conversation on almost any topic. However, she spends 95 percent of her day in bed and requires round the clock in home assistance because her body has become extremely frail. My mother’s mother is 87 years old and can walk and garden and essentially function on her own. She is very good at casting the illusion that she is in perfect condition. However, have a quick conversation with her and you quickly realize that she
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The author lists quite a few examples. In the controllable category are things such as smoking, drinking, and drug consumption. Neither of my grandmothers partook in any of these activities excluding the consumption of prescription medication. This certainly played a role in them reaching old age. The list of uncontrollable variables includes finances, and access to health care. My father’s mother was a poor immigrant and likely had poor medical care for a good portion of her young life, likely contributing to her bodies decline. Whereas, my physically healthy grandmother had well to do parents and ample access to health care her entire life. We do not all have the same opportunity to age well but to a degree, we can take matters into our own
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.
Education is a strong predictor of good health and longevity outcomes. As for employment, take into consideration that individuals of the lower socioeconomic status who smoke more, have poor eating habits, and exercise less are more acceptable to die prematurely than people with better lifestyles on a higher scale. This is mainly, because of unskilled workers tend to work long hours, as well as double shifts, for low wages just to make ends meet. Without education theses individuals are subjected to these particular unskilled jobs. Wealth and status goes hand in hand, because wealth is consumed of how much money or property
For my Life-Span interview project, I decided to interview someone who was in the late adulthood period of their life. The interview was conducted in the interviewee 's home, on November 12th, 2015. The woman I choose to interview was known to me, and she is currently 76 years of age, a grandmother with four children and seven grandchildren. We sat down and chatted for about an hour and a half. I started the interview by making small talk and then moved into the interview questions.
These characteristics include their attitude towards aging and dependency rates. An elderly with positive beliefs about
Health Disparities in Lower Socioeconomic Individuals Socioeconomic status (SES) in recent times has been defined as “a broad concept that refers to the placement of persons, households and census tracts with respect to the capacity to create or consume goods that are valued in our society.” More specifically, it is the access an individual or group has to rudimentary resources that are required to obtain and preserve good health (Shavers, 2007). Socioeconomic status has been shown to impact physical health, with escalations in SES being linked with prominent benefits to health (Schreier & Chen, 2013). The fact that our culture’s poorer and less advantaged individuals live with inferior health and die earlier is a problem that needs to be
The result shows that 46 or 92% of the elderlies wished that they had more respect to themselves. Forty or 80% of them said that they sometimes pity themselves while 34 or 68% of them perceived that they have little or sometimes nothing to help their family and friends. In addition, 33 or 66% of elderlies said that they are not happy with their accomplishments in life while 32 or 64% of them perceived that they do not have capabilities and good qualities that they can be proud of and shared that they find it difficult to accept the changes happening in themselves at the present moment. Moreover, 28 or 56% of the elderlies shared that they often think and wish that they are in other people’s condition while half of them (50%) think and feel that they are useless. Further, despite of the adversities experienced in later life, 32 or 64% of elderlies didn’t think that they
When thinking about life expectancy many people including myself think about the commonly associated factors like exercising, being smoke-free and such. However, knowing some of the contributing factors of longevity and practicing them are two different things. While I may know what is beneficial for my well-being and how it may increase chances of longevity, it does not ensure that I will live my life accordingly. In fact whenever I do consciously think about living a better lifestyle most of the time I am thinking presently and never consider how beneficial it would be later in life. In the video Aging to 90+ Years they mention some of the lifestyle factors that are associated with either long or short life.
Positive frames of elderly people are related to successful, creative and productive aging (Bailey, 2010). According to Bailey (2010), the most persistent stereotypes of aging people are declining health and deteriorating appearance. The first things that I learned about this population are that these stereotypes are far from true. The elderly people that I engaged with are beautiful people from different backgrounds. Some of them may have been challenged physically but with the appropriate motivational approaches, were raring to go in order to improve their well-being.
“Although the speed of progression can vary, the average life expectancy following diagnosis is three to nine years”. Aging with Grace describer a study performed by Dr. David Snowdon, which followed a group of nuns for the remainder of their lives to assess their progression into dementia. The study involves 678 Catholic sisters with ages ranging from 74 to 106. As they are being studied by Dr. Snowdon and staff,” multiple tests assessing memory, concentration, language, visual-spatial abilities and orientation to time and place are being performed routinely”.
Thus, premature death and preventable losses of quality of life are probable outcomes. Elderly individuals may be less frequently provided the best data-supported healthcare simply because they are old. Thus, bias or prejudice against the aged may be a significant cause. Furthermore, Africa-American have poorer access to care than Whites, for one-third of core measures. Asians and American Indian/Alaska Native had shoddier access to care than Whites for 1 of 5 core measures.
The process of aging in not an unfamiliar topic to society and is an inevitable phase of life. Since 2011, the number of older individuals are increasing annually particularly those from the baby boomer generation. The life expectancy has been increasing with people living longer thanks to modern medicine. These occurrences are proof that civilization is growing exponentially, however the process of aging also means that the older individuals are facing dilemmas such as decreased physical functions, financial instability from retirement, and abuse. Even older adults who are independent may face some limitations.
On one hand there is a ninety-four year old man or woman functioning like a 65 year old (still working and requiring very little assistance). While on the other hand there is a 65-100 year old elderly patient dying a slow death from their multiple morbidities. The story gave an eye opening realism of how the elderly will be mismanaged if healthcare doesn’t start initiating a plan. During the PBS (2006) documentary on Living Old, Dr. Kass states “The bad news is that the price that many people are going to be paying for an extra decade of healthy longevity is up to another decade of anything but healthy longevity. … We 've not yet begun to face up to what this means in human terms”.
Summary of Living Old Living Old was a movie about people starting to live longer. It is very common now days for people to be living into their seventies, eighties, nineties, and sometimes one hundreds. In today’s world, medicine and technology have come so far that they are able to treat most infectious diseases that people use to die from.
An elderly could live in a retirement center, nursing facility, or alone with relatives and be in good health or in bad health (Papalia, Feldman, & Martorell, 2012, pg. 541-542). Chronic illness and psychical change will be occurring during late adulthood yet, another focus will be psychological development, which is heavily influenced by the social environment in which one elderly lives and thus brings out the importance of finding good living arrangements. This is a huge factor in many other life stages as well. For instance, “the state of the job market may determine when offspring choose to leave home… [or] when we retire may depend on the provisions of our pension plan.
Ageing is multidimensional change involving the physical, social as well as psychological aspects for an individual. Old age is generally an irreversible process, chronological, and a universal phenomenon and a challenge to everyone, who reaches it irrespective of sex, economic background, social background, race, ethnicity, profession, occupation, religion, skill or learning. Age can be also described as a progressive decline of the physical and mental function resulting in a simultaneous decline in both the capacity of body to maintain physiological balance as well as adaptability of the individuals to various stresses there by consequently increasing the chances of illness and mortality ( Marpady &et al, 2012) Neetu (2013) put aging by citing Becker (1959) as a complex process which includes anatomical, physiological, psychological and even social and economic changes. Randhawa (1987) stated aging by citing Becker (1959) in that ageing consists of two simultaneous components anabolic building up and catabolic breaking down. In the middle years there is an essential balance between expansion and decay, while growth predominates in youth; degenerative changes which start occurring very clearly in life pre-dominate in the late life span.