Chapter 17LATE ADULTHOOD

OLD AGE TODAY

AGEISM – prejudice or discrimination against a person (most commonly an older person) based on age.

o Efforts to combat ageism are making headway, thanks to the visibility of a growing number of active, healthy older adults.

o Today, many older people are healthy, vigorous, and active. Although effects of primary aging may be beyond people’s control, they often can avoid effects secondary aging.

“YOUNG OLD” “ OLD OLD” “OLDEST OLD”[65-74] [75-84] [85-above]

o Primary Aging – Gradual, inevitable, process of bodily deterioration throughout the life span.

o Secondary Aging – Aging processes that result from disease and bodily abuse and disuse and are after preventable.

o Functional Age – Measure of a person’s ability to function effectively in his or her physical and social environment in comparison with others of the same chronological age.

GERONTOLOGY – study of the aged and the process of aging.GERIATRICS – branch of medicine concerned with processes

of aging and age-related medical conditions.

PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENTLONGEVITY AND AGING

o Life expectancy is greater in developed countries than in developing countries, among white Americans than among African Americans, and among women as compared with men.

o Recent gains in life expectancy come largely from progress toward reducing death rates from diseases affecting older people. Further large improvements in life expectancy may depend on whether scientists can learn to modify basic processes of aging.

LIFE EXPECTANCY – age to which a person in a particular cohort is statistically likely to live (given his or her current age and health status), on the basis of average longevity of a population.

LONGEVITY – length of an individual’s life.LIFE SPAN – the longest period that members of a species can live.

SENESCENCE – period of the life span marked by changes in physical functioning sometimes associated with aging; begin at different ages for different people.GENETIC-PROGRAMMING THEORIES – theories that explain biological aging as resulting from a genetically determined developmental timetable.

Hayflick Limit – genetically controlled limit, proposed by Hayflick, on the number of times cells can divide in members of a species.VARIABLE – RATE THEORIES – theories that explain biological aging as a result of processes that vary from person to person and are influenced by both the internal and the external environment. Sometimes called error theories.

GENDER DIFFERENCES

Women are typically can live longer than men, though there are exceptions in developing countries where girls and women face severe discrimination.

• Women’s longer life has been attributed to several factors:• Their greater tendency to take care of themselves and to

seek medical care.• The higher level of social support they enjoy.• The greater biological vulnerability of males throughout

life.

THEORIES OF BIOLOGICAL AGINGGENETIC-PROGRAMMING THEORIES

Programmed Senescence Theory. Aging is the result of the sequential switching on and off of certain genes. Senescence is the time when the resulting age-associated deficits become evident.Endocrine Theory. Biological clocks act through hormones to control the pace of aging.Immunological Theory. A programmed decline in immune system functions lead to increased vulnerability to infectious disease and thus to aging and death.

VARIABLE-RATE THEORIES

Wear-and-Tear Theory. Cells and tissues have vital parts that wear out.Free-Radical Theory. Accumulated damage from oxygen radicals causes cells and eventually organs to stop functioning.Rate-of-Living Theory. The greater an organisms rate of metabolism, the shorter its life span. Autoimmune Theory. Immune system becomes confused and attacks its own body cells.

HOW FAR CAN THE LIFE SPAN BE EXTENDED?

SURVIVAL CURVES – curves, plotted on a graph, showing percentages of a population that survive at each age level.

Jeanne Louise Calment

Born: 21 February 1875 Died: 4 August 1997

She was a French woman with the longest

confirmed lifespan in history at age 122 years 164 days (44,724 days in

total).

PHYSICAL CHANGESChanges in body systems and organs are highly variable and may be results of disease, which in turn may be affected by lifestyle.

Older skin tends to become paler, splotchier, and less elastic and muscle shrink, the skin may wrinkle.

Varicose Veins of the legs become more common.

The hair on the head turns white and becomes thinner, and body hair becomes sparser.

Older people become shorter as the disks between their spinal vertebrae, and stooped posture may make them look even smaller.

Thinning bones may cause a “dowager’s hump” at the back of the neck, especially in women with osteoporosis.

PHYSICAL AND MENTAL HEALTHWhat health problems are common in late adulthood, and what factors influence health at that time?

Most older people are reasonably healthy, especially if they follow a healthy lifestyle. Most do have chronic conditions, but these usually do not greatly limit activities or interfere with daily life. The proportion of older adults with physical disabilities has declined. Still, older adults do need more medical care than younger ones.

Exercise and diet are important influences on health. Loss of teeth can seriously affect nutrition.

VISUAL IMPAIRMENTS

Cataracts – cloudy or opaque areas in the lens of the eye, which cause blurred vision. Glaucoma – Irreversible damage to the optic nerve caused by increased pressure in the eye.Age-Related Muscular Degeneration – Condition in which the center of the retina gradually loses its ability to discern fine details; leading cause of irreversible impairment in older adults.Presbyopia or Old Sightedness – results in the elasticity in the part of the lens due to old age

HEARING IMPAIRMENTS

Conduction Deafness – a defect caused by inability of the bones and membranes to function out of old age

MENTAL DISORDER

MENTAL AND BEHAVIORAL PROBLEMS

Dementia – Deterioration in cognitive and behavioral functioning due to physiological causes.

Parkinson’s Disease – Progressive, irreversible degenerative brain disorder, characterized by tremor, stuffiness, slowed movement, and unstable posture.

Alzheimer’s Disease – Progressive, irreversible degenerative brain disorder characterized by cognitive deterioration and loss of control of bodily functions, leading to death.

NORMAL BEHAVIOR SYMPTOMS AND DISEASE

- Temporary forgetting things - Permanently forgetting recent events, asking the same question repeatedly

- Inability to do some challenging tasks - Inability to do routine tasks with many steps, such as making and serving a meal

- Forgetting unusual or complex words - Forgetting simple words

- Getting lost in a strange city - Getting lost in one’s own block

- Becoming momentarily distracted and falling to watch a child

- Forgetting that a child in ones care and leaving the house

- Making mistakes in balancing a checkbook - Forgetting what the numbers in a checkbook

- Misplacing everyday items - Putting things in inappropriate places where one cannot usefully retrieve them. (Ex. Wristwatch in a fishbowl)

ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE VERSUS NORMAL BEHAVIOR

COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

• Physical and psychological factors that influence older people's performance on intelligence tests may lead to underestimation of their intelligence. Cross-sectional research showing declines in intelligence may reflect cohort differences.

• Measures of fluid and crystallized intelligence show a more encouraging pattern, with crystallized abilities increasing into old age.

• In Baltes' dual-process model, the mechanics of intelligence often decline, but the pragmatics of intelligence may continue to grow.

• A general slowdown in central nervous system functioning may affect the speed of information processing. However, this slowdown may be limited to certain processing tasks and may vary among individuals.

Measuring Older Adult’s Intelligence

Measuring older adult’s intelligence is complicated. A number of physical and psychosocial factors may lower their test scores and lead to underestimation of their intelligence.

Dual-Process Model – Model of cognitive functioning proposed by Baltes, which identities and seeks to measure two dimension of intelligence; mechanics and pragmatics.

Mechanics of Intelligence – In Baltes’ dual process model, the dimension of intelligence that tends to grow and includes practical thinking, application of accumulated knowledge and skills, specialized expertise, professional productivity, and wisdom.

Selective Optimization with Compensation – In Baltes’ dual process model, strategy for maintaining or enhancing overall cognitive functioning by using stronger abilities to compensate for those that have weakened.

MEMORY: HOW DOES IT CHANGED?

Short-Term Memory – is a kind of memory that is kept in a short duration of time.

Ex. Title of the first movie that you and your best friend watched in the cinema.

Long-Term Memory – memory that is kept because of its importance in your own life.

Ex. The day that your sibling was born.

Episodic Memory – Long-Term memory of specific experiences or events, linked to time and place.

Semantic Memory – Long-Term memory of general factual knowledge, social customs, and language.

Procedural/Explicit Memory – Long-Term memory of motor skills, habits, and ways of doing things which often can be recalled without conscious effort.

CHAPTER 18

PSYCHOSOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN LATE ADULTHOOD

THEORY AND RESEARCH ON PSYCHOSOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

STABILITY OF PERSONAL TRAITSWhat happens to personality in old age?

• Personality traits tend to remain stable in late adulthood, but cohort differences have been found.• Emotionally tends to become more positive and less negative in old age, but personality traits can modify this pattern.

Negative Emotions: Restlessness, boredom, loneliness, unhappiness, and

depression.

Positive Emotions: Excitement, interest, pride and sense of accomplishment.

NORMATIVE ISSUES AND TASKSErik Erikson’s final stage, EGO INTEGRITY VS DESPAIR, culminates in the virtue of wisdom, or acceptance of one’s life and impending death.

According to Erikson, the eight and final stage of psychosocial development, in which people in late adulthood either achieve a sense of integrity of the self by accepting the lives they have lived, and thus accept death, or yield to despair that their lives cannot be relived.

MODELS OF COPINGHow do older adults cope?

• George Vaillant found that the use of mature adaptive mechanisms earlier in adulthood predicts psychosocial adjustment in late life.

• In the cognitive-appraisal model, adults of all ages generally prefer problem-focused coping, but older adults do more emotion-focused coping than younger adults when the situation calls for it.

• Religion is an important source of emotion-focused coping for many older adults. Older African Americans are more involved in religious activity than elderly white people, and black women are more involved than black men.

Coping – Adaptive thinking aimed at reducing stress that arises from harmful or challenging conditions

Cognitive-Appraisal Model – Holds that, on the basis of continuous appraisal of their relationship with the environment.Problem-Focused Coping – In the Cognitive-Appraisal Model, coping strategy directed toward eliminating, managing, or improving a stressful situation.Emotion-Focused Coping – In the Cognitive-Appraisal Model, coping strategy directed toward managing the emotional response to a stressful situation so as to lessen its physical impact.Ambiguous Loss – A loss that is nit clearly defined or does not bring closure.

What is successful aging and how can it be measured?

- Two contrasting early models of "successful" or "optimal" aging are disengagement theory and activity theory. Disengagement theory has little support, and findings on activity theory are mixed. Newer refinements of activity theory are continuity theory and a distinction between productive and leisure activity.

- Baltes and his colleagues suggest that successful aging may depend on selective optimization with compensation, in the psychosocial as well as cognitive realm.

MODELS OF “SUCCESSFUL” or “OPTIMAL” AGING

Disengagement Theory VS Activity Theory

Disengagement Theory – Holds that successful aging is characterized by mutual withdrawal between the older person and society.

Activity Theory – Holds that in order to age successfully a person must remain as active as possible.

Continuity Theory – Holds that in order to age successfully people must maintain a balance of continuity and change in both the internal ang external structures of their lives.

SELECTIVE OPTIMIZATION WITH COMPENSATION

According to this concept, the aging brain compensates for losses in certain areas by selectively optimizing, or making the most of, other abilities. The same principle applies to Psychosocial Development. As we have seen, older adults often can be more flexible than the younger ones in selecting coping strategies, and thus can optimize well-being in the face of overwhelming, intractable problems.

LIFESTYLE AND SOCIAL ISSUES RELATED TO AGING

What are some issues regarding work and retirement in late life, and how do older adults handle time and money?

-Some older people continue to work for pay, but most are retired. However, many retired people start new careers or do part-time paid or volunteer work. Often retirement is a phased phenomenon.

- Age has both positive and negative effects on job performance, and individual differences are more significant than age differences. Older adults tend to be more satisfied with their work and more committed than younger ones.

-The financial situation of older people has improved, but still about 30 percent can expect to live in poverty at some point. For many of today's middle-aged adults, retirement funding is shaky.

-Retirement is an ongoing process, and its emotional impact must be assessed in context. Personal, economic, and social resources, as well as the length of time a person has been retired, may affect morale.

- Common lifestyle patterns after retirement include a family-focused lifestyle, balanced investment, and serious leisure.

LIFE AFTER RETIREMENT

Family-Focused Lifestyle – Pattern of retirement activity that revolves around family, home, and companions.

Balanced Investment – Pattern of retirement activity allocated among family, work, and leisure.

Serious Leisure – Leisure activity requiring skill and contentment.

Continuity Theory suggests that people who maintain their earlier activities and lifestyles adjust most successfully. Socioeconomic status may affect the way retired people use their time.

What options for living arrangements do older adults have?

- In developing countries, the elderly often live with children or grandchildren. In developed countries, most older people live with a spouse, and a growing minority live alone. Minority elders are more likely than white elders to live with extended family members.

- Most older Americans prefer to "age in place." Most can remain in the community if they can depend on a spouse or child for help.

- Older women are more likely than older men to live alone. Most Americans who live alone are widowed.

- Institutionalization is rare in developing countries. Its extent varies in developed countries. In the United States, only about 4.5 percent of the older population are institutionalized at a given time, but the proportion increases greatly with age. Most nursing home residents are older widows.

- Fast-growing alternatives to institutionalization include assisted-living facilities and other kinds of group housing.

- Elder abuse is most often suffered by a frail or demented older person living with a spouse or child. Elder Abuse – Maltreatment of dependent older persons or violation of their personal rights.

PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS IN LATE LIFESOCIAL CONTACT

According to Social Convoy Theory, reductions or changes in social contact in late life do not impair well-being because a stable inner circle of social support is maintained. According to Socioemotional Selectivity Theory, older people prefer to spend time with people who enhance their emotional well-being.

How do personal relationships change in old age, and what is their effect on well-being?

- Relationships are very important to older people, even though frequency of social contact declines in old age. - Social support is associated with good health, and isolation is a risk factor for mortality.- The way multigenerational late-life families function often has cultural roots.

CONSENSUAL RELATIONSHIP

LONG-TERM MARRIAGE

This is a relatively new phenomenon. Most marriages, like most people, need to have a shorter life span.

Married couples who are still together in late adulthood more likely than middle aged couples to report their marriages as satisfying and many say it has improved. It can be severely tested by advancing age and physical ills. Spouses who must care for disabled partners may feel isolated, angry, and frustrated especially when they are in poor health themselves.

DIVORCE AND REMARRIAGE

Divorce in late life is rare, congress who takes this step usually do it much earlier. Only 8% of women and 7% of men age 65 and over are divorced and not remarried. However, since 1990, there’s numbers have increased significantly and probably will continue to increase as younger cohorts with larger proportions of divorced people reach late adulthood.

WIDOWHOOD

Just as older men are more likely than women to be married, older women are much more likely than men to be widowed and for similar reasons; women tend to outlive their husbands and are less likely than men to marry again.

SINGLE LIFE

In more than half of the world, 5% or less of elder men and 10% or less of elderly women has never married. Older never-married people are more likely thank older divorced widowed people to prefer single life and less likely to be lonely.

GAY AND LESBIAN RELATIONSHIP

There is little research on homosexual relationship in old age. This is largely because the current cohort of older adults grew up at a time when livingly opens as a homosexuals who are rare.

Older homosexuals, like heterosexuals, have needs for intimacy, social contact, and Generativity. Many gays and lesbians adapt to aging with relative ease. Adjustment may be influenced by coming-out status.

FRIENDSHIPS

Friendships in old age focus on companionship and support, not on work and parenting. Older adults have close friends and those who do are healthier and happier.

This is a mutual relationship including give and take – changes over the life span, but its context and content change.

People who can confide their feelings and thoughts and can talk about their worries and pain with friends deal better with the change and crises of aging.

NONMARITAL KINSHIPRELATIONSHIP WITH ADULT CHILDREN – OR THEIR ABSENCE

As Socioemotional Selectivity Theory predicts aging adults seek to spend more of their time with such no as their children.

•Children provide a link with other family members – especially with grandchildren.

•Older parents continue to show strong concern about their children, think about them often, and help them when needed.

•Many elderly people whose adult children are mentally ill, with serious illnesses serve as primary caregivers for as long as both parent and child live.

RELATIONSHIP WITH SIBLINGS

•Older adult siblings say they stand ready to provide tangible help and would turn to a sibling for such help if needed, but relatively few actually do so expect in emergencies such as illness or a death of a spouse.

•The nearer older people live to their siblings and the more siblings they have the most likely they are to confide in them.

BECOMING GREAT GRANDPARENTS

As grandchildren grow up, grandparents generally see them less often. Because of age declining health and the scattering of families, great grand parents tend to be less involved thank grandparents in a child’s life.

ENDBy:Junnel Rose O. AlmarioAlexander Bruce SD. DitangcoMa. Cecilia MartejaLou Sigfried Serrano

PSY 1Y2-1