Ageing Is Not A Disease, And Should Not Be Dreaded

Gerontology as a field of scientific study can be traced back to the late 1800s; a time when research primarily focused on the negative attributes of aging, such as health decline. It wasn 't until the introduction of social gerontology in 1983 that researchers began to more rigorously study the psychological and social aspects of aging. In recognizing that “successful aging depends not just on the prevention of disease and disability, but also on the attainment of peak physical and psychological functioning,” (Quadagno,

The humanity of aging is a concept sometimes hard to grasp. Understanding why we are

While the physical, emotional and social aspects with aging may be experienced in varying degrees and in a variety of ways, the milestone of retirement is a prospect that is universal in the Western world. In most countries, the idea of retirement is of recent origin, being introduced during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Previously, low life expectancy and the absence of pension arrangements meant that most workers continued to work until death. Nowadays most developed countries have systems to provide pensions on retirement in old age, which may be sponsored by employers and/or the state. Today, retirement with a pension is considered a right of the worker in many societies. ("Retirement," 2013, p. 1) Retirement is a milestone which, to most, marks the entrance to “old age”, the point at which an individual is socially recognized for their long years of service and permitted to spend the remainder of their “golden years” enjoying the fruits of their labors. While this perspective is an ideal, retirement carries with it a social status that can be both beneficial, when viewed as a reward, and detrimental, when considered by the retiree to be a sign of being obsolete. Preparing for the changes that come with retirement, and in this day and age the inability to

Aging is a universal phenomenon and humans are no exception. Gerontology deals with the psychological, social and biological aspects of aging process. A recent study shows that people aged 85 years and older are expected to augment from 5.3 million people to 21 million as the world reach 2050. In today’s world Gerontology has an enormous role to play so that the senior citizens could be analyzed and their needs may be addressed with compassion and empathy.

As adults enter the stage of later adulthood, many changes will begin to develop for each person. The aging process includes transitioning from work life to retirement, changes to roles, social positions, social policies, determining living accommodations with healthcare needs, and relationships with families and peers. The stage known as the golden years comes with great challenges while adjusting to the many changes in a person’s life. (Zastrow & Kirst-Ashman, 2010). Transition from work to retirement

Aging brings gray hair, a feeling of helplessness, and wrinkles. These are the images we think of we when think about laying on our death bed. When we age we also tend to look at more of the downside of aging like having to pay taxes, having children, or working five days week. Aging brings on a more demanding lifestyles. People expect much more out of us, and we must provide for more than just ourselves.

How do we assure that aging process is a positive one and is not taxing on the families and the society as a whole? Nokolova (2016) offers two solutions to the challenges for the increased aging population. They include: (a) gradual retirement scheme and (b) offering options for and rewarding volunteering, care, and artistic activities for the aging population of the society. Gradual retirement scheme or “phased-in retirement” allows older individual to remain in the workforce and continue to contribute towards the “tax revenues and reduced expenditure on pensions, which holds particular importance for fiscal and macroeconomic stability.” Additionally, as a result of their knowledge and experience they are an assent to the organizations and to the younger generation of employees. Moreover, Nokolova suggests “later-life work has positive health and perceived well-being consequence for the older employees.” Nokolova’s second suggestion includes options for and rewarding elderly for volunteer work, care, and artistic activities. It is her believe that unpaid activities “improve quality of the social fabric” by improving the well-being of those who engage in such activities, it is a contribution to the economy, “about 25 percent of U.S. residents volunteer, providing 7.9 billion hours f service and contributing 184 billion dollars of service.” While at the same time, such activities lower the cost of healthcare and welfare keeping the aging population active and minimize the opportunity for sedentary life style. Aging is unavoidable but it does not have to contribute to stress should we choose to look at it from the positive, solution-based point of

Aging is described as a sequential, irreversible, progressive, and non-pathological process of maturation in an organism and that translates to a gradual decline in the ability to perform activities optimally. Aging is an individual process that can be a period of stress for individuals especially following their retirement (Hiller & Barrow, 2015). The current study sought to understand the process and experience of aging from the perspective of elderly individuals. In discussing matters of aging and retirement, many assume that women are always eager to retire, and adjust well, as compared to their male counterparts (Bauger & Bongaardt, 2016). Many people assume that since women are generally made as homemakers, they are willing and happy to retire while men, whose nature is to be the main source of family income, find it hard to be out of work (Moody & Sasser, 2014). Indeed, there exists very little literature that sheds some light on this area, particularly on the attitudes of each gender towards retirement and process of aging. Given the significance of retirement to this life stage, the study sought to understand the emotions and views of individuals regarding their retirement through the lenses of (1) Physical health and wellbeing, (2) Friends, Family, and Community, (3) Work and leisure, (4) Finances and lifestyles, and (5) Living

As aging is a stage of development that cannot prevented, the question of “can one’s aging be more successful than another?” is posed my many. Researchers continually consider the differences between aging successfully, and aging unsuccessfully. As researchers work to complete their studies, many find a reoccurring basis of successful aging. A basis of successful aging can be set including: physical health disease free, chronic illness free, mental health disease free, among many others. The only problem with this basis is the difference from person to person in terms of what makes aging successful. As individuals age, their mental state is a large predictor of how the person will age. A positive mental state about aging, will have a more positive effect on a person’s aging process. Many factors may influence the positivity of aging, such as negative aging stereotypes and discrimination because of older age. These negative aging stereotypes include but are not limited to: older adults are not as smart, older adults are angry all the time, older adults are bad drivers, older adults are isolated and never socialize. In adult aging and development, having a positive outlook on aging will lead to better mental and physical aging.

Aging! We all do it every day, but have you ever thought how it is going to affect the rest of your life or more importantly your career? Aging isn’t something that we get to choose if we participate in, however working is, and aging may affect that choice. Right now, I want you to think about the age of sixty-five. What words pop into your head when you think of someone sixty-five? I’d imagine some of the words you thought of were retired, old, fragile, slow, as well as many others. Those words right there all help to explain the many concerns that one’s employer may have when hiring someone that is of the older population. When we think of the older population in the work force we don’t necessarily think of positive things, instead we think of things. When we think of this population in the workforce we generally think of lower production rates and higher costs. These can create issues among the older population, as employers must consider all the possibilities when hiring someone. We know that more people in the older population are continuing to try to continue their careers, but why? How hard is it for them to continue? What changes have made it easier? How are the younger and middle aged populations perceiving them in the work place? This are only some of the many question surrounding the increase of aged workers.

Some questions that go through the minds of people planning to retire are very stressing to them. A majority of people do not know what they will do. Many people plan to do volunteer work while others plan to devote more time to hobbies or special interest (Rathus, 2015). Another question they ask themselves is, “How will I afford it?” Pensions have been declining lately, layoffs have been rising, and property values have been falling, so many of the older employees have to postpone their plans for retirement or do not even retire (Rathus, 2015). Also, many never know where they will live. Many retirees stay where they already live but as time goes on they become less physically independent, and may need to live in assisted facilities or with one of their children (Rathus, 2015).

Knowing and having an understanding of what ageing stands for, remains an important step, growing-up or growing older and ageism are theories about older individuals. Ageism includes preconceptions that elderly are categorized for their age and perceived as weak, and incapable of performing tasks and needy of others (Quadagno, 2014). Another view about elderly individuals is the way they are looked down on by the younger society, i.e. elderly are not as intelligent as their younger competitive working force. People fear what they do not know and do not understand. Age transpires as something that must be lived through in order to understand what ageing means; looking back on one’s life and seeing accomplishments made,

When males retire around the age group of 55 to 65 many of them pass away early due to the dramatic change in lifestyle. They go from five days a week working nine or ten hour days to completely nothing and because they have become so adapted to the working week they change their habits, their lifestyle differs and they develop sickness and health problems.

The increase in life expectancy is partially to blame for the increase in elderly citizens, as there are now better medicines and medical procedures to cure ailments which could have easily killed a person 10 or 20 years ago. As Levine said, "There are more elderly and a larger proportion of elderly in the population now than ever before in the history of the world, and individuals live longer and have a longer span of healthy, vigorous life than ever before" . We have to prepare, not only to have more aged people in the work force, but also to have adequate pensions and supplements to aid these people when they do retire.

According to the UN World Health Organization definition of aging over 65 years as "elderly", when the population of a region or country, the ratio of the elderly more than 7%, referred to as "aging society."