The Aging Process For The Older Adults Essay

Successful aging is a complicated and multifaceted concept that varies contextually among individuals, disciplines, and even time. Gerontologists have traditionally considered a person to have aged successfully upon having reached old age with their physical health, mental well-being and spirit still intact. Ultimately, successful aging is a matter of personal perspective, largely influenced by an individual 's values and experiences. Even those within America 's elderly population hold conflicting perspectives on what it means to have aged successfully. A qualitative study published by Reichstadt and Sengupta titled Older Adults ' Perspectives on Successful Aging, concluded that “older adults viewed successful aging as a balance between self-acceptance and self-contentedness on one hand and engagement with life and self-growth in later life on the other” (Reichstadt, "Older Adults ' Perspectives on Successful Aging: Qualitative Interviews", pp. 567-575.)

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

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 seen, daily exercise and staying active, a healthy diet, and avoiding substance abuse are common actions, across the board, that can be taken to aid in a healthier aging process. Furthermore, while there are many negative changes that take place during the aging process, it is important to understand that aging comes with great reward and benefits as

The World Health Organization and the (NIA) National Institutes on Aging have developed strategies to motivate many researchers to investigate the question “How do we to make the aging process a healthy process? There is a plethora of research projects that indeed try to answer this question. My innovation to assist in the resolution of such a enormous problem was to research the some of the many

In response to the global aging issue, the World Health Organization (WHO) has, during the last decade, focused on the concept of “Active Aging” and emphasized

The study of aging and old age is referred to as Gerontology (Stuart- Hamilton, 2011, p. 1). The study of Gerontology is concerned with the changes, which affect older adults (Stuart- Hamilton, 2011, p. 1). The main role of Gerontology is to not only explain the aging process, but to also improve older adults lives and experiences (Stuart- Hamilton, 2011, p. 18). Gerontology is interdisciplinary and there are three main disciplines, which are considered to be the essential foundations of the study (Alkema & Alley, 2006, p. 578). The disciplines include biology, sociology and psychology (Alkema & Alley, 2006, p. 578). The three disciplines allow aging to be considered from their own specific perspectives (Alkema & Alley, 2006, p. 578). The

Sorry to bother you with a phone call, i know you are busy... I'm interested in asking you questions about on going topics/research related with bio-imaging and nanotechnology in regards with aging, so I can start looking at possibilities for a thesis.

No one likes the thought of growing old, let alone what that would do to your body and all the old age complications that brings. But how is it that young people feel older than they are? Why are some looking older than you? Some younger?

Over the last several years there has been much debate on the theories of aging. As we are aware, predicting how one will age, their life expectancy and when they will die is nearly impossible. However, researchers have separated the theories of aging into three main categories to help answer some of these questions and better understand the factors that influence the aging process. According to Edelman, Kudzma, and Mandle (2014), these are “biological theories of aging, sociological theories of aging and developmental theories of aging” (p.595). Of these, there are several theories that support each category. Researchers have identified the need to relate the aging process to one of these theories versus concluding that we die from old age

Service Learning on Attitude, Anxiety, and Occupational Interest by Stefanie S. Boswell1 “over looks the effect of aging and adult development component on attitudes toward older adult men and women, which then includes topics such as; aging anxiety, and interest in occupations that serve older adults among individuals training for careers in healthcare and social services” (Boswell). According to Medicine.Net, the definition of Aging is “The process of becoming older, a process that is genetically determined and environmentally modulated.” Within the paragraphs, there are three dividing sections that will touch upon on the study of adult development, the science behind the brain, and the physical changes within the aging group. “Several researchers have investigated the ability of aging and adult development/gerontology education to quell ageist attitudes and aging anxiety” (Boswell) To better explain this will be to state that anyone who’s reaching a older age has a harder time understanding they aren’t the same person of 10 years ago and that alone causes emotional thoughts of where has life gone and where is it going from here.

Ageing has been described as the inevitable slow progressive impairment of normal biological function resulting from cellular and structural changes in an organism. These cellular and structural changes directly impact on the functioning of organs, systems and eventually the organism as a whole (Burton 2007). The correlation between the biological time clock for ageing and the calendar/chronological age differs among individuals. However, the World Health Organization accepts 65 years as the chronological age that defines an ‘elderly’ person (World Health Organization 2014). According to the United Nations’ report on population ageing, one of the most distinguishing demographic occurrences of the twentieth century is the fact that the world’s elderly population is growing at a faster rate than the rest of the population and is expected to continue through the twenty-first century. Over the last 50 years, the number of elderly persons is believed to have tripled and a greater increase is expected over the next 50 years (Department of Economic and Social Affairs United Nations 2002, pp. 1 & 34).

Age comes with so many challenges including development of conditions that affect the well being of the ageing individuals. There are so many people who would love to remain youthful, but this is beyond the control of anybody. However, ageing is not a disease, and should not be dreaded. In fact, old people still have so much to offer to the society including the experiences they have accumulated over the years, the wisdom they have learned, and sometimes they even have valuable skills which they can pass on to the younger generations. Older people have so much information within them and all that one needs to do is to consult their knowledge and learn from those experiences. The World Health Organization states that, “The ageing of the

Most people are hoping to have long and good quality of life. People are living longer because there are more medical techniques and medications to detect and treat diseases. However, some people are living long but not as healthy as they want. Nicklett et al. state that, “Individuals aged 65 and older are now the fasting-growing segment of the population” (862). Many governmental organizations are promoting “successful aging” as initiative for reducing the medical costs for older population. Age successfully can be seen that a person has fewer chronic health condition and absence of major diseases or cancers in old age; therefore, he or she is able to have a longer and healthier life. Not only the government has this goal, but also many people have a strong desire to learn about the ways of growing old healthier and independent as long as possible in old age. Many studies show that a healthy body is essential for a better life; people can engage healthy eating lifestyle and exercise to improve their health status.

Out of the many informative chapters in Paul Irving’s book, The Upside of Aging: How Long Life Is Changing the World of Health, Work, Innovation, Policy and Purpose, I choose to write my summary on chapter 3: The Bold new world of healthy aging. In this chapter Irving speaks of his experiences in working to “unlock the secrets to a long life” (Irving, 2014). Living a longer life is beneficial in all aspects of aging. Especially, in redefining the negative stereotypes of aging. Over time we begin to direct more attention to our healthy habits throughout our daily lives. Because of this the life expectancy has increased. Scientific studies only help to prove that life expectancy has and will continue to increase. However, the same studies also go to show that, through higher life expectancy comes many more issues such as population, competition, and quality of life.