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Sexual Activity in Late Adulthood
Miriam Goncalves
Bridgewater State University

Author Notes
This paper was prepared for SCWK 321, Section 01, taught by Professor Jonghyun Lee
Late adulthood is considered to start at the age of 65 and continue through 85 until death. According to Erik Erikson’s 8 stage of psychosocial development, this is the final stage of an individual, the integrity vs. despair stage. During this stage of maturity in late adulthood, they begin to reflect on their life lived; if they feel that they made a contribution to life and feel fulfilled, they accept themselves and accept death as a reality. Erik Erikson “believed if we see our lives as unproductive, feel guilt about our pasts, …show more content…

Our environment, in which we live in, helps define who the old age are but these meaning can change depending where you might live. For example in United States, a person in their late adulthood might be viewed as an invalid, burden or useless whereas this same person can be defined as a person of wisdom and strength in Africa.
Life expectancy are soaring , thanks to the decrease in mortality of children and young adults, the decrease of mortality among the aging particularly because of the accessibility to improved health technology but it is expected for our body to decay overtime. This is a natural ongoing process that cannot be stopped by any technology or gimmicks. As our body age, it become harder for our cells to reproduce as often as before and it has less ability to create antioxidants thus it takes longer for the body to heal if break a bone or cut our finger. It is harder also to recover from a cold or infection because the body loses some of its ability to recognize foreign bacteria, viruses and etc. and it will start to attack some of it healthy cells. Our system begins to slow down and response slower, our blood begins to be pumped less, there is a decrease in the functioning of our respiratory system, vision decreases and so do our hearing ability. Our bones become weak, arthritis becomes common due to less cartilage in-between the joints, our sensory system weakens which causes elder to often lose their balance,

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