LATE
ADULTHOOD: PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT (YOU CALL THIS DEVELOPMENT?)
The current century has witnessed a dramatic increase in the proportion of population living to be elderly. Here's a good question, now that I think of it.
Just who are the elderly?
When North Dakota was becoming a state, the average woman
died before age 40. Women used to have a lower life expectancy than men.
Why? Because so many of them died in childbirth.
Another interesting thought. We have more people dying
of cancer, suffering from emphysema and osteoporosis than ever, because
they are living long enough. When a
significant proportion of our population died before
age five of childhood diseases for which we now have vaccinations, or of
infections which can now be treated with
antibiotics, then we did not have as many people suffering
from Alzheimer's. Many of the people I know my age are afraid of growing
old, which strikes me as odd,
since the alternative is to die young (well, okay, it
is too late for us to die young, middle aged then.)
QUICK! Look up the answer to this question:
The fastest growing
population in America is.....
a) those under 25
b) those reaching
age 45
c) those reaching
age 65
d) those reaching
age 85
Your textbook takes the view of looking at the glass as
half-full rather than half-empty when they elaborate at length about how
only 21% of older adults say that their health is poor, and over three-quarters report that their
health not seriously impaired. When I read this, I just happened to remember
that, in my other life as a statistical consultant, I had a dataset on the computer to analyze
and it had 64 middle-aged women's ratings of their health. Only 5% of them
reported that they were in poor health. So, the half-empty side of the equation is that
older adults are four times as likely to be in poor health than middle-aged
adults.
What is the difference between a chronic illness and an acute illness?
You should know this. Okay, just in case you don't,
an acute illness is one which is "attended with symptoms of some
degree of seriousness and coming speedily to a crisis". In other words,
it is serious, and hits you fairly rapidly. Then you either recover, or,
in some cases, die. Pneumonia is an example of an acute illness.
A chronic illness is "one which is of long
continuance or progresses slowly". Cancer, emphysema and diabetes are examples
of chronic diseases. Once you get these, you have them for a long time,
sometimes until you die.
Now, answer this question....
Elderly Americans are more likely to experience:The answer to the first question above was (d), by the way.
(a) a higher incidence of multiple disorders
(b) lower incidence of chronic diseases
(c) higher incidence of acute illnesses
(d) multiple serious disorders
Another highly recommended book... (What? You mean this late in the course you have not started your book review yet! ) |
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Let's talk about ageism a little more, that would be discrimination based on age. A number of authors, including Comfort and the late Wolf Wolfensberger, have asserted that older adults get poorer, less aggressive medical care than younger adults. Where we would try all 'heroic' measures to save a younger adult's life, with an older person, the attitude of medical personnel might be, "She is eighty-three, what is the point of doing a heart operation?" The same is true of correctible impairments and injuries. I once analyzed a survey conducted by an organization interested in hearing loss, and they found that many older adults with hearing impairments never went and got hearing aids because they just accepted missing parts of conversations as part of getting old. Now think about if that was your thirteen-year-old child instead of your seventy-year-old grandma. You would make darn sure that child got hearing aids, wouldn't you?
When a younger person has some type of injury which impairs
mobility, for example, my oldest daughter recently tore a ligament in her
knee, we insist on surgery to correct it. When an older person has an injury,
we, and they, are more likely to believe they should just accept some degree
of impairment as part of old age. Yet, if someone had suggested that my
seventeen-year-old should not have surgery and just learn to live with
pain and not being able to run, we would consider such a suggestion shocking
and heartless. It is like the old joke:
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A ninety-three-year-old woman complains to her physician
that her left knee has been hurting her, it tends to go out on her when
she is going downstairs or has been walking for an extended period, causing
her to fall. This has restricted her freedom to get around, since she tends
to avoid going to places where she knows she will have to climb a
lot of stairs or walk a lot. The doctor tells her,
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Two last points....
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Comfort says that, if your doctor believes that being old means you should accept being sick, socially isolated and sexually inactive, then you should find another doctor! He also stated that old people are physically impaired for the same reasons that younger peopole are, they were injured, got sick, or, in a minority of cases, were born that way. (He forgot to mention drugs, though, check out the discussion of prescription medication in your textbook). Comfort asserts that older people are not qualitatively different in their physical functioning than the rest of the population. |
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You do not become a different person when you are old. If you love your work, enjoy walking in the woods, like sex and are involved with your community, what makes you think that when you are thirty years old, the idea of being celibate and playing shuffleboard all day will appeal to you? If the idea of setting home and doing nothing appalls you, at what age do you think it will sound attractive to you? One of the points throughout this course is that, while there is both stability and change in development, throughout the lifespan, you stay the same person in many important ways. |
Oh, by the way, the answer to the second question was (c).
Go
the next quiz. It is a long one, so be sure you have read Chapter 16 first.