Analyzing Psychology of Aging Trends

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Psychology of Aging: Vignette Analysis

Vignette one

When we talk of socio-cultural age, we mean those particular roles played by individuals as regards the members of the society and the culture they belong to. The evaluation of socio-cultural age is based on a number of habits and behaviors, like the type of dress, interpersonal style and language. Socio-cultural age is mostly important in our understanding of the different work and family roles we adopt. The right time for one to marry, when to have children, when to make career moves, when to retire, and all other such things are all influenced by what we take our socio-cultural age to be. Our self-esteem and all other aspects of our personality are determined by such decisions. Most stereotypes about aging depend on faulty assumptions surrounding socio-cultural age (Cavanaugh and Blanchard-Field, 2015). Jake and Nora are an African-American couple, who migrated from Nigeria to the United States. The differences in their culture might have posed some challenges to them. However, they were differently affected by the aging factor. Jake lived a friendly and active life while Nora was more affected, owing to the fact that she is a breast cancer survivor.

A lot of wrong stereotypes about older people are capable of contributing to unconstructive prejudices (Cuddy et al., 2005) and have effect on how psychological services are delivered (Knight, 2004 and 2009). For instance, these stereotypes can include certain views like: (1) age inevitably comes with dementia; (2) there are higher rates of mental diseases in older adults, especially depression; (3) older adults have low productivity at work; (4) most older adults are ill and frail; (5) older adults get isolated socially; (6) older adults are not interested in intimacy or sex; and (7) older adults are stubborn and flexible (Edelstein and Kalish, 1999; American Psychological Association, 2014).

There are cases of inaccuracy with these stereotypes since according to research, a large majority of older adults can be considered cognitively intact and have much lower depression rates than younger adults (Fiske et al., 2009), are as adaptive as they are in perfect health and at the same time, functional (Depp and Jeste, 2006; Rowe and Kahn, 1997), and have very meaningful and interpersonal sexual relationships (Carstensen et al., 2011; Hillman, 2012).

As a matter of fact, a lot of older adults adapt easily to life changes and continue to experience both personal and interpersonal advancements (Hill, 2005). Negative age stereotypes can also be harbored by these older adults (Levy, 2009). These negative age stereotypes are known to forecast different negative outcomes like worse physical presentation (Levy, Slade, and Kasl, 2002), worse memory presentation (Levy et al., 2012), as well as minimized survival (Levy et al., 2002). The subgroups of older adults may continue to hold on to beliefs that are consistent with culture with regards to the aging processes different from typical biomedical and Western beliefs on aging (Dilworth-Anderson and Gibson, 2002).

The advancement in healthcare education has led to the continuous growth of the older population. This age bracket faces a lot of physical, psychological and social role modifications that pose challenges to their ability to live happy lives. In old age, more people are known to experience depression and loneliness, either because they live alone, or because there is no strong family ties between the cultures practiced where they come from. This often leads to their inability to be active participants in different community activities. As people get older, people tend to lose connections with the social networks they belong to and find it hard to join new networks or make new friends (Singh and Mistra, 2009).

Sociability plays a very important role in keeping people protected from experiencing psychological distress and in improving people's well-being (Singh and Misra, 2009). George (1996) gave a summary of some of these empirically adequately-supported impacts of social factors on the symptoms of depression they experience later in life, and submitted a report that increasing age, minority racial or ethnic status, lower socio-economic status and reduction in quality or quantity of the social relations all have a connection with increased symptoms of depression. One major risk factor for functional challenges in older adults is social isolation. Feelings of emptiness and depression can arise from loss of vital relationships. Jake and Nora had a son who lived in another state. They saw him only once every year. Older people need the support of their children and grandchildren in old age, and Nora being a cancer survivor would have lived happier if she had the chance to be with her grandchildren more often.

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Her depression was increased by her battle with breast cancer. More swiftly progressing cancer symptoms are common in older cancer patients, and they experience more pains and metastasis than people with no cancer-related depression (Hopkp et al. 2008). These problems may not be due to depression, but depression has a typical way of worsening the distress experienced from these psychosocial and physical symptoms, and can stand in the way of effective coping (Weinberger et al., 2011).

Recommendations

Psychological therapies are often prescribed for the elderly with cases of depression due to the vulnerability of this group to adverse effects, increased medical issues and use of drugs.

Stressful life issues, family problems, and the decrease or lack of social support might not be affected by the use of medication and any other somatic approaches to treatment. But people who suffer these problems respond easily to psychological intervention and psychotherapeutic approaches, such as cognitive-behavior therapy, problem-solving therapy, supportive psychotherapy, and interpersonal therapy. Increasing age does not diminish the potential benefit of psychotherapy. There are better treatment compliances, lower rates of dropouts, and better responses to psychotherapy in older adults than in the younger ones. Both the psychotherapist and the patient should set some committed and uninterrupted time apart to focus on raising the self-esteem of the patient, accept all feelings at face value, accept irritability and anger and hold out the prospect of hope. It is also important to encourage physical activity as well as social activity, such as community and church involvement. A protective figure, such as a doctor can help restore self-confidence and security. The right psychosocial interventions may involve education, i.e., teaching better adaptation and coping skills, participation in mourning groups, family counseling, getting involved with a center for senior citizens, and using visiting nurse services to aid medication (Birrer and Vemuri, 2004).

Vignette two

Bereavement is more frequent as people get older. Older people can easily endure the loss of a wife/husband, family member, former colleagues, friends, and associates.

Widowhood is a usual thing as the women tend to have longer lifespan than the men. Bereavement is one major source of stress in older people, coupled with several other losses people experience in old age contribute to the reduction in the ability of people to live independently (NHS inform, 2015). Philip lost, Ann, his wife of many years, at this age when he needs her company the most. Children and grandparents are helpful, but none is closer than one's spouse. Losing your spouse with whom you share all secrets at old age can be quite traumatic for a lot of people and coping with this type of loss can be quite difficult. This is the kind of problem Philip is facing.

According to several studies, losing one's spouse at old age can lead to a lot of problems like chronic stress, lower life expectancy and depression. The grief from such losses may wear out within a few weeks or months, but the symptoms can last much longer and sometimes look like chronic depressive disorders. Another major challenge the loss of one's spouse poses is the issue of loneliness. Loneliness can force one into some unhealthy lifestyles like smoking and drinking or drug abuse. Such a person may also fail to care for himself adequately, which leads to higher risks to mental ailments and all other issues (HealthProfs, 2015).

Elderly people who lose their spouse are also known to experience some behavioral changes, such as sorrow, unhappiness, grumpiness, and most importantly, the inability to appreciate whoever is providing them with the care they need. They seem unable to value any amount of care you provide for them (Laverty, 2015).

This is exactly what Philip is passing through. He finds it hard to respond to the words of sympathy being given to him by family and friends. This is not a deliberate act from Philip, but the loss of his loving wife has left him with an emptiness that can only be interpreted as a psychological illness.

Different people grieve for the loss of their loved ones in several ways. With some, grieving may end within a few days, while others can keep grieving for years, after the sad loss. The worst type of grieving is the one that involves the inability of the bereaved to come to terms that the event really took place. In this type of scenario, grieving may continue….....

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