What Is Gerontology?

The purpose of the assignment was to interview an “elder” member of society to gain valuable information and insight into an individual’s experiences and development, and how they pertain to biosocial, cognitive, and psychosocial development. I had the pleasure of interviewing a woman aged 68, who provided a glimpse of the wisdom she has gained over her lifetime as well as her daily interactions and age-related topics.

I have always admired the senior citizens who are wondering how they have passed such long journeys of their lives. They not only have accomplished achievements, but also have done memorable works that deserve admiration, respect, and priority in today’s society. These old people may look incompetent and unexciting in somebody’s eyes and thoughts, but not everyone realizes that they are the people with greatest knowledge and experiences beyond their masters of life. From my own experience, whenever I see an old mister or mistress looking for help or in need of help, I can never ignore him or

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 main definition of “aging successful” is said to be, “successful gaining includes three main components: low probability of disease and disease-related disability, high cognitive and physical functional capacity, and active engagement with life” (Rowe & Kahn, 433). The first component of low probability of disease-related disability does not only refer to the physical disease itself being present in the persons body, but also the severity of the risk of the factors of such disease(s). High cognitive and physical functional capacity depicts what the individual can do and not just what they do. Finally active engagement with life deals with how the individual interacts with others (interpersonal relations) and creating societal value without any return (productive activity) (Rowe & Kahn, 433). We are going to look into the lives of Roger Gentilehomme and Earl Blassingame and analyze if they are considered to be “aging well” based on variety of articles as well as personal opinion.

Modern society view’s aging as a form of sickness and the elderly as persons who are closer to dying and death. This is what is often portrayed in our mass and social media. When considering issues of aging sociologists have found that more positive characteristics are often said for persons under sixty five years than for over sixty five years.

Aging and being old was dominated by negative characteristics and conditions such as illness, depression, and isolation for a long time (Eibach, Mock, & Courtney, 2010). At first glance the terms “success” and “aging” seem to be in conflict to each other. When asking people about aging, their answers have many facets that are also found in psychological definitions: successful aging is seen as health, maturity and personal growth, self-acceptance, happiness, generativity, coping, and acceptance of age-related limitations. In the psychological sense successful aging is also often seen as the absence of age-associated characteristics (Strawbridge, Wallhagen, & Cohen, 2002). It seems that successful aging means is not aging.

For these new students to be successful in this situation, what needs to be addressed is the types of older adults will be attending this institution. Most people view the length of life as successful aging, yet it is the quality of the life that is important. Baltes mentions in his article, “Aging is a very individual and differential process with regard to mental,

This week, the lecture and additional articles were about the growing number of people reaching late adulthood and the problems that will be created for society. Society is not ready for the influx of elderly individuals needing assistance. In addition to discussing the amount of people reaching late adulthood, this week also touched on several models and theories in regards to aging. This week provided sufficient background information and vital knowledge for the introduction

An extension on the definition of aging would be the response of others to those who are aged or treatment of the aged. Among the hunter­gatherer bands, elders are expected to contribute to the domestic economy well into the period of physical

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.

Another supporter of changing the way aging is conveyed is author, Margaret Cruiksbank, of the book, Learning to be Old. In her book she is a proponent of changing the way the aging process is described. Her position is that the underlying meaning of popular terms to describe aging weakens its value. She denotes that the term “successful aging” is a false phrase for the elderly as it “masks both the wish to continue mid-life indefinitely and the white, Middle-class, Western values of researchers, causing them to emphasize productivity, effectiveness and independence” (Cruiksbank, 2009, p. 2). She also concludes that the term “productive” aging symbolizes “economic usefulness and social conformity” (Cruiksbank, 2009, p. 2), especially for the female gender. More importantly, these terms can be used to measure. This ability to measure is subjective to the questioner and an individual’s self-worth. She suggests the term “aging comfortably” as it signifies easiness, and a “faint hint” of pleasurable self-indulgence which may not have been possible in younger years (Cruiksbank, 2009, p. 3).

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.

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,

As a 25-year-old adult, consider myself on the younger spectrum as far as biological age. However, I am being reminded daily that I am getting older. I no longer can recover from a workout as rapidly as I used to, I require more sleep after a night of staying up late, there are no more “all nighters”, and I have recently developed pain in my joints and spine. As you may have noticed, all the reasons I have listed above seem obviously negative. This is exactly what I am hoping to get out of this class. A positive perspective of the aging process. I have noticed when I pay attention to the physical aging process my body undergoes; my brain is focused on the negative changes and instead should be focusing on what my age has given me over the years. I am hoping, through taking this class, I will expand my knowledge tremendously on the aging process and begin to switch my way of thinking to a more positive one and begin living a better quality of life as the years pass.

Upon starting this Gerontology course, I was overwhelmed with the course expectations, having to complete an Older Adult Review project, weekly discussion board posts and comments with precise APA format (which I was horrible at) and lots of supplemental reading to fulfill the learning outcomes of this course. Nevertheless, I overcame all those obstacles and have obtained newfound knowledge of what it is like to age, firsthand, coming from one of my favorite patients which has cleared many of the stereotypes I had on the geriatric population. Thanks to this course and interviews with Mary, I have a better understanding of the geriatric population which will benefit my future career as a Registered Nurse.