{"id":234,"date":"2016-05-01T03:31:43","date_gmt":"2016-05-01T03:31:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/introductiontosociology-waymaker\/?post_type=chapter&p=234"},"modified":"2024-04-25T16:37:11","modified_gmt":"2024-04-25T16:37:11","slug":"growing-old","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/wm-introductiontosociology\/chapter\/growing-old\/","title":{"raw":"Growing Old","rendered":"Growing Old"},"content":{"raw":"
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Learning Outcomes<\/h3>\r\n
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  • Examine the biological changes of aging<\/li>\r\n \t
  • Explain social and psychological changes of aging<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/div>\r\nAs human beings grow older, they go through different phases or stages of life. It is helpful to understand aging in the context of these phases. A life course<\/span><\/strong> is the period from birth to death, including a sequence of predictable life events such as physical maturation. Each phase comes with different responsibilities and expectations, which of course vary by individual and culture. Children love to play and learn, looking forward to becoming preteens. As preteens begin to test their independence, they are eager to become teenagers. Teenagers anticipate the promises and challenges of adulthood. Adults become focused on creating families, building careers, and experiencing the world as independent people. Finally, many adults look forward to old age as a wonderful time to enjoy life without as much pressure from work and family life.\r\n\r\nIn old age, grandparenthood can provide many of the joys of parenthood without all the hard work that parenthood entails. And as work responsibilities abate, old age may be a time to explore hobbies and activities that there was no time for earlier in life. But for other people, old age is not a phase that they look forward to. Some people fear old age and do anything to \u201cavoid\u201d it by seeking medical and cosmetic fixes for the natural effects of age. These differing views on the life course are the result of the cultural values and norms into which people are socialized, but in most cultures, age is a master status influencing self-concept, as well as social roles and interactions.\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

    Through the phases of the life course, dependence and independence levels change. At birth, newborns are dependent on caregivers for everything. As babies become toddlers and toddlers become adolescents and then teenagers, they assert their independence more and more. Gradually, children come to be considered adults, responsible for their own lives, although the point at which this occurs is widely varied among individuals, families, and cultures.<\/p>\r\n

    As Riley (1978) notes, aging is a lifelong process and entails maturation and change on physical, psychological, and social levels. Age, much like race, class, and gender, is a hierarchy in which some categories are more highly valued than others. For example, while many children look forward to gaining independence, Packer and Chasteen (2006) suggest that even in children, age prejudice leads to a negative view of aging. This, in turn, can lead to a widespread segregation between the old and the young at the institutional, societal, and cultural levels (Hagestad and Uhlenberg 2006).<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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    Dr. Ignatz Nascher and the Birth of Geriatrics<\/h3>\r\n

    In the early 1900s, a New York physician named Dr. Ignatz Nascher coined the term geriatrics<\/span>, a medical specialty that focuses on the elderly. He created the word by combining two Greek words: geron<\/em> (old man) and iatrikos<\/em> (medical treatment). Nascher based his work on what he observed as a young medical student, when he saw many acutely ill elderly people who were diagnosed simply as \u201cbeing old.\u201d There was nothing medicine could do, his professors declared, about the syndrome of \u201cold age.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

    Nascher refused to accept this dismissive view, seeing it as medical neglect. He believed it was a doctor\u2019s duty to prolong life and relieve suffering whenever possible. In 1914, he published his views in his book Geriatrics: The Diseases of Old Age and Their Treatment<\/em> (Clarfield 1990). Nascher saw the practice of caring for the elderly as separate from the practice of caring for the young, just as pediatrics (caring for children) is different from caring for grown adults (Clarfield 1990).<\/p>\r\n

    Nascher had high hopes for his pioneering work. He wanted to treat the aging, especially those who were poor and had no one to care for them. Many of the elderly poor were sent to live in \u201calmshouses,\u201d or public old-age homes (Cole 1993). Conditions were often terrible in these almshouses, where the aging were often sent and just forgotten.<\/p>\r\n

    As hard as it might be to believe today, Nascher\u2019s approach was once considered unique. At the time of his death, in 1944, he was disappointed that the field of geriatrics had not made greater strides. In what ways are the elderly better off today than they were before Nascher\u2019s ideas gained acceptance?<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

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    Biological Changes<\/h2>\r\n
    \r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"273\"]\"An Figure 1.\u00a0<\/strong>Aging can be a visible, public experience. Many people recognize the signs of aging and, because of the meanings that culture assigns to these changes, believe that being older means being in physical decline. Many older people, however, remain healthy, active, and happy. (Photo courtesy of Pedro Riberio Simoes\/flickr)[\/caption]<\/figure>\r\n

    Each person experiences age-related changes based on many factors. Biological factors such as molecular and cellular changes are called primary aging<\/span><\/strong>, while aging that occurs due to controllable factors such as lack of physical exercise and poor diet is called secondary aging<\/span><\/strong> (Whitbourne and Whitbourne 2010).<\/p>\r\n

    Most people begin to see signs of aging after fifty years old, when they notice the physical markers of age known as senescence. Skin becomes thinner, drier, and less elastic. Wrinkles form. Hair begins to thin and gray. Men prone to balding start losing hair. The difficulty or relative ease with which people adapt to these changes is dependent in part on the meaning given to aging by their particular culture. A culture that values youthfulness and beauty above all else leads to a negative perception of growing old. Conversely, a culture that reveres the elderly for their life experience and wisdom contributes to a more positive perception of what it means to grow old.<\/p>\r\n

    The effects of aging can feel daunting, and sometimes the fear of physical changes (like declining energy, food sensitivity, and loss of hearing and vision) is more challenging to deal with than the changes themselves. The way people perceive physical aging is largely dependent on how they were socialized. If people can accept the changes in their bodies as a natural process of aging, the changes will not seem as frightening.<\/p>\r\n

    According to the federal Administration on Aging (2011), in 2009 fewer people over sixty-five years old assessed their health as \u201cexcellent\u201d or \u201cvery good\u201d (41.6 percent) compared to those aged eighteen to sixty-four (64.4 percent). Evaluating data from the National Center for Health Statistics and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Administration on Aging found that from 2006 to 2008, the most frequently reported health issues for those over sixty-five years old included arthritis (50 percent), hypertension (38 percent), heart disease (32 percent), and cancer (22 percent). About 27 percent of people age sixty and older are considered obese by current medical standards. Parker and Thorslunf (2006) found that while the trend is toward steady improvement in most disability measures, there is a concomitant increase in functional impairments (disability) and chronic diseases. At the same time, medical advances have reduced some of the disabling effects of those diseases (Crimmins 2004).<\/p>\r\n

    Some impacts of aging are gender-specific. Some of the disadvantages aging women face arise from long-standing social gender roles. For example, Social Security favors men over women, inasmuch as women do not earn Social Security benefits for the unpaid labor they perform (usually at home) as an extension of their gender roles. In the healthcare field, elderly female patients are more likely than elderly men to see their healthcare concerns trivialized (Sharp 1995) and are more likely to have their health issues labeled psychosomatic (Munch 2004). Another female-specific aspect of aging is that mass-media outlets often depict elderly females in terms of negative stereotypes and as less successful than older men (Bazzini and Mclntosh I997).<\/p>\r\nFor men, the process of aging\u2014and society\u2019s response to and support of the experience\u2014may be quite different. The gradual decrease in male sexual performance that occurs as a result of primary aging is medicalized and constructed as needing treatment (Marshall and Katz 2002) so that a man may maintain a sense of youthful masculinity. On the other hand, aging men have fewer opportunities to assert their masculine identities in the company of other men (for example, through sports participation) (Drummond 1998). And some social scientists have observed that the aging male body is depicted in the Western world as genderless (Spector-Mersel 2006).\r\n

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    Watch It<\/h3>\r\nWatch the selected first half of this video to learn more about the aging process.\r\n\r\n