This student learned that aging
can cause many changes in the individual.
For example, there can be changes in “perception, motor performance, intelligence,
learning, memory, and personality” (p. 122).
Depression, cancer, changes in personality and the five senses, memory loss
and Alzheimer’s are common to occur as we age.
The most controversial statement in the chapter may be that “some very
old people experience no sensory declines” (p. 125). It is controversial because it is hard to
believe that vision loss may never occur in some very old people. That statement is also the most interesting because
that may be one less thing that the elderly has to worry about. Sensory decline in an individual may cause a
social worker, for example a social worker in a nursing home, to help the
nursing home to come up with different ways to stimulate and interest the
elderly individual. For example, for
someone who may have declining eyesight, the issue may be to find ways for that
person to work more with their hands and rely more on their sense of touch than
their vision. A nursing home may have
many individuals with this issue which would create a mezzo issue in the
nursing home. The comment “most people
over 65 who suffer from depression are not receiving any formal psychiatric
treatment” (p. 137) partially changed how this student views aging. Growing older can be a little scary but
having undiagnosed depression can make the final years of life un-enjoyable. An individual should be able to enjoy the
years that they have left instead of dealing with depression.
Elizabeth,
ReplyDeleteIt is disheartening to know that so many of the elderly have undiagnosed depression, especially when treatment is available. One of the reasons I have found as to why, is that many of the elderly do not like to go to the doctor due to fear that the doctor may find something bad. They do not like getting bad news or having to take a lot of medications. I have seen this first hand with my grandmother. She had a doctor for everything: heart, blood pressure, arthritis, eyes, feet, gout, and she had medication from each of them to take on a daily basis. She would always say she hated to have to take so much medicine and she would try to put off going to the doctor. Having to face all of this on a daily basis could cause anyone to be depressed. If we take care of ourselves during our early years, then we may have a better, more enjoyable life in later years without all of the depression.
It is also says in that chapter that their ability to recall or process information is only slowed, but not lost. An example that is used in the text is elderly people driving cars. Younger individuals are annoyed by how incredibly slow they are going, but it also a proven fact that elderly people have a lot fewer accidents.
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