Old age
Top
(′ōld ′āj)
(geology) The last stage of the erosion cycle in the development of the topography of a region in which erosion has reduced the surface almost to base level and the land forms are marked by simplicity of form and subdued relief. Also known as topographic old age.
Antonyms by Answers.com:
Top
old age
n
Definition: latter part of animate life
Antonyms: adolescence, childhood, infancy, youth
Top
The final stage in the life course of an individual. Old age is usually associated with declining faculties, both mental and physical, and a reduction in social commitments (including sport participation). The precise onset of old age varies culturally and historically. It is a social construct, rather than a biological stage.
Top
From ancient to modern times in Europe, conceptions of the life cycle that recognized discrete "ages of man" counted old age as one of the stages of life. Ancient philosophers such as Aristotle (384–322 B.C.E.) separated life into three stages, and the model of life stages was endowed with additional spiritual meaning in the Middle Ages. By the early modern period, numerous schemes existed to define the steps, ages, or stages of life. Thus, the concept of old age carried with it a relatively coherent set of expectations and experiences including social and cultural signals as well as numerical thresholds of old age. Within these broad socially constructed markers of old age, however, lay a wide variety of experiences determined by social class, gender, and individual life experiences.
Definitions of Old Age
Certain physical signs marked an individual as old: toothlessness, balding or gray hair, hunched back, lameness, deafness. Increasing debility was the clearest signal that one was becoming old. This assumption is clearly visible in both didactic and fictional forms of literature, as well as in visual representations. Shakespeare's representation of the last stage of life in As You Like It as "Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything," represents a common trope.
Most communities across Europe also recognized a "green" old age, in which an individual was considered old, but had not lost his or her basic faculties. This stage, though marked by the physical signs of old age noted above, carried with it connotations of social power and continued physical ability. Ballads regarding the life cycle often reveal the key characteristics of life stages. In the English ballad "The Ages of Man" (c. 1775), the earlier stage of old age is depicted as one of gradually failing health: "age did so abate my strength, / That I was forced to yield at length." But also, "My neighbours did my council crave, / And I was held in great request." Thus were continued wisdom and respect associated with green old age. In contrast, the last stage of life was one of advanced physical decay: "At nine times seven I must take my leave / Of all my former vain delight . . . my strength did abate." For women, the first stage of old age may have been signaled by the onset of menopause, but historians disagree about the extent to which menopause served as the transition into green old age.
Chronological markers of old age were recognized as well, and these grew increasingly important and consistent. The age of sixty was widely associated with the onset of old age, but several other ages—especially fifty, sixty-three, and seventy—were also used as thresholds of old age, both by individuals and by those who wrote specifically to classify the ages of life. Still, pension schemes, legal statutes, and individual reflections most often give the age of sixty as a marker for old age in men. Women were more often identified as old while still in their fifties, but the same general rule holds for them as well. Poor-law records and diaries from eighteenth-century England, for example, rarely use the term "old" for women younger than sixty. Late-seventeenth-century government ministers and political arithmeticians used the age of sixty as a dividing point, in both domestic and colonial populations, to designate a portion of the population as too old to bear arms. Such bureaucratic tendencies were part of a more general trend, as some of the groundwork was set for the stricter and more restrictive age norms that grew from the end of the seventeenth century. The increased use of the age of sixty to define entry into old age represents a significant area of discontinuity in the history of old age in early modern Europe.
Life Expectancy
During the early modern period, life expectancy fluctuated dramatically in short-term cycles. In England, life expectancy at birth was 36.8 years from 1550–1599, but fell to 33.9 for the period 1650–1699 before rising again to 36.5 for the last half of the eighteenth century. Still, although average life expectancy at birth seldom rose above the late thirties throughout Europe, individuals who made it through those first precarious years of life could generally expect to live through middle age (that is, their forties).
In France, for example, while life expectancy for women at birth was only 25.7 years in the 1740s, at age twenty, women could expect to live into their mid-fifties. These average life expectancies increased throughout the latter part of the eighteenth century, so that by the 1790s, average female life expectancy at age twenty was 38.6 years. It is also clear that the aged accounted for a significant minority of the population; those aged sixty or more comprised as much as 10 percent of the population of England. These figures are similar to those calculated for early modern France and Spain. In contrast to popular misconceptions, then, the aged were present in significant numbers in pre-modern times.
Attitudes Toward the Old
Strands of veneration for and antagonism toward the aged coexisted in all early modern societies. The extreme views represented by these strands were in constant dialectical tension, underpinning the complex set of social relations that characterized individual older people's relationships within their communities. Historians have moved away from the sense that there is any grand narrative of either rising or declining status for the elderly and have instead highlighted the great heterogeneity and complexity of attitudes toward aging and the aged.
Older individuals often played highly valued roles. The Spanish proverb "The oldster who cannot predict is not worth a sardine" reflects the common perception that an older person's worldly experience was a valuable community resource. Similarly, many different kinds of sources, from diaries to law cases, demonstrate a pervasive reliance on the memory of older individuals as a source of history and custom, a tradition that persisted despite the ever-growing availability and importance of print to record public and private memories.
Attitudes toward old women varied. The image of the wise old woman and the nurturing elderly mother or grandmother played a role in literature, but representations of older women, especially widows, were more often negative, or even vicious. Images in cheap print stereotyped old women as witches, and literature frequently represented old women as lascivious fools, querulous gossips, or shrill scolds. While recent studies have deepened our understanding of the image of the witch as an old woman, the image of the witch as an old hag demonstrates the ways misogyny and antagonism toward the aged could interact in this period.
Assistance to the Aged
Because so much preindustrial work involved physical labor, and because even the middling sorts were often in vulnerable economic situations, old age often brought with it downward economic mobility. Older individuals generally tried to remain self-supporting, and there were expectations of familial aid, but the elderly poor often depended on public assistance. In most European countries, poor relief was not regulated, but individual communities provided assistance for some of their elderly members. Forms of poor relief varied by country, region, and city, but community assistance usually took one of three forms: statutory poor relief, institutions like hospitals and asylums, and charity.
England's "Old Poor Law" serves as the clearest example of statutory poor relief. Under the Elizabethan Poor Acts of 1601, unpaid churchwardens and overseers in each of the country's parishes collected poor-relief taxes and redistributed the money to the poor residents of the parish. The statute specifically called for "necessary relief" to be given to the aged and decrepit poor. Historians differ in their assessment of the scope, generosity, and regional variation of the Old Poor Law's provision for the elderly, but it is certain that this system generated assistance ranging from occasional handouts to subsistence-level pensions for a significant minority of the aged population in many parishes in early modern England. The nature of the assistance changed as poor relief grew more extensive throughout the country. By the end of the eighteenth century, especially in southern and eastern parishes, parish poor relief to the aged could be very extensive. The Old Poor Law provided an important safety net for the aged, especially old widows. This system should not be mistaken for a prototype of modern social security (there was always a very strong and moralistic social-control element to early modern poor relief), but its extensive presence in the economic landscape and cultural expectations of this period is a significant aspect of the history of old age.
In Protestant Germany, large hospitals—charitable institutions set up to serve the aged, young, poor, needy, prostitutes, and so forth—such as those in Hesse, which were founded after the Reformation as a means to replace monastic charity, specifically served infirm people over sixty. If an old person's petition for entrance into the hospital was accepted, he or she could depend on the hospital to provide a bed and subsistence for the remainder of his or her life. Similarly, both the Hospital of Saint Sixtus and the Apostolic Hospital in Catholic Rome privileged the elderly poor as particularly deserving of assistance. Indeed, the early modern period witnessed a growing acceptance of the institutionalization of the elderly in the last stage of life.
In Protestant areas, these institutions were sometimes designed to replace Catholic charities, but in Catholic countries, religious foundations (including monasteries and confraternities) continued to be a vital source of nonfamilial assistance to the aged poor. Less easy to document, but undoubtedly pervasive in both Protestant and Catholic Europe, neighbors, employers, and friends all gave handouts to the aged as well. All of these sources of assistance—formal poor relief, local institutions, and charity—helped the elderly who fell into need maintain themselves in what Olwen Hufton has called the "economy of makeshifts" that characterized the economic lives of the early modern poor.
Household and Family
As they aged, individuals sought to stay closely connected to their children and/or to more extended networks of kin. These relationships were structured around reciprocal obligations and notions of familial bonds and duties as well as around ties of real affection and attachment in many cases. Spouses, especially, gave vital support to one another, and children's duty to support their aged parents was but one strand of the thickly woven thread that bound together the elderly and their families. Resources within families often flowed downward from the aged to the younger generations; in early modern sources, the efforts of the old for their families surface repeatedly and importantly.
Analyses of early modern household listings (informal and sporadic local censuses) have revealed the residential patterns of the elderly, though it is true that such sources can illuminate only a small piece of the broader picture of family life. Both family historians and historians of aging have generated a considerable body of work on the living arrangements of the elderly.
A wide variety of household forms existed throughout Europe. In England, where households were generally small and focused on the conjugal family unit, older men most often continued to head their own households. Even older women lived most frequently as the spouse of a householder or as head of their own domicile until advanced old age. In other parts of Europe, such as southern France, where the stem-family system was prevalent, an older couple's co-residential heir eventually supplanted the parents in home and farm. Historians of central and eastern Europe have found there the prevalence of multigeneration and complex households. In Castile, although most households were nuclear, older people lived in a wide range of household types. One way to make sense of this complexity is to note, as David Kertzer and others have pointed out, that most of western Europe followed a model of nuclear family households, but that older people were fairly often reincorporated into these households, especially after the death of an old parent's spouse.
The heterogeneity of old people's households mirrors the wide variety of experiences and the complex and even contradictory images and expectations regarding old age. An individual's view of old age—whether personal or second-hand—was profoundly influenced by gender, class, health, and family status. Nonetheless, most older people shared a fundamental desire to stay closely attached to their families and friends as they strove to retain their economic self-sufficiency. They also shared, in the broadest terms, a culture that offered many different paths through the aging process, so that individuals were not narrowly restricted to norms of "acting one's age."
Bibliography
Botelho, Lynn, and Pat Thane, eds. Women and Ageing in British Society since 1500. Harlow, U.K., 2001. Botelho's essay focuses on the connection between menopause and old age.
Gray, Louise. "The Experience of Old Age in the Narratives of the Rural Poor in Early Modern Germany." In Power and Poverty: Old Age in the Pre-Industrial Past, edited by Susannah Ottaway, Lynn Botelho, and Katharine Kittredge, pp. 107–124. Westport, Conn., 2002.
Johnson, Paul, and Pat Thane, eds. Old Age from Antiquity to Post-Modernity. London, 1998. A good example of the new trend toward focusing on the heterogeneity of the experience of old age in the past.
Kertzer, David, and Peter Laslett, eds. Aging in the Past: Demography, Society, and Old Age. Berkeley, 1995. Kertzer's conclusion has a good discussion of nuclear reincorporation.
Ottaway, Susannah. The "Decline of Life": Old Age in Eighteenth-Century England. Cambridge, U.K. Forthcoming.
Pelling, M., and R. M. Smith, eds. Life, Death, and the Elderly: Historical Perspectives. London, 1991. A classic work and an excellent bibliographical reference tool.
Rowlands, Alison. "Witchcraft and Old Women in Early Modern Germany." Past and Present 173, no. 4 (2001): 50–89.
Thane, Pat. Old Age in English History: Past Experiences, Present Issues. Oxford, 2000.
Troyansky, David G. Old Age in the Old Regime: Image and Experience in Eighteenth-Century France. Ithaca, N.Y., 1989.
Vassberg, David. "Old Age in Early Modern Castilian Villages." In Power and Poverty: Old Age in the Pre-Industrial Past, edited by Susannah Ottaway, Lynn Botelho, and Katharine Kittredge, 145–166. Westport, Conn., 2002.
—SUSANNAH OTTAWAY
Wikipedia on Answers.com:
Top
Old age
"Old people" redirects here. For the Khmer Rouge term, see New People.
Old age consists of ages nearing or surpassing the average life span of human beings, and thus the end of the human life cycle. Euphemisms and terms for old people include seniors (American usage), senior citizens (British and American usage) and the elderly.
Old people have limited regenerative abilities and are more prone to disease, syndromes, and sickness than younger adults. For the biology of ageing, see senescence. The medical study of the aging process is gerontology, and the study of diseases that afflict the elderly is geriatrics.
|
Contents
|
Definition
The boundary between middle age and old age cannot be defined exactly because it does not have the same meaning in all societies. People can be considered old because of certain changes in their activities or social roles. Examples: people may be considered old when they become grandparents, or when they begin to do less or different work—retirement. Most developed world countries have accepted the chronological age of 65 years as a definition of 'elderly' or older person.
German chancellor Otto von Bismarck created the world's first comprehensive government social safety net in the 1880s, providing for old age pensions and setting 60 as the age of retirement. The fixed retirement age of 70 was the first attempt at defining the start of old age. In the United States of America, and the United Kingdom, the age of 65 was traditionally considered the beginning of the senior years because, until recently, United States and British people became eligible to retire at this age with full Social Security benefits. In 2003, the age at which a US citizen became eligible for full Social Security benefits began to increase gradually, and will continue to do so until it reaches 67 in 2027. Full retirement age for Social Security benefits for people retiring in 2012 is age 66.[1] Originally, the purpose of old age pensions was to prevent elderly persons from being reduced to beggary, which is still common in some underdeveloped countries, but growing life expectancies and elder populations has brought into question the model under which pension systems were designed.
Changes Associated with Aging
Main article: Aging
There is often a general physical decline, and people become less active. Old age can cause, amongst other things:
- Wrinkles and liver spots on the skin due to loss of subcutaneous fat
- Change of hair color to gray or white
- Hair loss
- Reduced circulatory system function and blood flow
- Reduced lung capacity
- Reduced immune system function
- Changes in the vocal cords that produce the typical "old person" voice
- Lessened and weakened hearing. Of individuals 75 and older, 48% of men and 37% of women encounter difficulties in hearing. Of the 26.7 million people over age 50 with a hearing impairment, only one in seven, a meager 14 percent, use a hearing aid
- Diminished, and decline in eyesight. It becomes more difficult to read in low lighting and in smaller print. Speed with which an individual reads may also be impaired.
- Reduced mental/cognitive ability.
- Depressed mood
- Lessening or cessation of sex, sometimes because of physical symptoms such as erectile dysfunction in men, but often simply a decline in libido also known as sex drive.
- Greater susceptibility to bone and joint diseases such as osteoarthritis and osteoperosis
- Memory Loss is common due to the decrease in speed of information being encoded, stored, and received. It may take more time to learn new information.
Alzheimer's Disease, the most common form of dementia, is found in old age. It is a general term for memory loss and other intellectual abilities serious enough to interfere with daily life. Alzheimer's disease accounts for 50 to 80 percent of dementia cases.
- Behavioral changes can include wandering, physical aggression, and verbal outbursts due to diseases such as depression, psychosis, or dementia. Although current Alzheimer's treatments cannot stop Alzheimer's from progressing, they can temporarily slow the worsening of dementia symptoms and improve quality of life for those with Alzheimer's and their caregivers. Today, there is a worldwide effort under way to find better ways to treat the disease, delay its onset, and prevent it from developing.
It must be stressed that each individual is different, and health issues that affect one elderly person may not affect another.
Demographic changes
In the industrialized countries, life expectancy has increased consistently over the last decades.[2] In the United States the proportion of people aged 65 or older increased from 4% in 1900 to about 12% in 2000.[3] In 1900, only about 3 million of the nation's citizens were 65 or older (out of 76 million total American citizens). By 2000, the number of senior citizens had increased to about 35 million (of 280 million US citizens). Population experts estimate[citation needed] that more than 50 million Americans—about 17 percent of the population—will be 65 or older in 2020. The number of old people is growing around the world chiefly because of the post–World War II baby boom, and increases in the provision and standards of health care.
The growing number of people living to their 80s and 90s in the developed world has strained public welfare systems and has also resulted in increased incidence of diseases like cancer and dementia that were rarely seen in premodern times. When the United States Social Security program was created, persons older than 65 numbered only around 5% of the population and the average life expectancy of a 65 year old in 1936 was approximately 5 years, while in 2011 it could often range from 10–20 years. Other issues that can arise from an increasing population are growing demands for health care and an increase in demand for different types of services.
Psychosocial aspects
According to Erik Erikson’s "Eight Stages of Life" theory, the human personality is developed in a series of eight stages that take place from the time of birth and continue on throughout an individual’s complete life. He characterises old age as a period of "Integrity vs. Despair", during which a person focuses on reflecting back on their life. Those who are unsuccessful during this phase will feel that their life has been wasted and will experience many regrets. The individual will be left with feelings of bitterness and despair. Those who feel proud of their accomplishments will feel a sense of integrity. Successfully completing this phase means looking back with few regrets and a general feeling of satisfaction. These individuals will attain wisdom, even when confronting death.[4][5][6] Coping is a very important skill needed in the aging process to move forward with life and not be 'stuck' in the past. The way a person adapts and copes, reflects their aging process on a psycho-social level (Griffiths,Y & Thinnes,A).
Newman & Newman proposed a ninth stage of life, Elderhood. Elderhood refers to those individuals who live past the life expectancy of their birth cohorts. There are two different types of people described in this stage of life. The "young old" are those healthy individuals who can function on their own without assistance and can complete their daily tasks independently. The "old old" are those who depend on specific services due to declining health or diseases. This period of life is characterized as a period of "immortality vs. extinction." Immortality is the belief that your life will go on past death, some examples are an afterlife or living on through ones family. Extinction refers to feeling as if life has no purpose, an individual could have lived past all family and friends and feel a great loss.
The Disengagement Theory is a mutual withdrawal between elders and society that takes place in anticipation of death. Older people become free from work and family responsibilities allowing them to enjoy the rest of their lives peacefully. They begin to interact less often and activity levels are decreased. However, not all older adults prefer to be disengaged (Berk, 2007). The process of aging and the ways with which it is dealt are directly related to the society to which the aging person belongs. Therefore, disengagement theory is mostly connected with societies that do not place an emphasis on the value, importance, and respectibility of its elders. Many modern societies for example, value high efficiency and contribution, neither of which the elderly are able to provide as well as their younger counterparts. In many ways, they are seen as burdens to these societies, which triggers mutual disengagement between the elderly and the rest of society. According to the disengagement theory, the elderly who disengage take it upon themselves to do so for the benefit of society.
In response to the Disengagement Theory, The Activity Theory of Old Age is a theory of aging which states that the psychological and social needs of the elderly are no differenct from those of the middle-aged and that it is neither normal nor natural for older people to become isolated and withdrawn. This theory is also often called the Implicit Theory Of Aging".
Life expectancy
In most parts of the world, women live, on average, longer than men; even so, the disparities vary between 9 years or more in countries such as Sweden and the United States to no difference or higher life expectancy for men in countries such as Zimbabwe and Uganda.[7]
The number of elderly persons worldwide began to surge in the second half of the 20th century. Up to that time (and still true in underdeveloped countries), five or less percent of the population was over 65. Few lived longer than their 70s and people who attained advanced age (i.e. their 80s) were rare enough to be a novelty and were revered as wise sages. Accidents and disease claimed many people before they could attain old age, and because health problems in those over 65 meant a quick death in most cases. If a person lived to an advanced age, it was due to genetic factors and/or a relatively easy lifestyle, since diseases of old age could not be treated before the 20th century.
Assistance and Care
According to the Journal "Demography", there is a rise in the elderly living alone if not with a spouse. Individuals 75 and older have decreased in amount needing help taking care of themselves. Many new assistive devices made especially for the home have contributed greatly to this. Some examples of devices are a shower seat (making it so the person does not get tired in the shower and fall), a bed cane (offering support to those with unsteadiness getting in and out of bed), and an ADL cuff (used with eating utensils for people with paralysis or hand weakness).
However around 25% of individuals 85 and older say that they need help with their activities of daily living. There are many options for long term care to those who require it. There is home based care where a family member, volunteer, or trained professional will aid the person in need and help with daily activities. Another option is community services which can provide the person with transportation, meal plans, or activities in senior centers. A third option is assisted living where 24 hour round the clock supervision is given with aid in eating, bathing, dressing, etc. A final option is a nursing home which provides professional nursing care.
See also
- Aging in dogs
- Aging in place
- Centenarian
- Elderly care
- Geriatric care management
- Gerontology
- List of the verified oldest men
- List of the verified oldest women
- Oldest people
- Pensioner
- Respect for the Aged Day
- Silver Alert
- Supercentenarian
References
- ^ "Table 26: Life expectancy at birth, at 65 years of age, and at 75 years of age by race and sex: United States, selected years, 1900 - 2005". Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus08.pdf#026. Retrieved 26 August 2010.
- ^ Meyer, Julie (2001). "Census 2000 Brief, C2KBR/01-12, U.S.". "Washington, DC": "Census Bureau". http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/c2kbr01-12.pdf. Retrieved 2009-03-17.
- ^ Erikson, E.H. (1968). Identity: Youth and Crisis. New York: Norton.
- ^ Erikson, E.H. (1963). Childhood and Society. (2nd ed.). New York: Norton.
- ^ Carver, C.S. & Scheir, M.F. (2000). Perspectives on Personality. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon
- ^ de Blij, Harm. The power of place. Geography, Destiny, and Globalization's Rough Landscape. Oxford University Press. London:2009. p161ff
External links
 |
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Age |
 |
Look up old age, eld, or elderly in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
 |
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Old people |
- Laura Carstensen - research at Stanford university's Life-span Development Laboratory, and Stanford Center on Longevity.
- International Federation on Aging—informs and promotes positive change for old people globally
- Age UK—UK charity supporting those in old age in the UK and in developing countries
- HelpAge International—UK-based international charity supporting older people in developing countries. Sister organisation of Age UK (above)
- People 'get happier as they age'
| Preceded by Middle age |
Stages of human development Old age |
Succeeded by Death |
(Social Security)http://www.socialsecurity.gov/pgm/retirement.htm ('How Old Do You Feel? It Depends on Your Age')http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/30/health/30aging.html?_r=1&ref=health
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
Translations:
Top
Old-age
Français (French)
adj. - sur ses vieux jours
idioms:
- old-age pension (GB, Admin Soc) pension de retraite
Español (Spanish)
adj. - vejez
idioms:
- old-age pension pensión a la vejez
If you are unable to view some languages clearly, click here.
Post a question - any question - to the WikiAnswers community:
Copyrights:
McGraw-Hill Science & Technology Dictionary
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms. Copyright © 2003, 1994, 1989, 1984, 1978, 1976, 1974 by McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Read more
Oxford Dictionary of Sports Science & Medicine
The Oxford Dictionary of Sports Science & Medicine. Copyright © Michael Kent 1998, 2006, 2007. All rights reserved.
Read more
Gale Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World
Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World. Copyright © 2004 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
Read more
Wikipedia on Answers.com
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Old age.
Read more
