1. Themes and Issues in Aging

Question 1

what is gerontology?

Answer 1

• the scientific study of aging from maturity through old age
• a relatively new, multidisciplinary field of study
  
  • we don’t have a lot of knowledge because of the big changes in life expectancy
• also new because in the past we didn’t have enough old people to study

Question 2

how has life expectancy changed and how do we expect it to continue to change?

Answer 2

• average has increased a lot in the past 100 years
• females have a higher life expectancy than males
• largest group is the baby boomer generation
• we predict that there will be more and more old people and less young people

Question 3

how does life expectancy differ in developed vs. developing countries?

Answer 3

• proportionately, there are more older people in developed countries
• in terms of raw numbers, there are more older people in developing countries

Question 4

what are the four key principles of aging?

Answer 4

1. continuity
2. individuality
3. survivors
4. aging ≠ Illness

Question 5

what is the continuity principle of aging? what perspective does this represent?

Answer 5

• experiences we have and decisions we make influence who we are later
• we can’t isolate the later years of life without considering the year preceding them
• represents the life span perspective

Question 6

what is the lifespan perspective?

Answer 6

• human development is divided into early phase and later phase
• the early phase is meant for growth and maturation while the later phase is for adapting to the environment

Question 7

what are some features of the life span perspective?

Answer 7

1. multidirectional - aging includes growth and declines
2. plasticity - capacity is not predetermined or set
3. historical & cultural context - whether there is struggle or prosperity influences experience of aging
4. multiple causation - development is impacted by many factors

Question 8

what is the individuality principle of aging?

Answer 8

• as individuals age, differences between them are magnified as a result of…
  
  • personality
  • physical function
  • life experiences
  • opportunities
• experiences have cumulative effects that cause them to change at different rates and to differing degrees

Question 9

what are the different types of individual differences?

Answer 9

• inter-individual differences - differences between people
• intra-individual difference - variations in performance within the same individual

Question 10

what is the survivor principle of aging?

Answer 10

• growing old means successful survival
• survival suggest they have good biological, psychological, and social situations
• are shared traits amongst the old a result of aging? or..
• were these traits present from an early age and resulted in the person’s ability to grow old?

Question 11

what is the aging ≠ illness principle of aging?

Answer 11

• we have primary, secondary, and tertiary aging
• primary - normal, disease free development during adult aging that happens for everyone
• secondary - developmental changes related to disease lifestyle, and other environmentally induced changes, not inevitable but risk increases with age
• tertiary aging - rapid losses that occur shortly before death, “terminal drop” or “mortality aging”

Question 12

what is the biopsychosocial approach to aging?

Answer 12

• how experience of aging depends on biological and psychological factors as well as sociocultural context
• experience of having cancer depends on…
  
  • biological - how our body responds
  • psychological - our personality and mindset
  • sociocultural context - society’s perspective on it

Question 13

what is personal vs. social aging?

Answer 13

• personal aging: changes that occur within the individual and reflect the influence of time’s passage on the body’s structures and functions.
• social aging: the effects of a person’s exposure to a changing environment

Question 14

what are the different factors in social aging?

Answer 14

• normative age-graded influences
• normative history-graded influences
• non-normative influences

Question 15

what are normative age-graded influences?

Answer 15

• experiences that one’s culture and historical period attach to certain ages or points in the lifespan
• your social clock: Are you “on time” or “off time”?

Question 16

what are normative history-graded influences?

Answer 16

• events that most people in a specific culture and/or location experience at the same time
  
  • ex. natural disasters, riots, terrorist attacks, COVID]
• can be biological, sociocultural, etc

Question 17

what are non-normative influences?

Answer 17

• random or rare events that may be important for a specific individual but are not experienced by most people (at that specific moment in time)
• happens to lots of people but not at the same time

Question 18

what are some different ways we represent age?

Answer 18

• chronological age
• perceived age
• biological age (functions of vital organs)
• psychological age (ability to adapt to environmental demands, reaction time, memory, learning ability)
• sociocultural age (work and family roles adopted compared to typic ages expected)

Question 19

what are the key social factors in adult development and aging?

Answer 19

• sex and gender
• ethnicity
• socioeconomic status
• religion

Question 20

how does socioeconomic status affect aging and adult development?

Answer 20

• whitehall II - a survey of a large sample of British adults focusing on the relationships among health, social class, and occupation
  
  • men in the lowest employment brackets had poorer health than their health habits would predict

Question 21

how does religion affect aging and adult development?

Answer 21

• provides people with a source of coping strategies, social support in times of crisis, and a systematic basis for interpreting life experiences
• is partly connection with ethnicity because organized religions form an alternative set of social structures

Question 22

who are baby boomers and why do they matter?

Answer 22

• people born in the post-world war II years between 1946 and 1964
• the increased number of baby boomers will cause our population of older adults to be significantly larger
• 17.5 percent of the total Canadian population are age 65 and older and it is estimated that will increase

Question 23

what is compression of morbidity?

Answer 23

• people having both long health and life expectancy, enabling them to be free of chronic illness until close to the time that they die
• the illness burden to society can be reduced if people become disabled closer to the time of their death

Question 24

what are the main gender variations in the over-65 population?

Answer 24

• overall, females have a longer life expectancy than males
• life expectancy gains have been more rapid for men than for women, and the gap in numbers between men and women is narrowing

Question 25

what are the main ethnic variations in the over-65 population?

Answer 25

- 22.3 percent of the Canadian population were visible minorities and 12.6 percent of these were 65 years of age and over - most older adults come to Canada through the Family Class or Family Sponsorship program, often to assist their children in providing child care