Impacts of Aging Flashcards
What are the challenges of aging?
Physical and mental difficulties, higher vulnerability to psychosocial stressors, and strong feelings of loneliness
What are the common physical difficulties the elderly experience?
Loss of sight, hearing, and/or mobility; lots of pain/discomfort, and a return to dependency due to development of health problems
What are the common mental difficulties experienced by the elderly?
Reduced speed of thought, capacity of working memory, and a slower learning process. All leads to a return to ignorance.
What are the common psychosocial stressors of the elderly?
Retirement Bereavement Alteration in the way people interact Pressure of learning new processes Have to reassess identity
Explain the shrinking environment with loss.
As a healthy young adult, access to resources is quite large – however, as one gets older with age and deals with increasing physical decline, eventually the person is limited to the home, or residential care.
What is dementia?
Memory dysfunction - has trouble learning new things, and can cause impairment of occupational or social functioning.
What are the symptoms of dementia?
Short term memory impairment and one of the following:
- aphasia - language impairments
- apraxia - motor memory impairments
- agnosia - sensory memory impairments
- abstract thinking
can’t be explainable by another disorder
What are the common forms of dementia?
Alzheimer’s
Lewy Body Dementias (like Alzheimers + Parkinsons)
Alcohol related
How can we help people who have dementia?
Bring order and routine to aid memory, and provide help with difficult processes and memory aiding. Have them keep contact with familiar faces and prepare for decline before it happens.
Describe the caregiver burden
Alzheimer caregivers suffer from 46% more physician visits, 70% more prescribed drugs, and a greater likelihood of being hospitalized.
More than 50% of caregivers are at risk for clinical depression
