Prevention of Social Breakdown in the Elderly - Assignment Example

Prevention of social breakdown in the elderly About elderly According to dictionary.com, elderly is an adjective meaning somewhat old; near old age or pertaining to a person in later life. Elderly is also known as the old age that consists of ages approaching or exceeding the average human life span including the end of the human life cycle. They were also known as seniors - mainly an American usage. Old people have inadequate abilities and have greater susceptibility to disease, syndrome and sickness than younger adults. Gerontology is the medical study of aging process and Geriatrics is the study of the diseases that distress the elderly. (Wikipedia.com) Social Breakdown Theory This theory is both an individual and a societal in its concept. The negative feedback is produced by a person who is already vulnerable to psychological problems; one example is an old adult was hospitalized because of depression should be accompanied by some of his/her friend/s. Once the cycle starts, it strengthens others' perception of incompetence. Older adults may act the way they supposed to act in the society independently. But, they may also act inappropriately; they see themselves as inadequate human being - negative spiral is then set into motion. One good example is when the man loses his wife and having a hard time if he will sell their house or not so his son decided to take care of the decision-making if whether to sell the house or not; he decided that it would be better to sell the house and bring his father to a place where he can be taken care of. If the man agrees, it supports both the father and the son's way of thinking that the father is not autonomous or capable. (Macro Theories of Aging) Causes and Effects of Social Breakdown Kuyper and Bengtson emphasized that these factors affect the elderly: (1) children moving away and building their own families (2) death of spouses and friends (3) unclear ideas about what to expect as people grows older (4) disappearance of a reference group (5) and a dramatic drop in public status. All of these factors provide strong negative support to feelings of uselessness and obsolescence in elderly. They argued that for some people, aging can assume a pathological flavour because of the changes in their social environment thus causing individuals to doubt their social competence that may lead to low self-assessment and a continuing decline of formerly employed coping skills. According to the researchers, most elders are faced with a long and weary process of adapting to lessen capacities. Old age people especially when they are lonely tend to self-neglect. Those people who have spouse, family members or even friends who died early and before them has a greater potential to self-neglect. Elders that are self-neglecting are those who habitually experience harmful situations or live in very inadequate condition because there is an increase in physical and/or in mental impairments. One reason why elders fear seeking help is because they do not want to be a load to other people; they are also afraid to lose their privacy and/or independence. Elders who self-neglect may become disoriented because of alcohol abuse; they may misuse or fail to take their prescribed medications especially elders who need to take psychotropic drugs to treat their mental illness; they become unmotivated to take good care of themselves or to worsen immobilized because of too much depression; and lastly, they may become unaware of the resources available or services being offered. Prevention of Social Breakdown in the Elderly During the 1980s, the elements considered to be essential in all interventions include: (1) sensitivity to the elders' self-esteem when it comes to matter of life style and independence (2) awareness of the elders' motivation technique to attain good standards of self-care (3) assessment of the elders' functional capabilities (4) consideration of service options to give the elders choices (5) and respect for the elders' right to decide about using service offerings - whether to accept or decline the service offered; a right that may incorporate the rebuff of any assistance. The right of the elders to decline is for them to continue their independent living even though there are some aspects of self-neglect that were seen in their case evaluation. (McCuan, Eloise Rathbone) On the other hand, an emphasis on health education for senior citizens was another positive sign to prevent social breakdown of the elders. Health education will provide elders with information, technique and enthusiasm to take more responsibility for their health and well-being. It includes: (1) Health educators encourage elders to question their doctors regarding their health and gather facts about their condition (2) involving elders and their families in the medical care process (3) increase in elders taking care of their own health so that the physician will have more useful roles in preventing self-neglect (4) and lastly, it will be easier to diagnose or treat elders' illness because it will be tough for well informed elders to fail taking their prescribed medications or ignore signs of a progressing illness. (McCuan, Eloise Rathbone) It may be a long process to regain elders' self-control and independence but with just a matter of time and support, it will be much easier. On the road to recovery of the elders with the help from health care providers There are certain areas being assessed to ensure the safety and convenience of the elders which include: (1) the impairment levels of the elder (2) economic resource adequacy (3) safety in residential space (4) availability of formal and informal resource networks (5) adequacy of the assistance provided by the networks (6) extent of physical and social isolation (7) depression (8) cognitive orientation (9) and related bio psychosocial problems. No matter what the peril or unwanted conditions surrounding an elder, they cannot be addressed without their approval - being a mental competent person. (McCuan, Eloise Rathbone) Some elders decline to have assistance because they have incorrect and inaccurate information about the services being offered to them. They lack on information about the ways the services will help them live their life easily and safely. Similarly, elders refused to ask help from other people maybe because of its religious or culturally based convictions of dependency or accepting help from strangers. But the most important key to establish rapport to the elders to help them attain their goal which were recovery and self-reliance is trust. Trust is one of the most effective components of individual counselling, case management, and advocacy. It becomes the vehicle for personal change from more self-neglecting behaviour to less; and more self-relying individual. The elders feel much better if he/she has someone to share his/her feelings, emotions, insights, plans, and desires without passing quick judgments. (McCuan, Eloise Rathbone) Elders attain fulfilment and a sense of pride when they master new skills and techniques that will allow them to continue caring for themselves and maintain their independence (examples: teaching them new bathing techniques, cooking and housekeeping skills after a partial paralysis). Likewise for the elderly people who are undergoing depression or persistent mental illness. (McCuan, Eloise Rathbone) Opinion regarding prevention of social breakdown in elderly First of all, I firmly believe that elders like our grandfathers and grandmothers should be given even a small part of our attention and time because without them, we are not here living in this world. They have been a great part of our existence and sooner or later we will be in their shoes too - we will be elders. The public should take great account with this topic because this is the last phase of our life, being old. After this phase of our life, we're already going to die. My personal opinion regarding the matter is I think it would still be best for elders to stay with their family because it will lessen the depression and self-pitying that they are experiencing. One more thing is, according to the campaign of Trudy Gregorie I've read, people who appear less capable of defending themselves and their property are those who are easily abused. The safety of the elders should be taken into consideration because they are the easy targets for abuse and misuse. One prove is this; the National Center on Elder Abuse estimates the incidence of specific types of elder maltreatment based on reports from 39 states of the U.S.A.as follows: physical abuse, 15.7%; sexual abuse, 0.04%; emotional abuse, 7.3%; neglect, 58.5%; financial exploitation, 12.3%; all other types, 5.1%; and unknown, 0.06%. (Gregorie, Trudy) The elders are at higher risk than other age groups when it comes to coping mechanisms. One example is the financial crimes involving the elders as the victims; whether it was a stranger or a family member who is responsible for the crime, it still can be very shocking and depressing to the elderly; compared to the young ones who can work, invest or save to make up for their financial losses, the elders have a lesser probability in making up for their financial losses. But, the highest damage it can give is on the emotional aspect of the elderly. The psychological trauma brought to the elder is more intense compared to the young ones because their ability to recover from trauma had decreased including their coping patterns and support networks. Elders may also feel guilty or ashamed if the offender is part of his/her family. They may lose confidence in their own judgment or become severely depressed, hopeless, or suicidal. These fears prevent many older people from engaging in normal routine activities, often resulting in isolation and increased dependency. (Gregorie, Trudy) From that information we can see that not only social breakdown is the problem that our elders are experiencing; there are even more worst than social breakdown that's why it is also really important to discuss the standing of our elders especially the help and the benefits that they can expect from the government, their family and from the society. As individuals we could be a great help to every elders even in our most simple way. We can visit them once a week or during weekends and spend some time eating with them, listening to their stories and laughing out loud with their jokes. Those simple ways indeed will make them very happy and content. Another way to prevent social breakdown in the elderly is making them feel useful and functional by asking help or tips from them in cooking, gardening, and other activities. It will be a form of exercise on the part of the elder/s and it will also promote bonding between you and your grandmother/father. Prevention on Social Breakdown in the Elderly as a Research The researcher chose the topic about social breakdown of the elders because nowadays, people particularly those who are in power are more focus in the economic and political factors that affect our country. Because of this, they often neglect the problems concerning their people. Their main focus is always on large problems overlooking the small ones. The elders were part of a great history that we, the youth and the young adults were never a part of. Indeed, as of now we are young and physically fit inside and outside but still each one of us will come to a point that we will become elders and will be experiencing the depression, self-neglecting phase/stage that they are experiencing. We will all be going to elderly stage that's why it is very important that as of this early we should know the possible things that we might encounter particularly the social breakdown. The researcher wants the research to be an eye opener for everyone not just for the public officials but most probably for the young adults too because they are the next in line to be elders and it will be a great help on their part. We should always show our love and care for our elders because it really affects them in a good way. References: Dictionary.com. Definition of Elderly. Gregorie, Trudy. Respect our Elders. The Special Needs of Elder Abuse Victims. < http:// www.ccvs.state.vt.us/pub_ed/special_needs.html> Macro Theories of Aging. Social Breakdown Theory. McCuan Eloise Rathbone. Self-neglect in the elderly: knowing when and how to intervene. Spring 1996 from Wikipedia.com. Definition of Old Age. Read More