Old Age - An Age Before Death

Old age is advanced years the latter period of life. Changes in any particular order for example, experience vision problems with no noticeable loss of hearing. Fatigue; appetite loss; insomnia; difficulty concentrating; loss of interest in life or the ability to enjoy it; feelings of emptiness, guilt, sadness, and hopelessness; wishing for death; and thinking of suicide.

The people who live past sixty years of age or so are commonly known as aged or elderly. Old age is still an inevitable physiological process, which cannot be postponed indefinitely. One has to perceive both physical and socio-psychological aspects of life of the aged to understand life conditions of elderly. Parents abusing children, husbands abusing wives, and older persons being abused and neglected by spouses, daughters-in-law, sons, brothers and other members of the family and relatives. The youngsters do not wish to accept them as part of their social setup, their life-style at all. Changing priorities of younger generation, and replacement of "We" concept by "I" concept. Very few research studies emphasize on the needs and problems of the elderly.

Being ‘old’ is a psychic perception while being labeled ‘old’ is a social ascription according to Ghosh maulik. Older are dependent on those who abuse them for their physical and financial need and support. During 1980s elder abuse gained rapid recognition in USA. It is estimated that in USA alone, around 500,000 cases to 2.5 million cases of elderly are subjected to physical violence annually.

"late time of life; "old age is not for sissies," "he's, showing his years"; "age hasn't slowed him down at all"; "a beard white with eld"; "on the brink of geezerhood"

Some cases exemplify the nature of abuse in our society:

* There was 70 years old widower living with his son. A few years back, his son started demanding transfer of father’s property to his name. When the father refused to comply, he started abusing him physical and verbally.

*While in other case one poor widow woman of about 60 years of age lived with he young unemployed son. Due to economic hardship she had to sell her small room and after some time she lost her legs in a road accident. Her son one day discarded her who had become a liability for him.

The definition given by Council of Europe includes all the aspects, "the physical and psychological integrity of an older person or harms the development of his/her personality and undermines or damages his/her financial security."

Elders are talkative, but nobody listens to them, nobody to share their grievances. Older persons are least or not wanted in the social setup of a family or the society at large resulting in loneliness and the death anxiety according to Mullins. While Kogan & Wallach found that everyone evaluated death negatively, the elderly rated it more positive than others.

Children do not care, they neglect, and they don’t look after their elder. The problem for older persons did not seem to be lake of money but lack of time by the ‘others’. The other thing is lack of emotional support from family members. Sense of insecurity and feeling of burden and old age itself was a disease.

Old people are sent away to old age homes even when families can taken care of them. If ole person is sick children stay away. The other problem is older couple being asked to live separately when they had more than one child. Such as the older woman to stay with one child and than man to stay with another according to the convenience of their support in whatever housework they could contribute to. While in the case or rotation, the parents stayed with one child for a particular period of time and then moved over to the other child to stay with him for the same period of time.

Death of spouses in old age caused greatest mental anguish. Aged widows could manage to spend time with grand children but the old widowers of their wife as their link with the family was snapped. Women perceived financial dependency and no access to money whenever required especially for health problems and buying of medicines as a form of maltreatment. The cause of abuse is because there is no communication between old and young. Person was abused when he/she got pension and children wanted to take away the money.

Within the community the role of old people is communities engagement and activity for older people. Such as giving guideline to younger generation, taking care of grand children, providing support for children when asked for helping household work, teaching.

The following suggestions are presented in relation to prevention of elder abuse.

-- Mental health services and family counseling available to all in need of such services
-- Alcohol and substance abuse treatment programs available to all in need of such services
-- Assertiveness training, promotion of elder rights, and self-advocacy training for all older adults
-- Don't ignore your limitations and overextend yourself
-- Don't expect family problems to disappear once the elder moves into the home
-- Don't hamper the older person's independence or intrude unnecessarily upon his/her privacy
-- Keep in touch with old friends and neighbors even if you move
-- Develop a buddy system with a friend outside the home
-- Ask friends to visit you at home Awareness and facilitation of positive and productive aging

Further Readings
Harvard Mental Health Letter
Life in old age in rural orissa – S.K. Gosh maulik
Elder Abuse and Neglect – Anupriyo Mallik
Loneliness and Death anxiety among the elderly-J.M.Asgarali& ArunaBroota