Good Essay About Getting To Know Older Adults

Analyzing Interview Data

This Paper was prepared for_________ taught by___________
The interviewee
Ms. M, a 90-year-old widow, lives in the cottage in a small city. She has a 65-year-old daughter living with her family 10 miles away and often coming to visit her. Gardening and harvesting fruits and vegetables are the only open-air activities which keep her physically active. She goes to church every Sunday (a half mile distance). Both her mother and father lived a long life (98 and 87 years respectively, without taking any medicines). She has no health problems, except for mild vision impairment which appeared with age, and well-controlled hypertension (1 beta-blocker she has been taking for 5 years, with no dose changes over this time).

The life philosophy

Ms.M believes the physical health may be achieved only by keeping a healthy mind and a high spirituality level. Her main life principle has always been “Love thy neighbor”. She tried to help people in their needs and be merciful and indulgent easily forgiving them after some misunderstandings. She is sure that if one has peace in one’s heart, one’ll live a long life. Through all her life, she has been trying to keep this peace and is confident that her attitude to people allowed her to avoid the serious illnesses.

The health perception

Ms.M repeats that beauty is only skin deep, and the pledge of good health is a good character and kindness to others. She also believes that normal routine physical activity keeps the doctor away for years. Like her parents, for all her life, even during her service years as an accountant, she has been harvesting fruits and vegetables in her small kitchengarden. On retirement, she dedicated most of her time to gardening and harvesting the garden plants. She has never participated in any other health promotion activities and kept to no particular diet.

The age perception

The person is considered old when he\she loses interest to life. That’s the rule tested by Ms.M in practice. She had always been sure the life is great until she lost her husband after 60 years of marital life. At the murky times of her loss and bereavement, she still managed to recover relatively quickly and found a new inspiration: gardening. At the time of loss, that was a thread that revived her interest to life. At present, it allows her to spend more time in the air and to enjoy the beauty of nature. Now she can’t believe her age stating she feels only 5-10 years older than her 65-year-old daughter.

The status and treatment of older adults

Generally Ms.M is satisfied with the service level but would wish some preventive screening with particular attention to vision. That was derived from her personal experience when at regular examinations she had never been told to start wearing eyeglasses until she asked about it herself.

The values compared to those of modern society

Ms.M realizes the world is very different now and many trends such as abortions or euthanasia seem to her ethically inappropriate. Still she allows other people to deem it acceptable and is not willing to judge them. She also admits that some things have significantly improved in the modern world, e.g. children do not depend on their parents’ consent in choosing the marital partner. She tries to be very cautious when expressing her opinion and she probably is: during several years, she successfully managed to live under one roof with her adult daughter without any serious conflicts. She thinks that her core values are genuine in any society. “Treat others in such a way how you want them to treat you”. If you follow these moral principles you will live a long and happy life.

Discussion: comparing the findings to research data

Ms.M’ state of health generally fits into the median derived for the population of the longitudinal study of 65-year old and elder inhabitants of Cache County who have a highest life expectancy at the age of 65 in US (Ostbye et al.,2006). The basic dimensions of health listed in the study as predictors for long-term survival can be used for benchmarking.
As a majority of the study participants, Ms.M. has only one serious health condition (hypertension). However it is very well-controlled, which was normally not the case for the study population (Ostbye et al.,2006). This can be explained not only by her drug compliance but also by her life vision as the attitudes of older adults have a direct impact on their state of health (Poortman & Van Tilburg, 2005). Her complaints resemble those most often mentioned by the participants (vision loss not detected timely), and her loss experience pattern, with a period of temporary loneliness and decrease of interest to life, is common for elderly widows (Ostbye et al.,2006). Her life motto and related experience supports the evidence from Cache Study in favor of mood having the greatest impact on the life span (Ostbye et al.,2006). This impact is probably enhanced by her tolerancy to the rest of the world which is consistent with Poortman & Van Tilburg (2005) hypothesis that the elders with the experience of co-habitation with children resemble more tolerance to changes in the society. This correlation is positively associated with the age, so her acknowledgement of some positive changes is in line with her progressive attitudes to the marital pattern changes. Still, her views on abortion and euthanasia are not typical for her profile drawn by Poortman & Van Tilburg (2005) which rather illustrates her ability to exercise own judgements and the absence of any notable cognitive impairment. The latter, together with optimistic mood, religious participation and spirituality also play an important role for her healthy aging (Ostbye et al.,2006), There is a strong correlation between Ms.M.’s positive attitude to world and her orientation to proactive approach (assistance to others) with her subjective age which is much younger than real (Mock & Eibach, 2011). Finally, the open-air physical activities which she has been involved in for years (gardening) not only keep her physically fit, but benefit her cognitive and motor function ensuring the due life quality and long life expectancy (Angewaren et al.,2008). Generally, Ms.M, with her self-reporting of excellent health, fits into those 60% of the population who still feel healthy at the age 85 and older (Ostbye et al.,2006).

References

Angevaren M, Aufdemkampe G, Verhaar HJ, Aleman A, Vanhees L.(2008). Physical activity and enhanced fitness to improve cognitive function in older people without known cognitive impairment. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. ,16 (2), CD005381.
Mock S.E & Eibach R.P.(2011). Aging Attitudes Moderate the Effect of Subjective Age on Psychological Well-Being: Evidence From a 10-Year Longitudinal Study. Psychology and Aging ,26 (4), 979 –986
Østbye T, Krause K.M, Norton MC, Tschanz J, Sanders L, Hayden K, Pieper C, & Welsh-Bohmer K.A.(2006). Ten dimensions of health and their relationships with overall self-reported health and survival in a predominately religiously active elderly population: the cache county memory study. J Am Geriatr Soc. ,54 (2),199-209.
Poortman A.R. &. Van Tilburg T.G. (2005). Past experiences and older adults’ attitudes: a lifecourse perspective. Ageing & Society, 25, 19–39