Aging & Geriatric Issues

Overview of Aging & Geriatic Issues: Aging is a natural process, but that doesn’t mean it won’t present challenges – both for the aging person and for their family. Older adults may have great difficulty transitioning to retirement, facing their mortality, dealing with frailty or medical conditions, adjusting to the deaths of friends, peers, and partners, avoiding isolation in the wake of many such deaths, finding enjoyable, meaningful activities, and taking care of their own basic needs in the presence of Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of dementia, which affect approximately one in ten Americans of retirement age.

 

The Medical Model and Aging: One of the challenges of dealing with aging is distinguishing the normal challenges of growing older from signs of actual physical or mental illness. Many people older than age 65 live happy and healthy independent lives.  Some changes in cognition are a normal part of the aging process. Researchers have found that healthy older adults experience mild decline in the areas of visual and verbal memory, visuospatial abilities, immediate memory, or the ability to name objects. Mild hearing loss, increased frailty of the body, diminished sleep, and mild to moderate changes in appetite and energy level may be normal parts of growing older.

 

A professional therapist can help older adults to dealing with these kinds of changes, and to distinguish them from a serious health condition such as Alzheimer’s disease or Parkinson’s disease (a referral to a psychiatrist or internist may be necessary).

 

Therapy can help older adults who may have difficulty with the transitions of aging to manage their emotions, find new sources of enjoyment and meaning, and find new support systems. It can help people face their fears of death, if they have such fears (and who doesn’t?) and deal with grief over the passings of friends and family. It can also assist family members who may be caretaking their elder relatives – assist them in dealing with their emotions, communication issues (especially likely if an elder has some form of dementia), and community resources.

 

Possible diagnoses associated with aging might be the various forms of dementia (although these are technically medical, not strictly psychological disorders), and in some cases depression or anxiety.

 

Case Example of Aging & Geriatric Issues:

 

Rosa, 72, is brought to therapy by her daughter, Maria. Maria has been visiting her mother every day for five years, ever since Maria’s father/Rosa’s husband died, leaving Rosa alone. Maria helps Rosa shop and cook and clean, and keep her company. But lately, Rosa needs more and more help, and Maria feel she cannot meet her mother’s needs any more. Rosa is irritated by this and angrily tells her daughter “you don’t even care about me.”  The therapist takes a thorough personal history of the family, and suspects Rosa is suffering from a form of dementia. A referral to a physician confirms this. The therapist works with Maria to find appropriate, affordable, professional services for Rosa, including an Adult Day Center and an in-home nurse that Rosa’s insurance covers. The therapist also helps Maria and Rosa understand the symptoms of Rosa’s illness, helps Maria deal with feelings of guilt as well as communication difficulties, and facilitates joint sessions to help the two talk about what Rosa is going through.

 

Therapy for Aging & Geriatric Issues: There is a wide range of Psychotherapy Treatment Models or types of therapy used in the treatment of aging and geriatric issues. Most of these approaches fall into three historic camps of psychology: Psychoanalytic / Psychodynamic approaches; Behaviorism and; Humanism. Regardless of the type of therapy, there are some generally agreed upon elements of healthy therapy which are universal to all forms of psychotherapy. Before beginning therapy for aging or any other issue, it is helpful to familiarize oneself with these elements.

 

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Aging & Geriatric Issues Article Summaries

Psychotherapy and Aging

By Judith Gusky, MSEd, NCC The Challenges and Hopes of Aging The population is aging. I am aging. Yet here I am starting a new career as a counselor. One of my interests is in end-of-life issues. I am not the Grim Reaper. I don’t have a morbid fascination with death, even as I find myself on the far side of middle age. Maybe it’s just that I haven’t quite been able to let go of Erik Erikson’s eight-stage model of human development and ... Read the rest of this entry »

Aging: Baby Boomer Women Coming into Their Wisdom

By Ruth Subrin, M.A. MFT-AT In the year 2011 the first wave of the 76 million baby-boomers will turn 65. Our changing demographics, fueled by increased longevity and the aging of baby-boomers creates the basis for a social transformation heretofore unknown in America. Because of our increased life expectancy, and better health care, aging and concepts of middle age means something very different today to women than it did to previous generations. It is a time of spiritual and psychological potentials. It is a time when a woman becomes a wise woman ... Read the rest of this entry »

Study Examines Role of Age, Past Behaviors in Suicide

A GoodTherapy.org News Summary Suicide is a tragic even that many mental health professionals have taken as central to their careers and fields of study. Hoping to decrease the rates of suicide throughout the population and to develop and distribute effective and meaningful care for those in pain, professionals who work with suicide as a subject of study are typically on the lookout for factors that play a role in thoughts and feelings about suicide, attempts, and successful terminations. One study concentrating on suicide Read the rest of this entry »

Questions Arise About Potential of “Brain-Training” to Improve Function, Well-Being

A GoodTherapy.org News Summary While it's a popular and commonly-held idea that the brain grows stronger and people become more knowledgeable and mentally apt as they cage, the facts of brain biology can be harsh. Into one's 30's, mental decline has likely already begun to take place, with some indications that the process can start as early as the end of one's second decade. People approaching middle age may find that their memory seems to fail them from time to time, or they might experience a decrease in the ... Read the rest of this entry »

Older Adults with Fuzzy Memories May Have Hypertension to Blame

A GoodTherapy.org News Headline The experience of declining memory may be common to the process of aging, but a new study performed at the University of Alabama at Birmingham suggests that such an experience doesn't have to be the norm. Working with information collected from over nineteen thousand participants over the age of forty five, the extensive study measure the relationship between high diastolic blood pressure and memory loss, finding that for each ten-point increase, there was a seven percent ... Read the rest of this entry »

Reviewers Reveal: Happiness Grows with Age

A GoodTherapy.org News Summary A popular conception of the elderly is that they're often plagued by sadness, loneliness, a decline in cognitive ability, and enjoy a poorer quality of life than their younger counterparts. As the proportion of senior citizens in the global population is expected to spike dramatically in the coming years, such a dreary outlook may cause weariness over the prospect of growing old. Yet this popular conception may not be at all reliable, a review of several ... Read the rest of this entry »

Therapy for Smoking Cessation May Ward Off Dementia

Smoking Cessation Therapies May Ward Off Dementia Cognitive decline is a serious mental health issue affecting a large number of aging people, and tends to strike for a variety of reasons, sometimes without much of any warning. As the progress of medical science marches on, the search for effective treatments for dementia continues, though so far no adequate solutions have been developed. A key focus for interested health professionals, then, is the prevention of dementia, and many studies are being conducted to determine which factors are most likely to play ... Read the rest of this entry »

Investigation of Lonely Seniors Shows Stereotypes

Study Links Working Post-Retirement is Linked to Mental Health

A GoodTherapy.org News Summary Most people who retain steady careers throughout their lives spend a fair amount of time thinking about, and planing for, their eventual retirement. Hailed as a momentous and positive occasion, retirement is often considered in terms of its potential to allow for some much-needed relaxation and personal time following a lengthy dedication to one's work. But a number of people may find that once they've retired, the sense of purpose with which they worked is absent, and this sudden absence may lead to feelings of ... Read the rest of this entry »

Collaborative Care Program for Elderly Cancer Clients Shows Promise

A GoodTherapy.org News Summary As might be imagined, a number of elderly people who struggle with various forms of cancer also experience thoughts and feelings of depression, an issue which has prompted those in several disciplines of medicine to seek new ways to help improve the quality of life of this specific group. While the administration of anti-depressant medications is an option taken by many general practice physicians, a strong push to supplement such treatments with more reliable, potentially beneficial counseling and other mental health services has gained momentum ... Read the rest of this entry »

Depression Among the Very Old Eased through Family Involvement

A GoodTherapy.org News Headline An often overlooked age group, the 85 and up set face many challenges that are typically reserved for old age. Memory issues, difficulty finding energy, and the rapid or prolonged loss of friends and loved ones can all contribute to symptoms of depression, which is experienced at a high rate among those in this age group. Efforts to develop targeted therapy programs and other forms of treatment for such clients are on-going, with a recent development having been ... Read the rest of this entry »

A Moment that Took My Breath Away

By Ruth Subrin, M.A., MFT-AT I work part time in a Geri-Psychiatric ward where my title is Recreational Therapist. What that means is that when elders are committed to this hospital ward, usually involuntarily, anywhere from 72 hours to one month they are termed “gravely disabled and in dire harm to themselves and/or others”. Along with individuals that are in a psychotic phase of their schizophrenia and those suffering from bipolar episodes, a large percentage of those admitted to our facility have dementia. When the dementia patients are admitted ... Read the rest of this entry »

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