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2003: Normative Life 3
Introduction
The purpose of this paper is to review normal issues in aging among three cohorts and discuss what research has told us about the impact of becoming a caregiver on the different cohorts. Developmental issues in the across the lifespan will be discussed as well as the normal physical, psychological, and cognitive changes to be expected in American culture and society. Through case studies the interplay of these issues with the normative task of caregiving will be explored. Lastly, an outline of a presentation geared toward sensitizing internal medicine and family practice residents on pertinent issues surrounding caregiving in different stages of the life cycle will be presented.
Life expectancy in 2001 in America is 77. ... htm, retrieved November 12, 2003). By looking at the expected changes that occur in these cohorts in a historical context, we are taking a “snapshot” in the year 2003. ... 9)”
Developmental changes across the life span. The life span perspective posits that
human development takes a lifetime to complete. ... The
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person is considered to have a unique physical and psychological make up, influenced by ethnicity, culture and society that interact with other people and events across the life cycle.
Life cycle events have been identified by Baltes (1979, Baltes et.al, 1998) as being normative age graded, normative history graded, and nonnormative. Normative age graded influences would be those experiences caused by biological, psychological, and sociocultural forces that are highly correlated with chronological age. For example, biological events that cause a change in a person’s life (menopause, hip fracture, chronic illness), psychological events that focus on certain issues at certain points in adulthood (such as paying children’s college tuition), and sociocultural events that are usually ritualized (quincinieras, weddings, bar mitzvahs) usually correspond to time markers, so we know where we are in our “social clock.”
Normative history graded events are those events that most people in a specific culture experience at the same time. ... These events often give a generation its unique identity (see our cohorts).
Non normative influences are unpredictable events important to a specific individual, but not experienced by everyone. Because these events are rare or random they are unique and potentially life changing. ...
We will look more at the life cycle when we talk about caregiving in section II. The person in the environment perspective of the life span, and how one copes to create a good “fit” affect quality of life immensely.
Cohorts Defined. The cohorts under discussion are being called for our purposes Depression Era Babies, World War II Era Vets and Baby Boomers as these are descriptive of the
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sentinel events that shaped their lives. ...
The Depression Era group lived through amazing times. ... They
survived World War I, Prohibition the Great Depression, World War II, Korea, Kennedy’s
assassination, Viet Nam, the Civil Rights movement, sexual revolution, Women’s Liberation, space exploration and the gas crisis. This generation raised the World War II Era vets, with the Great Depression being the psychological lens through which they saw the world. World War II vets experienced many of the same experiences as Depression Babies, World War II, Korea, Kennedy’s assassination, Viet Nam, Civil Rights, sexual revolution, Women’s Liberation, space exploration, and the gas crisis but their psychological lens, colored by World War II, has a different attitude that was passed on to the next generation, the Baby Boomers. ... We will look at several body systems across the cohorts and identify the expected
changes with age. ... Researchers have identified that older adults must be convinced of the intrinsic
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value of exercise, emphasizing what would be the most beneficial to each individual personally (Caserta and Gillett, 1998). ...
Hair may become thinner and grayer as aging progresses for men and women Baby Boomers, and 80% of World War II Era men are substantially bald. ... , retrieved November 13, 2003) Interestingly facial hair changes occur for both men and women, too. ... Our World War II Era people are expected to have 40% loss in
muscle strength, primarily in the legs, compared to Baby Boomers. Bone loss is expected among all 3 of our cohorts, with women losing bone mass about twice as fast as men. Some cartilage
deterioration in joints is also expected among all cohorts. ... Changes in the structures of the eye occur to Baby Boomers, and the other cohorts,
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i. ... The ability to see details and to discriminate patterns declines steadily among the Baby Boomers and rapidly in the other cohorts. ...
Hearing loss is gradual among the Baby Boomers while at least half of our Depression Era Babies have presbycusis. ... Changes in the ability to detect odors are expected among our World War II era cohort and beyond. ... People that are in the middle part of the Baby Boomer cohort may be beginning to develop fatty deposits in the lining around the heart to form a continuous sheet, and connective tissue which causes a thickening and stiffening of the heart muscle and valves is replacing healthy muscle tissue. ... The average 65 yo, who is in our World War II era cohort, will have lost 60-70% ability to cope with physical exercise, especially aerobic, due to these changes in the heart and circulatory system. ... With increasing age the rib cage and air passageways
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become stiffer making it harder to breathe. ... The Depression Era Babies take in 40% less air now than they did in their 20’s. ... Men and women Baby Boomers experience changes in this system. ... There are numerous theories of normal psychological changes across the life span. ... Research has shown how psychological factors such as attitude can begin a
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cascade of neurological, hormonal and behavioral responses that directly change the immune system to make one more vulnerable to illness. ... A very recent study published in the December 9, 2003 journal, Neurology, in fact, demonstrated a relationship between perceived psychological stress and the development of Alzheimer’s Disease among nuns, priests and brothers in the Rush Nun Study. ... Lazarus and Folkman (1984) describe 3 types of stress appraisal. ... Schooler (1982) demonstrated the mediating effect social support systems can have in some Depression Era Babies perceptions of events.
Coping strategies differ across the life span. Baby boomers tend to use information seeking as a management strategy (Felton and Revenson, 1987) whereas World War II Era vets are more likely to use past experiences in coping (Aldwin et al, 1996). For example, Baby Boomers who are worried about their frail parents may contact area assisted living facilities to have brochures ready for a discussion. World War II Era vets may decide to never go to an institution because they had a bad experience when their parents were in a nursing home. A study looking at humor coping, health status and life satisfaction among Depression Era Babies,
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primarily, residing in assisted living facilities, found that humor did not provide a means of coping with diminished health in report of life satisfaction, but that people who were healthier emotionally and/or physically were more likely to use humor as a coping strategy with life’s negative stressful events (Celso, et.al, 2003).
The loss continuum model (Pastalan, 1982) applies to all our cohorts. ... In going from 1:1 to 1: mankind, one develops a sense of one’s place in the world and a development of spirituality. ... We will concentrate on the last 2 stages, as normatively this is where we would expect our cohorts to be.
Approximate Word count = 6296
Approximate Pages = 25.2
(250 words per page double spaced)
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