Aging issue
Aging is a healthy life process in every human being. People reach peak physical and cognitive body functioning in their 20s and early 30s. These are the periods when people have healthy bodies, sharp minds, and keen senses. From their late 40s, when aging starts, their bodies experience both physical and cognitive changes. Verbal skills become challenging as people grow older. They experience poor pronunciation and slagging of words. At times, they are even unable to completely unable to pronounce words that they would at their young age.
Changes are head hair is observable as people age. Hair loss is a frequent change that indicates that a person is aging. The hairlines become receding, and it also becomes thin. The greying of hair is yet another physical change that is observable as people age. Most of the changes in hair begin at the age of 50 though other people experience it late in life while others in their early 40s. As people age, they start to lose body height. According to research, from the 40s, people lose one to two inches. The main reason which contributes to loss of height is the shrinking of disks amid vertebrae. Skin changes are essential physical changes that mark a person is aging. First, the skin may develop wrinkles, age spots, and becoming less elastic. Sagging skin is noticeable in faces, neck, and arms.
The first cognitive change that is observable as people age is the loss of memory. It becomes hard for older people to remember things and people they have met in their early life. For instance, it is common for aging individuals to misplace items like house keys. Second, aging people experience low processing of information. It takes some time for older people to perform tasks that engage the brain. Lastly, older people have language problems. In most instances, they are unable or experience problems in word pronunciation or word recognition.
Different factors play essential roles as a person ages. They include social, spiritual, work, and family. Aging people experience many challenges like stress, depression, inability to perform some tasks, and acceptance of their aging changes. The social factor includes spending time or associating with other people. Social support helps older people to reduce stress as well as slowing cognitive changes that occur in aging. Older people also need physical and emotional assistance, and thus social factors much help in these sectors. Lonely older people tend to experience aging at a higher rate than older people who spend most of their time with other people. Spirituality and belief in a supreme being play an essential role in more aged people. It helps build faith, hope, and definition of life to older people. It helps older people to maintain social bonds with other people. Spiritual affiliation is also associated with slow cognitive impairment as well as giving an individual inner peace and comfort through prayers. For instance, Christians believe there is life after death, and this gives older people that they are going to start a new life. Work helps to keep the brain busy as a working person has to solve some challenging tasks. This helps to slow cognitive decline as well as keeping the body fit. Family provides social support to the elderly. It provides comfort and peace to the elderly as they feel that they are loved. Family negligence is one of the critical causes of depression and stress for older adults. Family provides physical assistance and emotional assistance, which helps to reduce stress and depression.
Clinical depression is a mental illness, and it varies from the normal depression. Though clinical depression can affect a person at any age, it is severe at an old age. Depression and sadness go hand in hand, but in older people, the case is different. However, depressed people tend to show prolonged signs of sadness than normal sadness in aging. In normal sadness, a person is just sad for a short time, and then he or she regains ahealthy life. Depressed elder people get sad due to minor issues while in normal aging sadness, people get sad due to severe problems. For instance, a depressed older adult may become sad after a person calls her from sleep.