aging and loneliness as a contemporary issue of elderly

Introduction

This essay will specifically focus on the factors that lead to the contemporary issue of aging and loneliness in elderly people. Elderly people are nowadays at risk of falling prey to mental dilemmas due to faster aging processes and becoming lonely at the same pace (opentextbc.ca, 2021).

Finally, it will conclude what measures can be taken to stop these issues from growing.

Main body

This section will denote how social media is connecting elderly people with their loved ones, on the other hand, the younger generation is not able to sit and talk with elderly people physically. Technology is becoming a barrier of communication for feeling lonely for elderly

Remaining inactive for such a long time causes a deficiency of confidence in elderly people's mind on being productive and effects will be addresses in this section

This segment will demonstrate how care homes are also maltreating elderly people that is causing them loneliness and hence contributing in aging issues (who.int, 2021)

In this section, “a conflict theory of aging, which emphasizes impact of ageism or negative views about old age and prejudice” are going to be discussed.

Conclusion

The discrimination against elderly is something, which needs to be mitigated. They have all rights to live king size and this message will be clearly defined here along with a summary of the essay.

This essay focuses on sociological perspectives for explaining contemporary issue of elderly. In this case, the issue is identified as aging and loneliness. Aging comes with a further set of issues like loneliness, mental instability, insomnia, and even schizophrenia. Aging is directly linked with becoming inactive in work (Vichitvanichphong et al. 2019). Majority of people are falling prey to this demon called inactivity, which can also cause obesity in elderly people creating problems that are more physical. There is alignment of sociological theory such as disengagement theory in terms of elderly people leaving the place of work for younger ones and contributing in work cycle management of each included person. Some measures that can protect loneliness in elderly people are associated with creating an environment that will be connecting senior members of entire community together. Incorporation of technological resources for reducing isolation can be encouraged. They can be indulged in some work that will require less physical activity and these will help them grow their own business by making products with lesser physical strength involvement. Working in the pet supply department for elderly people can be effective in management of their loneliness.

Sociological perspectives on explanation of the contemporary issue of Elderly

Social aging refers to the people’s role management with time and elderly people are becoming lonely with their growth in age. Aging process differs culturally and overtime some elements get changed. Sociological perspective of conflict theory can be highlighted in this context for the management of age based prejudices and discrimination. Inequalities do exist within gender, race and social classes (Niemelä, and Melkas, 2019). General conflicts of theories are supervised for a conceptual breakdown of younger people’s work and comparison of work done by the elderly. Disengagement theory preserves on social stability and needs for assuring disengagement functionalities as well. A problem engaged with the theory that elderly people are no longer capable of working hard and they need to ensure a complete source of income for their lives to be running in a proper way.

Aging leads to several other issues like elderly people are unable to recognize anything faster. They are more prone to forget their home address and finding them becomes one of the greatest issues. Social interaction theories are associated with ageism and the discrimination caused in elderly people. Older workers are devalued, as they are not efficient enough to complete any of the assigned tasks in industries. Key assumptions after application of sociological perspectives come across, as elderly people will both themselves and society, as they remain active and continue to perform the work assigned. The experience gained by them will never be aged and in this way, elderly people will also not feel bored and lonely. Aging causes a larger aspect of depression in elderly people (Iancu, and Iancu, 2017). They are not even able to hear properly along with seeing refractive errors. Neck pain, osteoarthritis and diabetes are also part elderly people’s routine. However, with an active lifestyle and talking with more people is expected to tie up the loose ends of elderly people’s care. The care homes should become more focused on taking good care of elderly, as they need more patience to be handled. Elderly people are not capable of managing their life crisis and hence they need access to emotional support. Technical support can be taken to ensure that they connect with family members. However, today’s’ generation is more active on social media and they are busy with their virtual world and friends rather than connecting with these elderly people and spending time with them. The age group of 65 and older is an integral part of the population and their needs are to be addressed to maintain a balance of population. Aging is also causing sleeping disorders of elderly people along with overactive bladder that causes health issues. According to studies, 92% of elderly are suffering from aging related issues and dementia is another issue identified in nearly 47.5 million elderly people (Banisi, 2019). Elderly people with aging issues get sometimes bored of taking medicine on several diseases and they need to become stressed. Some elderly are diagnosed with disease like HIV and they fall prey of discrimination by other elderly fellows. Aging affects the self confidence of elderly people that belong to different class ethnic lines and races. All these factors are important while an analysis is made on the social engagement and functionality process.

Financial insecurity is identified as the topmost concern of elderly people. With aging the financial resources become limited for elderly people and they require both mental and financial support to live their life and engage in interesting activities. The discrimination against elderly is something, which needs to be mitigated. Aging and not being able to work typically becomes a reason behind mental illness largely in elderly people (un.org, 2021). Government can list sociological aspect of managing the regularity in seniors and engaging them in activities that are going to help in keeping them active. This segment has demonstrated how care homes are also maltreating elderly people that are causing them loneliness and it is all over contributing to aging issues. Sometimes they do not get appropriate care in homes due to monetary issues and staff shortage. All of these lead towards a phase of aging as significant problems are raised in socio-economic aspects of the old age people (Andrieieva et al. 2019). Not only aging is a contemporary issue in elderly people, it also contributes to the lack of confidence in people and multiple organs might be failed in this aging process for elderly.

Conclusion

The essay has successfully contributed to the significant aspects of aging in elderly people. This is one of the largest and important contemporary issues that can be explained using conflict theory. The sociological perspectives are also aligned with loneliness as a product of aging in elderly people. All persons are aligned within a creative thinking and they are required to be indulged within a sustainability of sociological well being. Several aspects like thinking about wellbeing and monetary sustainability have also been discussed in this context along with suggestions of coming out of loneliness in elderly people. Robots can be suggested for elderly care in many areas and it is important too.

References

Journals

Andrieieva, O., Hakman, A., Kashuba, V., Vasylenko, M., Patsaliuk, K., Koshura, A. and Istyniuk, I., 2019. Effects of physical activity on aging processes in elderly persons.

Banisi, P., 2019. The Effectiveness of positivism training on subjective well-being, positive meta-emotion and self-management ability in the elderly women. Aging Psychology, 5(3), pp.217-227.

Iancu, I. and Iancu, B., 2017. Elderly in the digital era. Theoretical perspectives on assistive technologies. Technologies, 5(3), p.60.

Niemelä, M. and Melkas, H., 2019. Robots as social and physical assistants in elderly care. In Human-centered digitalization and services (pp. 177-197). Springer, Singapore.

Vichitvanichphong, S., Talaei-Khoei, A., Kerr, D. and Ghapanchi, A.H., 2018. Assistive technologies for aged care: Comparative literature survey on the effectiveness of theories for supportive and empowering technologies. Information Technology & People.

Websites

opentextbc.ca,2021. Available at: https://opentextbc.ca/introductiontosociology/chapter/chapter13-aging-and-the-elderly/, [Accessed on 01/05/2021]

un.org, 2021. Available at: https://www.un.org/development/desa/ageing/, [Accessed on 01/05/2021]

who.int, 20201 Available at: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/ageing-and-health, [Accessed on 01/05/2021]

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