Development Through the Life Stages Essay

In older age (64+) many things happen on the inside and the outside the body. As you hit older age, you will start to notice that many things will happen on the outside of your body. Your hair may start to go grey or you may start to go bald. The hair goes grey because as you get older your hair loses pigment which is the colouring in your hair. Also your skin may lose elasticity; this means your skin may appear to get wrinkles. Your posture may also start to get worse in older age because your shoulders begin to drop and you may start to hunch forward. This will affect your posture. These things that happen on the outside could also affect you in other aspects of your life. You may start to feel depressed because you feel unattractive about your appearance. This could have an affect on other aspects of your life if you do get depressed because you may become isolated and not want to leave the house. Your social life will suffer if you do not want to go outside because you will not b e going out. This will affect your social development because you will not be going out meeting new people and expanding your horizon. You may also become isolated because you feel that people may judge you on how you look on the outside, this may also cause isolation. If you do not go outside you may have a deteration in your health because you will be in the same environment everyday and will not be getting any fresh air. However, in older age you get maturity with age because you have been there done that. This means that you can offer advice to your family. If you are retired you will have more time to socialise with friends that you have made though your life. In older age it is very important that you have good relationships so you know that they are people to look after you later on in your life. It will also raise your self-esteem if you have a good relationship with people that you are close too. As you get older your bones are less dense, you have more of a risk of falling and artrithus. Mobility in older age is very important because it is how you get around. If you have a problem with your mobility, it could have an affect on your social life because you will not be able to get to see your friends and family. It could have an affect on your self confidence if you do not see anyone because you may feel like they do not want to see you. Also you don’t want to feel like a burden on your family by asking them to take you places, this may mean that you become isolated. If you need someone to come out with you so that you can avoid falling and injuring yourself, you may feel childlike and vulnerable. You may also not feel that confidence if you do not have good balance because you may feel like you may fall. However, the more active you stay you are going to be active for longer. For example swimming is a good way to keep fit and some gyms has special classes for the older generation. This is there to keep them mobilised for longer is older age. If they lost their mobility then they would most likely lose their social life because they may not be able to get around as well as they used too. This could lead to them being disempowered because they won’t have their own choice to go anywhere and do anything by themselves. They also don’t want to feel like a burden on their family members because this could make them feel childlike and vulnerable. If you have gone throughout your life doing everything for yourself, you may feel embarrassed about asking people to help you. In some cases you may also feel ashamed. Your confidence will also be affect, this could be because of your mobility. If you do not have the best balance, you may not want to go in case you fall over or injury yourself in anyway. In older age there are also changes to your cardiovascular and respiration systems. As you get older your heart has to work harder to pump the blood around the body. This would mean that your circulation will begin to get slower and you will be more prone to blood clots at different points within your body. Your respiration system changes as well, you find you are shorter if breath quicker. This will lower your exercise tolerance because you will get out of breath quicker. Having shortness of breath is a frightening situation and it will also take you less time to get out of breath. You may also suffer from heart disease, lung cancer, asthma etc. You could also get any other problems that are associated with breathing and your heart. This could lead to many different things, such as lack of sexual relationships and lack in social life. If you are not feeling confident about yourself then you are not likely to want to go out or have sexual interactions with anyone. It could also affect you and your grandchildren’s relationship because you may not be able to play with your grandchildren. This could affect the relationship you have with them throughout their life. If you do have respiratory problems the you may have to depend on oxygen all the time. You could be left feeling embarrassed and not wanting to leave the house to socialise. As a consequence will limit the opportunities that are available to you. You may even stop your family members coming around your house because you are that embarrassed about the oxygen you have to have all of the time. Digestion In older age you digestion will also suffer. This could be because of false teeth making it harder to eat. This could be because of them being too big for your mouth or just not fitting properly. As you get older you have slower metabolism and weakened muscles in the stomach. This could affect you in many ways, for example it could cause you to gain weight if you are still eating as much as you did when you were 30 years old. Eating is often regarded as a social event and often people in older age do not eat unless they are will other people. Your food may also become less appealing because you lose sensation in your taste buds. This will make your favourite food less appealing and you may stop eating. A lot of things can stop you from accessing food; this could be because of your mobility. If you cannot get of the house, you can’t get to the shops to buy food. You may not want to ask people to go to the shop for you because you do not want to feel like a burden and childlike. However, if you are not eating it could increase your chances of having a nutrient deficiently and affect your immunity from viruses. Having a nutrient deficient could affect your health in a major way and can make you very ill if you are not getting the right nutrients. If you can’t stand by the cooker for a long period of time or undo bottles. This will stop you actually accessing the food to eat, if no-one else is around to open it for you. Another reason your digestion may be affected is if you have lost a loved one. You may feel like they is no point in just cooking for you. This may lead to you eating convenience food which is high in fat or not eating at all. You may also gain weight in older age. This could be because you are eating the same amount as you did when you were working. This will make you gain weight because you will not be burning off the energy like you used to do. You may also lose weight if you don’t eat healthy or not eat regularly. However some good things happen to your digestion when you get older. Since you are retired and wouldn’t be working. You will have more time to cook healthier food, so in retirement you may eat better. Continence Continence means the ability to control body liquids. You are more likely in older age to have incontinence. Some people in older age even have accidental incontinence. Having incontinence could mean that you have no control at all over releasing body liquids and in some cases you may not even know that you are doing it. However, it could be your pelvic floor muscles, if these are not strong you may release urine when you laugh or sneeze. This can be fixed by practicing your pelvic floor muscles. However, they are things you can do to stop it happening as often. Don’t drink caffeine, this is because it is a bladder stimulant and causes you to go to the toilet more frequently. Also diet coke has been linked with bladder cancer and this will affect your ability to hold body liquids for a long period of time. If you do have bladder or bowel problems, you may feel too embarrassed to tell anyone. This could be because they you think that they may judge you and loom at you like you’re a child. You may even think that you are childlike and vulnerable. If this is a bad problem and you do not want to tell anyone about it. It could lead to being isolated and not socialising because you are worried that it might happen whilst you are out. You may even stop people coming to visit you because you might worry that it smells of urine and you do not want people to know that you have a problem. If you did go out, you may want to take a change of clothes with you. This may be just for peace of mind just in case anything happens whilst you are out. Brain and Memory As you get older it is common for you to have memory loss. Don’t worry this happens to many people when they are in older age. You may feel embarrassed that you are unable to remember anything, even your close relative’s names. You may forget how to look after yourself. You lose your memory because as you get older you start to lose your nerve cells. Wisdom Many people think as you get to older age nothing good happens. However as you get older you gain wisdom. This can be shared with family and friends. The younger generation often think that you have been there done that so that you have got life experience that can be passed down the younger generation. You may also have strong relationships with your family members this causing you to have a good self-concept and feel good about yourself. Psychological effects on ageing As you get older your brain will start to change. This could be because you have recently retired or something major has happened in your life and it has affected your emotions. Retirement Retirement could affect your psychological development because you are used to going to work every day and suddenly it will stop. You may start to feel useless, this would be because you have had something to do and you would be getting money for your family. Everybody adjusts to retirement differently. You could take up many different hobbies to keep yourself active or you could stop doing everything all together this could lead to you feeling useless, this would be because you are used to bringing in the family money and now you don’t. Self-esteem and image Your self-esteem change in older age because you experience many different emotions. Your self-esteem could be positive or negative. It could be positive because you may go out all of the time and have a good social life. This would lead to a good self-esteem because they would feel good about themselves. However, you have negative self-esteem in older age. This could be because you may stay in all of the time and never go out. Your self-image could suffer as well because of the physical changes of older age could affect the psychological effects of aging. You may start to feel bad about yourself, this may mean that you do not want to leave the house. You may also think that people are staring at you and it could mean that you may not want to leave the house. This could lead to a negative self-image. You may also have a good self-image in older age, this may be because you go out all of the time with friends and have a good social life.