Prevention of Social Breakdown in the Elderly Essay

Prevention of Social Breakdown in the Elderly - Essay Example (Wikipedia.com) This theory is both an individual and a societal in its concept. The negative feedback is produced by a person who is already vulnerable to psychological problems; one example is an old adult was hospitalized because of depression should be accompanied by some of his/her friend/s. Once the cycle starts, it strengthens others' perception of incompetence. Older adults may act the way they supposed to act in the society independently. But, they may also act inappropriately; they see themselves as inadequate human being - negative spiral is then set into motion. One good example is when the man loses his wife and having a hard time if he will sell their house or not so his son decided to take care of the decision-making if whether to sell the house or not; he decided that it would be better to sell the house and bring his father to a place where he can be taken care of. If the man agrees, it supports both the father and the son's way of thinking that the father is not autonomous or capa ble. (Macro Theories of Aging) Kuyper and Bengtson emphasized that these factors affect the elderly: (1) children moving away and building their own families (2) death of spouses and friends (3) unclear ideas about what to expect as people grows older (4) disappearance of a reference group (5) and a dramatic drop in public status. All of these factors provide strong negative support to feelings of uselessness and obsolescence in elderly. They argued that for some people, aging can assume a pathological flavour because of the changes in their social environment thus causing individuals to doubt their social competence that may lead to low self-assessment and a continuing decline of formerly employed coping skills. According to the researchers, most elders are faced with a long and weary process of adapting to lessen capacities. Old age people especially when they are lonely tend to self-neglect. Those people who have spouse, family members or even friends who died early and before them has a greater potential to self-neglect. Elders that are self-neglecting are those who habitually experience harmful situations or live in very inadequate condition because there is an increase in physical and/or in mental impairments. One reason why elders fear seeking help is because they do not want to be a load to other people; they are also afraid to lose their privacy and/or independence. Elders who self-neglect may become disoriented because of alcohol abuse; they may misuse or fail to take their prescribed medications especially elders who need to take psychotropic drugs to treat their mental illness; they become unmotivated to take good care of themselves or to worsen immobilized because of too much depression; and lastly, they may become unaware of the resources available or services being offered. Prevention of Social Breakdown in the Elderly During the 1980s, the elements considered to be essential in all interventions include: (1) sensitivity to the elders' self-esteem when it comes to matter of life style and independence (2) awareness of the elders' motivation technique to attain good standards of self-care (3) assessment of the elders' functional capabilities (4) consideration of service options to give the elders choices (5) and respect for the elders' right to decide about using service offerings - whether to