Segregated Seniors

Posted on February 19, 2013 by Bob Ritzema

In America, social interactions tend to be stratified by age.  Young adults associate with each other more than they do with those from different cohorts, as do the middle-aged, as do the elderly.  An opinion piece by herbologist Mary Bodel on Yahoo Voices laments the segregation of the elderly from the remainder of society.  She describes a community for the elderly that doesn’t permit residents below the age of 55 and contrasts this living arrangement with what she remembers of her childhood, namely that her grandparentswere present on a daily basis.  She notes: “In fact, most children in this generation don’t have the experiences I had. They won’t get to learn their family history. They won’t be taught the skills my grandparents taught us. They won’t know what they are missing.”

Mary Bodel

Mary Bodel

According to a 2010 Administration on Aging report, only about 4.1% of adults over age 65 are isolated in institutions (primarily in nursing homes).  Of the remainder, 54.8% live with a spouse, and 30.1% live alone.  Only 1.91 million, which I calculate to be 4.8% of the 39.6 million seniors living at the time of the report, lived in a home with one or more grandchildren.  About half of these lived in a home maintained by the children’s parent or parents.  Thus, the multigenerational home containing parents, grandparents, and children is relatively uncommon.

Subculture of Aging theory, a social theory of aging proposed by Arnold Rose, holds that older people interact with each other more than with younger adults both because they share similar interests and concerns and because they’ve been excluded from other social circles.  Consonant with this theory, housing communities designed for the elderly seem to be a subculture whose members interact a great deal more with each other than with members of the larger society.   Descriptions of such facilities may overstate the height of the wall between the elderly subculture and the rest of society, though.  Subculture of Aging theory has been faulted for ignoring the affiliations that elderly adults have that aren’t related to age—affiliations based on characteristics such as kinship, race, occupational background,  social class, or religion.  Rather than being excluded from involvement with those outside their age range, perhaps older adults have many potential associations across the age span, some weak, some strong. Their patterns of interaction be affected by many factors, including personal preference, social barriers (Activity Theory emphasizes these), what affiliations the person had in the past (Continuity Theory sees these as important), and what sort of interactions are seen as best meeting the person’s needs (Socioemotional Selectivity Theory develops this aspect).

Should we care whether the elderly are isolated from everyone else or interact with those in society as a whole?  What benefits might come from having cross-generational relationships?  These are complicated questions, ones I hope to return to in future posts.  For the present, here is a story that Bodel tells about the contribution of the elderly to the rest of society:

“It was winter and there was a famine. The village leaders instructed all of the families to take their elders out into the forest and leave them there. They needed to preserve food so the young would survive.

“One man didn’t do that. Oh, he took his father out as he was supposed to do, but he brought him back home. His father spent the winter in hiding. His son shared his own portion so that his father wouldn’t starve.

“When spring came, the village had a problem. The food shortage had been so severe that they’d eaten the seed grain. No one knew what to do.

“The father told his son to take the thatch from the roof and thresh it. When the son had done that, he had enough grain to plant his fields. His neighbors couldn’t understand where he’d gotten the seed.

“The son brought his father out and told them what he had done. The village was silent. They had killed off the only ones who could tell them how to get through the famine and have seed for spring planting.”

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Does Activity Increase the Happiness of Older Adults?

Posted on February 16, 2013 by Bob Ritzema

An earlier version of this post was published at Life Assays on April 24, 2011.

On April 9, I attended the Carolinas Psychology Conference, a venue for undergraduate psychology students to present research that they’ve done. We had four students from our program at Methodist University who were presenters. Learning research methods is an important part of an undergraduate education in Psychology. The studies may lack some of the rigor of published research, but they often do address interesting issues and provoke reflection regarding the findings.

One of the presentations I saw was on the relationship between busyness and happiness. The student who presented was Alexander Rodgers, from North Carolina State University; the sponsoring faculty member was Shevaun Neupert. College students (aged 18-24) and older adults (aged 60-92) rated their level of busyness and feelings of happiness over 8 consecutive days. For the young adults, there was no relationship between self-reported busyness and happiness. For the older adults, though, higher levels of busyness were associated with greater happiness. The researchers looked at factors that might have explained the relationship. It couldn’t be accounted for by the participant’s tiredness or by the number of physical ailments they had. Older participants gave higher ratings overall on the item, “I spend my time doing what I want,” but there was no relationship between that item and happiness.

All of the adults had been recruited at senior centers or retirement communities; none were working. I suspect that busyness wouldn’t be associated with happiness in a sample of working older adults. I know at least a couple of employed older adults whose employment keeps them quite busy and who are dissatisfied when they compare themselves to age-mates with more opportunities for leisure. I’m not surprised that, once older adults retire, there isn’t a relationship between doing what one wants and happiness. I would imagine that most retirees have the leeway to do as they please, so the correlation with happiness would be attenuated.

What might produce the association between busyness and happiness in retirees, though? Since the finding is correlational, we can’t be certain that it’s the increased activity that causes happiness. The causal relationship could be reversed (happy people get involved in more activities), or some other factor, such as self-efficacy or the size of one’s social network, might influence both busyness and happiness. One possible reason for the association is that a sense of purpose might result both in an increased activity level and more life satisfaction. It’s known that retirees who have planned out what activities they will engage in after leaving the workforce make a more successful adjustment than those who don’t make such plans. I’m always struck by how busy most of the retirees I know are. The ones who are volunteering their time at church or for community organizations seem particularly fulfilled. My parents volunteered quite a bit for about fifteen years after retirement, and they were quite happy then. Even a few years ago, my dad seemed quite satisfied when he was able to play the piano for nursing home residents or speak to elementary school classes about World War II. When both of my parents became homebound, they seemed less happy.

My mom has been devoting herself to caring for my dad for the last several months. This was hard for her at first, but more recently she’s found satisfaction in the knowledge that she is making a difference in his life. Research has found a relationship between helping others and happiness. The student study didn’t try to parcel out the sorts of activities that the older adults were engaged in; I wonder whether it is particularly those busy contributing to the welfare of others who are happiest. That would be fitting; for altruistic elders, doing good would be its own reward.

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Dementia, Caregiving, and Spirituality

Posted on February 16, 2013 by Bob Ritzema

No Act of Love is Ever Wasted; The Spirituality of Caring for Persons with Dementia by Jane Marie Thibault and Richard L. Morgan (Nashville: Upper Room Books, 2009) is directed at family members, caregivers, and clergy whose lives bring them in contact with individuals suffering from dementia.  Thibaut is a gerontologist and Morgan is a retired chaplain and counselor; each has considerable experience working with cognitively impaired elders and their families.   NoActLove

As the title suggests, the authors’ main purpose is to provide hope and a sense of meaning for those who struggle with thoughts that the cognitively impaired person is no longer him/herself and that there is no point in doing anything more than meeting that person’s physical needs.    Those with dementia still have intact souls despite the loss of cognitive function, they maintain.  By ‘soul’ they mean that part of the self that seeks meaning in relationship with the ultimate; though they don’t limit this seeking to any religious tradition, it’s clear that both of them have a conception of the ultimate that is Christian in nature.  Not only do we all have souls, they suggest, but we are all on a spiritual path, and the interaction between caregiver and care receiver is part of this spiritual journey.  As they put it, “We may well discover that caring for a person with dementia is a mutual spiritual path; they find Christ in us, and we in them.”  Thus, the spiritual needs of both parties can be satisfied.

I particularly appreciate the multitude of examples that the authors provide.  One memorable account is Thibault’s description of the way she found to minister to Frankie, her mother-in-law, who suffered from vascular dementia:

“As soon as I took her hands in mine and touched her shoulder to let her know I was with her, she responded by clutching my hand.  Then I would stroke her thin hair and gently begin to brush it.  Gradually she relaxed into the brushing, became calm, and began talking.  Usually she talked about her parents and nine brothers and sisters, reliving scenes from her childhood.  Interestingly, this daily hair-brushing ritual had a positive effect on me as well.  It seemed that as I brushed her hair, I also symbolically brushed away the cares and stresses of my own day.  Because there was nothing else to do, I was forced to live in the present moment with Frankie, and the experience was surprisingly relaxing.”

In caring for my dad, who has dementia, I tend to focus too much on whatever task is at hand.  Thibault’s experience is a good reminder to just be present in the moment and to attend to ways to make the time together emotionally satisfying for both of us.

I also appreciate the authors’ awareness that those with dementia inhabit a different world than the rest of us.  Morgan in particular seems to have a genius for entering into whatever reality the person has constructed and offering comfort within that structure.  For a woman who thought he was a priest, he listened to her confession and prescribed penance; for someone who was concerned that President Hoover is ruining the country, he agreed that a depression might result; for a patient who called him her son, he apologized for not visiting more and promised to do better.  In each case, trying to wrest the person momentarily into consensual reality would have done violence to their world.  The authors even discourage efforts to get a loved one to remember family members.  As they put it: “If a caregiver spends intentional, loving time with the care receiver, even if the receiver doesn’t recognize him/her, often the care receiver feels the love at some deep, soul level.  If you choose to do an act of love, does it really matter whether the person recognizes you?”

The last two chapters are aimed more at clergy than at caregivers or families, and I didn’t find them particularly helpful.  Perhaps they should have been put in a separate book written for clergymen and other professionals.  Overall, though, the book offers much-needed encouragement and spiritual direction for those struggling with the cognitive decline of a family member.

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About This Blog

Posted on February 14, 2013 by Bob Ritzema

The populations of most countries are in the process of growing older. Thus, in the United States, the percentage of the population between 45 and 64 increased from 22.0% to 26.4% of the total between 2000 and 2010, and the percentage above age 65 increased from 12.4% to 13.0%. From 1960 to 2010, the median age increased from 29.5 to 37.2; it is expected to reach 42 by 2030.  According to the Pew Research Center, the nation’s elderly population is expected to more than double in size between 2005 and 2050.  This demographic tidal wave (or perhaps it’s just an inexorably rising sea) will not only be a strain on resources, but will also affect the character of life in years to come.

This blog is aimed at exploring themes related to the ages from mid-life through old age.  Many of the issues discussed have been talked and written about for centuries: What is it like to age?  How can we best deal with the losses that accompany the aging process?  How and why do our relationships with others change?  What are the sources of meaning that nourish us as we grow older?  How does the approach of death affect us?  Other issues unfold from the current zeitgeist:  What role do older workers have in a rapidly changing economy?  What is it like to be a member of the sandwich generation?  How will longer life-spans of the elderly affect the lives of their children?  What sort of living arrangements best suit the elderly?  Will the forecasts of increased generational conflict prove accurate?  Are we best served by extending our life spans as long as possible?  How will the marked increase of dementia affect society, families, and those experiencing symptoms?

I am a clinical psychologist by training, and will take a psychological perspective on many issues.  I don’t plan for this blog to be merely a reflection of my views, however.  I intend to seek out and present a variety of perspectives.  Though other sites are better than I could hope to be at pointing to products and services for those in mid- and late-adulthood, I will from time to time mention these as well.  I do welcome contributions from others interested in the second half of life; I can be reached by email at rritzema@methodist.edu.

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