Essay - Gerontology What are the Themes? First, Advanced Age Equals a...

Gerontology

***** are the *****mes?

First, advanced age equals a decline in *****ll aspects of life, be it social, physical, or emotional. Media has had a neg*****tive attitude towards older adults. In Richard II, Shakespeare wrote: "I wasted time, and now time doth waste me." Thomas Bailey Aldrich lamented growing old in Leaves From A Notebook, Ponkapog Papers: "All the best sands of my ***** are somehow getting into ***** wrong end of the hourglass. If only I could reverse it!" Society saw age as a limiting f*****ctor, making a person less attractive, ***** active, and less alert. ***** ********** modern times, age is still seen as a detriment to desir*****bility. Goldie Hawn once said: "There ***** only three ages for women in Hollywood — Babe, District At*****rney, ***** Driving Miss Daisy." The experience one acquires through life is not seen as enough compensation for the decline added years bring. As Tom Stoppard put it, "I think age is a very high price to pay for maturity."

Second, people think of ***** elderly in terms of what benefit younger people can get from them. The respect and love ***** give to ***** family members is portrayed more as something that services the youth, ra*****r than celebrating *****. Looking at greeting cards, one may *****ice common messages that show jokes about their declining ***** and mental prowess, or how grandparents and other senior family ***** are be*****d because they spoil grandchildren, babysit for free, and provide other things that obviously benefit their younger relatives.

*****. Why are they relevant to gerontological social work?

These themes ***** relevant to gerontological social work because this pr*****ession focuses on caring ***** the elderly. *****t has been said ***** ***** social ***** aims to affirm ***** strengths of the older adult, portray an individual who c***** make independent decisions, and call attention to ***** value of the older adult in the society (Cox, Kelchner, Chapin and Chapin, 2002). Media spreads ********** negative images of the elderly like wildfire. It is ***** duty of gerontology social workers to eradicate the bad reputation the elderly have been *****. These negative ***** add to the challenge of affirming older adults when people regard ***** older with fear, depression, and anxiety (Nelson, 2004). Moreover, these attitudes ***** the ***** themselves less assured ***** their own place in society. Instead of using the effort and time to address urgent issues, social workers may instead focus on reassuring the elderly that growing old is not the end of a productive *****. Furthermore, since growing ***** is seen *****s something undesirable, ***** would rather use resources for clinging to a f*****lse illusi***** of eternal youth ***** than improving elderly persons' quality of life.

***** the ***** presented in the media demonstrate a positive or neg*****tive impact on older adults? How?

***** themes demonstrate a neg*****tive ***** on ***** adults. S*****ce old age is ***** as undesirable, research and development is focused on developing new surgical procedures, energy pills ***** drinks, and other