• Aging is not experienced overnight but as a process.
• Perhaps people come to realize they have aged by watching their children reach adulthood, losing their parents, and realizing that they now are the oldest generation in their families.
• Middle-age is said to be when a person starts to think of time in terms of the amount left to accomplish life's tasks.
• Studies concluded that perceived subjective age is less than chronologic age. Meaning we perceive ourselves or feel younger than our actual age.
• There is a sense of ageless self, an identity that maintains continuity over time that draws meaning from the past & provides courage for the future.
• There is a tension that comes from being older & living in a society that values youth, speed, productivity in terms of work & individual productivity.

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• The need for nursing care soars as people age because of increases in disabling illness, the occurrence of which rises sharply in the older age groups.
• There is an opportunity for nurses to focus on the functional level of the older person rather than on the disease or illness state.
• The understanding of diversity among older people assist the nurse to bring a realistic but wholistic approach to delivery of services to older adults.

• Factors that will to adjustments in the lives of older people include: declining family size, increasing divorce, second-marriages, expanding numbers of women in the work force with dual workers, single parents & single-person households.
• As society responds to the cultural changes, it may be that the older and wiser people will provide the continuity that will support growth & stability for family life.
• Family life provides many roles for older people i.e. spouse, sibling, in-law, grandparent, and great-grandparent.
• Many older people have roles that stretch from being a caregiver for a frail 80-plus-year-old parent to being a great-grandparent.
• Longevity and early childbearing create multiple roles for older members.

• Age is not an accurate predictor of family roles although grand-parenting has been an assumed role of the older person.
• Grandparents assume various roles with their grandchildren ranging from fun loving & game playing to distant, formal type interaction.
• The role of 'Caregiver' has become a too common role for grandparents. Young adults who abuse drugs and such are finding their parents step in to care for the grandchildren & even go to court to protect the grandchildren from abuse & neglect.
• Today's grandparents are hearty, active, healthy & independent & the role of grand-parenting has taken on a very different style. They involve themselves in the children's activities & games.
• This also gives the older person's own children, now adults, a chance to view their own parents in a special way.

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• Couples who grow old together live out their later years in several different patterns.
• It is helpful for nurses to look at the different patterns late-life marriage may take.
• How individual partners in a marriage respond to aging influences the life of the married couple.
• There are six patterns that typify late-life marriage: the inseparables, the collaborators, the quiet despairers, the not-so-quiet dispairers, the parallel pair & the tie breakers.

• The partners in these couples talk for each other, always referring to themselves as 'us,' & their entangled identity leaves no room for individual differences.
• Nursing Implications: Recognize that with this pattern partners need one another & illness in one has the potential to leave the other incapacitated.

• The partners respect each other's individual differences, but they are emotionally connected, with mutual appreciation for each other's talents and gifts. They work efficiently together with disagreements at times but solutions are their goals.
• Nursing Implications: The problem-solving focus of this couple will need to be recognized and valued.

• These partners view marriage as a trap. Many spouses have gone through long years of not experiencing intimacy, support, or personal recognition for their talents or gifts.
• Many stay together for the good of the children, for financial security, because of religious or social beliefs, or out of fear of being alone.
• They may present as content or comfortable with their relationship.
• Nursing Implications: Always be aware that there may be despair below the surface of silent contentment.

• For this couple, fighting is a way of life and partners have spent years bickering & even physically abusing one another. In fact, later years may see an increase in fighting rather than a decrease.
• Because the years of fighting keep family & friends away, the couple may become even more dependent on one another.

• These partners feel that marriage is an essential but not necessarily an emotional or loving involvement.
• These partners may find intimacy outside the marriage. They live compatible but separate lives. This can cause resentment in later years when the pattern does not continue & there was not mutual acceptance of extramarital behavior.

• Some spouses find that the late-life transition is not something they want to share & they wish to escape the relationship. Late-life divorce and separation are still uncommon, but they are on the rise.

• How older adults relate to each other through their marriage is a reflection of their history together. Most marriages maintain or actually escalate their pattern of relationship.

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• Most older adults experience great difficulties in adjusting to the reality of the death of a spouse.
• They must cope with loss and acceptance of the role of widow or widower. And widowhood is often accompanied by adverse health.
• Older women are most economically vulnerable because of a loss of income & benefits.
• The nurse must consider where this person is in the life cycle & incorporate this knowledge in the assessment process when managing the care of older adults.

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• Is defined as the withdrawal from the labor force, either voluntary or involuntary, coupled with the earned right to pension income. This trend may not survive for future generations.
• Since 1935 the age for retirement in the United States has remained 65 y/o.
• In 1967 age discrimination in places of employment was made illegal in the U.S.
• In 1986 the Age Discrimination in Employment Act made involuntary retirement at either 65 or 70 a thing of the past. Involuntary retirement predicted on age alone is considered an act of discrimination & therefore illegal.
• Men & women in the late 1990s will spend from 20 to 35 years in retirement. Therefore retirement is to be considered a normative event in the third age of life.
• Retirement can have a major impact on the financial condition of the retiree.
• Income in older age is linked to many variables: Past & current labor force participation, martial status, gender, age, educational attainment & living arrangements.
• Factors that increase the possibility of a comfortable income later in life: High wages during the work years, higher education attainment, being male & married, and living in an urban area.
• Of the age's 55-64 years old - 72% of those men worked and 42% of those women worked as part of the U.S. labor force.
• Retirement is a personal experience and a shared family experience.
• Women make up half of the population but they compose 75% of the poverty group of older adults.
• Poverty in retirement for women is a result of past discrimination in the workplace coupled with lifetime low salaries.
• Poverty of post-retirement women affects social, psychologic and physical well-being.
• 35% of income for older persons comes from the Social Security system and nine out of ten receive benefits
• As a nurse, when assessing a person's response to retirement, the nurse should consider that, that response may have psychologic, social & physical aspects. Studies have shown that men & women look forward to retirement & suffer few if any adverse effects that be attributed solely to retirement from the organized work force. The changes of retirement may result in almost no difference in daily life, or they may constitute the best or worst event that the couple or individual has had to face.

Potential Retirement Issues

The End!