Hu Dev Chapter 14: Video Activity

Which of the following statements about body shape applies to most older people?

Body shape changes in older adults may disturb but not significantly impact the quality of life. Most older adults find a change in body shape a nuisance, but it is not a health concern.

Age-related hearing changes are likely to affect an older adult's enjoyment of music but not likely to affect an older adult's ability to engage in conversation.

False Age-related hearing changes are not likely to affect an older adult's enjoyment of music but very likely to affect an older adult's ability to engage in conversation.

Age-related changes cause much unhappiness in late adulthood as quality of life suffers tremendously.

False In spite of many age-related changes, the net result is that rates of happiness and satisfaction with life are just as high among older adults as among young and middle-aged adults. That is excellent news!

After having completed the activity, how do your feelings about aging compare to what you wrote at the beginning of the activity? Please explain how and why your feelings may have changed or stayed the same.

Many older adults do not like the changes in appearance but are not seriously bothered by them. Typically, older adults are more concerned about changes in vision and hearing, memory problems, and reductions in mobility. How do your reactions compare to these trends.

Pain due to cartilage breakdown occurs because of:

Osteoarthritis Osteoarthritis causes inflammation and stiffness in joints.

Which of the following statements may apply to an older adult with osteoarthritis?

Playing full-court basketball becomes difficult but not impossible.

Of the following, which would NOT be true of an older adult with osteoporosis?

a loss of pleasure in physical activity

When does senescence begin?

in early adulthood

According to this video clip, what did the experiment show? According to the researcher, what do the findings mean for older adults? With this information, what advice might you give to an older adult that you care about to help him/her stay mentally active?

QUESTION 5FEEDBACK The experiment demonstrates that older adults have a harder time multitasking than younger adults do. Older adults had difficulty memorizing a word list while walking. The researcher suggests that older adults tend to focus their mental resources on the more high priority task (walking) over a lower priority task (memorizing). Perhaps, tell your older loved one not to be anxious about age-related attention and memory changes. The changes are real but relatively mild in affecting overall health and happiness. Compensate for the changes by writing things down or concentrating on only one thing when wanting to remember or learn something. The brain still works extremely well in old age, so healthy older folks should not be afraid to use it.

Why does an increase in the number of people who are older than 65 worry some people? Explain your answer, making sure to address facts that can mitigate those fears.

Some may fear that a growing population of elders will result in the exhaustion of Social Security and Medicare or that hospitals and nursing homes will be overcrowded and/or prohibitively expensive, resulting in countless elders who are dependent on the government or on others' charity. However, most of the 15 percent who are elderly in the United States are self-sufficient and productive. Furthermore, while it is true that there are four times as many people over age 80 than there were 50 years ago, the overall population has also grown, meaning that the percentage of the population aged 80 and over has actually doubled—from 1.6 percent in 1965 to 3.7 percent in 2015. Especially when compared to the other 96.3 percent of the population, this increase should not be alarming.

In contrast to secondary aging, primary aging includes changes caused by:

Time