Aging is an inevitable truth of life that every living being has to go through. Often, with the increase of age, different types of symptoms are observed in an individual that results in poor quality lives of the patients. These symptoms mainly contain failure of different physiological processes of the human body as well as weakening of the strength to perform different activities. often aging makes individuals dependent on others becoming a burden to family members who have to act as carer for them. Often chronic illness makes the situation more tensed as that leads to poor quality lives where an individual has no power of himself on his systems and mind.
Often hospitalization further deteriorates the condition resulting in development of depression, loneliness as well as social exclusion. Hence, it becomes extremely important for every living organism to plan as well as lead life in a way so that there is least impact on the health of the individuals when they reach old age (Conklin et al. 2014). A proper disciplined life with healthy and maintained lifestyle will inevitably result in better health in the old age. Although it is true, that certain disorders may occur in spite of successful planning and healthy living, one should try their best to uptake strategies that will have positive impacts on him in later lives. The essay will mainly portray the various psychosocial determinants that govern the life of individuals, how they impact lives and how different initiatives that may be taken to enjoy the ageing phase rather than developing a feeling of burden from it.
Aging at the biological level can be explained as the impact of the accumulation of a variety of molecular and different cellular damage over time. This leads to the gradual reduction in the physical as well as the mental capacity that imposes a growing risk of the diseases. This results in death in a painful way. However, the changes which are mentioned are neither linear nor consistent and are indeed loosely associated with a persons’ age in years. This is sais so because a good number of individuals are found to enjoy extremely good health and functioning in their 70s. Therefore while some enjoy the 70 years age others are found to be frail and require significant amount of health from caters, family members and others. Therefore many researchers are of the opinion that beyond biological changes, aging of an individual is also associated with different life transitions that involve retirement, relocation to more appropriate housing as well as the death of friends and partners.
Therefore while developing a public health response to such necessities of aging; it often becomes important to consider the different types of approaches which ameliorate the losses that an individual suffer, reinforce recovery; help in adaptation and also in psychosocial growth. Many researchers found through experiments that besides the changes that occur in individuals due to genetic factors, many physical and social environments also modify and alter the course of health aging (De Jong Gierveld et al. 2016). These involve homes, neighborhoods as well as communities. Moreover personal characteristics like sex, ethnicity and socioeconomic status are believed by them to start influencing the ageing process at a very early stage of lives.
Many indigenous inhabitants are associated with tobacco smoking form a very healthy period of life as their culture and traditional support such practicing as a result such individuals tend to suffer a lot in their later stages of life as smoking results different types of cardiovascular diseases, lung cancer and many others. Besides, maintaining a clean environment, personal behaviors are also important factors that affect the health of individuals and prepare the course of his aging procedures. Some of the healthy behaviors that impact the aging of individuals include eating a balanced diet, engaging different types of physical activities, and also refraining from the habits of tobacco use (Rodin 2014). All such factors have positive impact in reducing the risk of different non-communicable diseases as well as improving mental capacities.
Environments which are supportive often help people to conduct activities which are important to them although they tend to lose capability to perform them. Often the presence of safe and accessible public buildings and transport as well as environments that are case to walk around are examples of supportive environment. They often help to release the stress of the individuals and clean environment reduced the risk to develop any communicable disorders and maintains mental peace and stability.
Different social factors that influence the health of individuals have been provided by World Health Organization. These include social gradient. Often researchers have stated that people who are at the lower level of the ladder of the social gradient are mostly the persons who have shorter life expectancy and the number of diseases are found to be more common in this group of people. Poor economic as well as social circumstances affect the health throughout life. People who are present in the lower levels of the ladder are twice more prime to serious illness and premature death than those who are the top (Berkman, Kawachi and Glymour 2014). Not only the poor people but also middle class office workers who act as lower rank staff suffer much more diseases as well as earlier death and higher ranking staffs. Not only social gradient, also unemployment and quality of work affect the lives of people.
Many people working in organizations who do not provide proper workplace health and safety guidelines and management are prone to different diseases which may be chronic and hamper quality lives. People who consume lot of byproducts in a cement industry may be exposed to different cardio-pulmonary diseases in the older ages (Holt and Lunstad 2015). Moreover they may also face accidents which turn up to be major concerns in old ages when the burden of the accidents becomes tough to handle for the old individuals. Moreover employment which provides less financial income to the household compromise the quality of living as the individual does not become able to live in a proper house as well as afford food which are rich in nutrients. Automatically such individuals cannot age healthily and therefore experiences poor quality life in the later stages.
Other social determinants that control the quality of lives are food as well as transport. Often the quality of food taken by the individual will eventually modify his nutrient pool in a ways that will either have a positive or a negative impact on the individuals. Often, lack of balanced diet causes increase of a particular nutrient along with the decrease of another set of nutrients which are also necessary for the proper maintenance of the physiological system of the body (Bravemen and Gottlieb 2014). Hence, it is seen that eating the correct types of food with the correct amount is essential to maintain the nutrient requirement of the body and also maintain the weight. Lack of proper nutrients will result in many non communicable diseases in the individual and increased weight may cause obesity, strokes, cardiovascular ailments and many others which will affect the healthy ageing process.
A properly available transportation system assures easy access to healthcare sectors, markets, schooling, offices, and many others which have indirect connections with health and well being (Clements & Koening 2014). Therefore often rural areas which are not well connected to main urban regions create lot of troubles when patients become ill, or when individuals need to purchase some materials in urgency and many others. Hence, many such barriers to access important services often hamper healthy living. Many individuals cannot overcome the barriers of transportation and cannot access important services resulting in poor quality lives.
Other social factors include social exclusion as well as social support. As human beings are social animals, they often tend to live in harmony with each other by establishing relationship which helps them to recover mental peace and maintain s jovial perspective of life (Seligman et al. 2014). However, a large number of factors like chronic ailments, racial discrimination, cultural barriers, and ethnicity, and many others stigmatization result in social exclusion of an individuals. This often have several impacts on the mental health of people which in turn destroys the quality of life and interrupts the smooth flow of human life. Similarly the exact opposite factor is the social support. Often social support develops the mental as well as the physical health of an individual by continuous encouragement, emotional support, inclusion in societal discussions, community based programs (Frederikson et al. 2013).
Therefore society also plays a great role in influencing the life course of individuals and decides the aging procedure and its impact on the life of the individual. Another very important factor that also influenced aging procedure is the presence of any addiction in the individuals. A person may get addicted to alcohol and several other substance abuse which in turn may not only result in a mental disorder like substance abuse disorder but will also impact on health and life of the individual.
His personal, professional life as well as physical health gets affected in such way that he can never recover back and this impact continues to the late adulthood resulting in depression and emotional stress. Loss of unemployment, poor family life, domestic violence, poor financial status and many others impact the health of the individual who is ageing and hence leads to poorer health status. Hence, the mentioned social factors can disrupt the healthy aging procedure of different individuals and are responsible for different modifications that it brings to the life of an individual’s as life progresses (Caccioppo 2014).
Stress also has huge impact on the healthy ageing of different individuals resulting in huge burden of mental disorders as well as poor quality life due to severe chronic ailments. Stress hormones mainly impact the flow of blood through the heart increasing myocardial infarction (allen et al. 2014). Stress is mainly caused by long term problems that involve daily hassles, traumatic events, difficulties to maintain a proper lifestyle, financial issues, and physical inability due to different disorders can induce physical, emotional or cognitive responses. These involve distortion in the world view of the individuals and also results in the inability to concentrate as well as decrease in memory (Kuiper et al. 2015). Stress also results in the reduction of the efficiency of the immune system. This is in turn believed to be increasing the susceptibility to the disease by the decrease of the white blood cells which usually fight the disease causing bacteria (Avlund et al., 2014).
Depression is also a common psychological factor that hampers the course of healthy ageing and becomes a barrier in the process of leading a good quality life. Often a various number of factors are related with the occurrence of depression like social exclusion, lack of proper exercises as well as excessive use of alcohol due to dispersed families as well as poor financial stability (Tablsoki 2013). Often depression is believed to hamper the healthy aging process. Depression is a common risk factor for different types of heart diseases and can even complicate recovery procedures from a heart attack. This mainly occurs as depression results altering the heart and other circulatory functions associated with it wearing down the heart and at the same time speeds down the disease procedure (Birren et al. 2014).
Another factor that often has ill effects on the process of health aging is insomnia. Often anxiety, depression as well as stress play a very important role in the cause of insomnia. This is found to severely impair the body functions and act as barrier to different healing procedures. Researchers have also found that there is a relationship between lack of sleep and cellular dysfunction of the immune system (Townsend 2014). Different ailments become very difficult to handle in patients with insomnia like rheumatoid arthritis as well as HIV infection. In consequence, researchers assure that good health and healthy living is assured from the adequate amounts of sleep and control over other psychological factors like stress, depression and well being.
Therefore, an individual should critically analyze his or her situation and accordingly plan out strategies where the individual can follow a health procedure of aging so that the last days of the life are not spent in pain and hopelessness (Bowling 2014). He should incorporate the habit of exercising in his busy schedule. Physical exercises help in promoting cardiovascular as well as respiratory functions and also slow down the loss of muscular strength. It increases bone mass and helps in digestion and bowel functions. It promotes sound sleeping and also prevents depression. Second strategy that the individual can implement in his or her daily routines is the uptake of the correct amount of nutrition. Proper nutrition uptake mainly covers the domains of taking a healthy diet, utilization of correct increments as well as drinking of plenty of amount of water.
Dieticians mainly suggest that having a low fat diet with a minimum of 5 servings of vegetables and fruits and also 2 to 4 servings of low fat dairy products each day will ensure a healthy human body that remains immuned from disorders and also fit and dine (Wezus et al. 2013). A multivitamin for filling the gaps in nutrients as well as 6 to 8 glasses of water or clear fluids to promote the maximal organ function are also very necessary to maintain an uninterrupted healthy aging procedure. Another lifestyle intervention that the individual may intake is the reduction or completing stopping of the habit of smoking.
This will in turn reduce the chance of heart disease, stroke, emphysema, cancer as well as some cancers. Moreover the fourth intervention like avoidance of alcohol in an excessive manner can also aid in healthy living. The limiting of alcohol to a particular glass of wine or spirits in one day may cause reduction in the risk of liver diseases as well as certain cancers. The older a person gets, he should become more concerned with aging drinking habits. Besides, a person should also be concerned and try their best to reduce stress as well as anxiety which in turn results in positive impacts on the strengthening of the immune system and reduction in susceptibility of the disorders (Sarafino & Smith 2014). Moreover, two other strategies that impart positive influences are the cultivation of satisfying relationships as social interaction as well as support is found to be helping in reduction of stress as well as promoting cognitive functioning and preventing depression.
Challenging the mind through different new learning skills as well as through regular mental activities promote healthy mention functioning. On a social level, the World Health Organization had provided a number of strategies that should be adopted for promoting the concept of healthy aging on a social level which would include spreading awareness to commit to healthy aging, aligning the health systems with the need of older populations, developing systems of providing long term care, creating an age friendly environments as well as the improvement of different measurement, monitoring and understanding (Shanahan et al. 2014).
From the entire discussion, it is understood that a huge number of social and psychological factors play a big role in determining the course of the life of individuals during their aging procedures. Social gradients, work, unemployment, food, transport as well as different social supports, social inclusion as well as social exclusion all play vital role in deciding the aging procedure and accordingly, has positive or negative impacts on individuals. Stress, depression as well as insomnia also play important roles. Hence, proper evidence based measures and lifestyle interventions need to be adopted by individuals on a personal level to protect themselves from the negative consequences of different factors. The society, community as well as the state government should also introduce effective strategies. This will assure a nation with a nation of smiling senior citizens.
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