Leading Cause Of Blindness Among Older Adults example essay topic

I am visiting my friend's grandmother. She is 67 and acts like she is I her early 50's. She gave u her nursing career two years ago. She was a volunteer in a grammar school also. She sues to run track, and still stays very active. But now since she's older things are a little bit more difficult.

I didn't notice that she was 67; she looked as if she was in her late 50's. She is a young-old elder. She is physically young and fit for her age. Of course since she is older more organs and systems of the body are affected. She said that cold and hot weather feel more uncomfortable than when she was younger.

She said she had less of her balance and needed more time to coordinate a series of movements. Since the brain weight declines and there is a death rate of neurons and enlargement of ventricles occur. There is neuron loss throughout the cerebral cortex, but not at all parts of the brain. As much as 50 percent of visual, auditory, and motor areas are lost. The reason her motor movements are a little off is because the cerebellum (part which controls balance and coordination) loses neurons. So her grandmother's lower tolerance for hot weather is due to decreased sweating.

Also her body found it a little harder to raise the temperature during cold weather. She said her hearing and vision became much worse than in her older years. She says her taste and smell are still strong, but her touch sensitivity has declined a great deal. Structural changes in the eye make it harder to focus on nearby objects, the dim light, and interpret color. This is because the cornea becomes more transparent and disperses light, which makes images blurry and increases sensitivity to light. Her doctor says that her lens have turned yellow.

She says she is lucky enough not to have cataracts, which are an increase in cloudy areas on the lens and results in a foggy vision and eventually end up in blindness. Impaired eyesight I late adulthood is the result from a reduction in light reaching the retina which is caused by the yellowing of the lens, shrinking of the pupil, and clouding of the vitreous. She says that it is very hard for her eyes to adjust from al light room to a dark colored room. The depth perception also declines because the brain has lost the ability to combine images received from both eyes.

She says she has a slight case of macular degeneration, which is when central vision blurs and gradually is lost. This disorder is the leading cause of blindness among older adults. But if it is diagnosed early, it can be treated with laser therapy. Studies suggest that a diet rich in roughage reduces the risk of macular degeneration. Green leafy vegetables help because they have good sources of vitamin A, C, E, and corticoids, which are said to protect cells I the macula from free-radical damage. She takes vitamin supplements in order to control this disorder.

Her grandmother doesn't drive much because of her eyesight and her daughter lives with her to help her around the house. Her hearing has decreased a lot also. Reduced blood supply and natural cell death in the inner ear and stiffening of membranes are the cause of this. This type of danger affects safety and enjoyment of life.

Of course she can't exert as much energy as she did when she was in early adulthood. She says her heart starts beating faster and earlier when she is physically active. As she got older, the heart muscle became more rigid, and some of its cells die while others enlarge, leading the walls of the left ventricle to thicken. Artery walls stiffen and accumulate some plaque due to normal aging. Since my friend's grandmother is an African-American, she eats a lot of soul food, which cause the excess plaque to form. Hammocks, greens, fried chicken, macaroni and cheese are just some of the traditional foods that makes blocks prone to clogged arteries and heart attacks.

She also has trouble breathing during a lot of exercise. The combined result of changes is that the heart pumps with less force, maximum heart rate decreases, and blood flow throughout the circulatory system slows. She says she doesn't sleep that much. She constantly gets up in the middle of the night to watch TV or wakes up early to clean up the house. Older adults require about the same total of sleep time as younger adults, around seven hours per night. Yet as people age, they have more difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, and sleeping deeply- a trend that begins after age 30 for men and 50 for women.

The timing of sleep tends to change toward earlier bedtime and morning awakenings. Changes in brain structures controlling sleep and higher levels of stress hormones in the bloodstream, which have a great effect on the central nervous system. Her skin is wrinkled; she has puffs under her eyes. Her skin is very easy to break, or tear. It also is very thin. She has a thin layer of facial hair and she walks pretty fast for the average 67 year old.

Her hair isn't grey because she has dyed it. At this age oil glands that lubricate the sin become less active leading to dryness and roughness. She doesn't have age "age spots" which normally increase in some individuals in the arms, backs of hands, and the face may also be dotted. Moles may also appear. She wears dentures so Ii won't be able to see the color of her real teeth.

She has a little slump in her back and this is especially normal in adults. She says she lost a considerable amount of weight probably because there is an additional loss in bone density and muscle, which is heavier than the fat deposits accumulating in the torso. She complained about memory and verbal expression difficulties, which decline in speed of processing, under way throughout the adult years, is said to affect many aspects of cognition in old age. Even though she can't do the same things she did when she was younger, she still stays active. She comes to most of her granddaughter's track meets and does slight jogging. This is called selective optimization with compensation, which is when she narrows her goals, selecting personally valued activities as a way of maximizing for their diminishing energy.

She takes information slow and finds it harder to apply strategies and retrieve relevant knowledge from long-term memory, the chances of memory failure increase. A reduced capacity to hold things I the working memory while operating o it means that memory problems are especially evident on complex tasks. She says she has a slight problem when's he can't remember simple things, but she will always remember old memories. Elderly people often complain that they have become more absentminded about daily events. I would say she has retrospective memory, which is remembering things from the past well. In the laboratory, older adults do better on event-bases than on time-based prospective memory tasks.

She also says she has a problem remembering details because of her slower cognitive processing. Elder's problem solving is now different also. Her kids are grown, her grandchildren are old enough o make their own food and handle finances. Some of her everyday problems split between personal competence and social concerns. Although language comprehension changes little in elders, there are two aspects of language production, which are finding the right words and planning what and how to say it. Older adults compensate by simplifying grammatical structures and communicating rather than details.

Elders often respond more decisively than younger people in matters of health, perhaps because of greater experience in coping with illness. She maintains a wide range of chronic conditions, which are associated with cognitive declines. She had adult-onset diabetes. When not enough insulin is produced or body cells are insensitive to it. Better health and earlier retirement permit increasing numbers of older people to continue their education through college courses, community offerings, and programs such as Elderhostel. The people who are participants are enriched by new knowledge, friends, a broader perspective on the world, and an image of themselves as more competent.

She is in the stage of ego integrity versus despair, which involves feeling whole, complete, and satisfied with their achievements if a person has a sense of integrity. She engages in reminiscence, which is when she calls up, reflect on, and reconsider post experiences with the goal of achieving greater self-understanding. She has accumulated a lifetime of self-knowledge, leading to more secure and complex self-concepts. Agreeableness and acceptance of change tend to get higher, on the other hand sociability dips slightly. She goes to church every Sunday.

Faith and spirituality may be more important, away from prescribed beliefs to a more reflective approach that is at ease with uncertainty. Friends, family members and caregivers often give excess dependency so the elder won't feel helpless. In sequences of behavior called the dependency-support script and independence-ignore script. This is where older adults dependency behaviors are attended to immediately and their independent behaviors are ignored. She had no intense physical or mental problems because if she did it could become a vicious cycle each intensifying the other.

She has learned to cope with stress from her childhood so these events evoke less stress and depression they would in a younger adult.