GRN 1000 Aging Simulation Exercise
In putting together the reaction paper for the Aging Simulation Exercise, a few of the questions below may help. In a 2-3 page reaction paper using APA guidelines based on your experiences, please relate your experiences/observations/ insights to a minimum of two (citations) course readings/resources/lectures, or other resources. Please include your insights into interacting with older adults, particularly related to adapting services to individual needs.
Reflect on impairments that you experienced:
• Vision
• Hearing
• Taste and Smell
• Mobility
• Limitations for flexibility in upper and lower extremities, especially hands and fine motor skills
• Moving more slowly
Consider those abilities that you kept:
• How did it feel to have others ‘age’ around you?
• What would it be like to be the higher functioning spouse, and therefore, the caregiver for your husband or wife (or friend)?
What were your expectations for what this exercise would be like?
Did you experience any different impressions after thinking about the experience for a couple of days?
Describe your feelings about the experience. Were there any surprises in how it felt?
What changes did you observe about yourself and other participants?
How were you treated or responded to by ‘the professional staff’? (optional question)
How might you have been responded to by the public?
How would it feel for others to be impatient with you, or take over because you are slow (movement, speech, apparent cognition)?
Were you surprised at how impairments other than vision restricted your experience? How about multiple areas or types of impairment?
How might these age related changes effect doing tasks basic to community living, such as getting dressed, paying bills, and getting groceries?
How did it feel to be left with nothing to do? (optional question)
Did making your own decisions and choices seem important? Your independence?
What kind of behavior did your feelings and reactions lead to?
Have you observed such behaviors or reactions in older adults?
Does the experience stimulate thoughts about the reactions and behaviors of older individuals with an impairment?
Does the experience suggest changes in your feelings or behavior towards older adults?
Statistics
Taste: Ability to taste foods is usually not affected until the late seventies when a person has approximately one-sixth of the buds he/she possessed at the age of
twenty. Sweet and salty flavors are the first to go. Sour and bitter tend to function to a very old age and are the last to go.
Smell: Over 40% of people the age of eighty and older have difficulty
identifying common foods. Because two-thirds of the taste sensations depend on the ability to smell, decline in this sensory system may further reduce a person’s appetite or interest in food. It may also mean that a person is not able to smell body or household odors that may be offensive to others. Warning odors such as gas, spoiled foods, and smoke may go unnoticed.
Sight: The average 65year-old has a visual acuity of 20/70 or less. Although the
majority of older adults have good to adequate vision, 33% of people 65 and older report that an inability to see well prevents them from doing things they want to do. The lens of the eye yellows with age and filters out colors at the blue
end of the light spectrum. The warm colors red, yellow and orange are more easily distinguished by many older people than the cool colors blue, green and violet. Older people also require more time to adjust to changes in light level and are more sensitive to glare. Considerably more light is required to see.
Mobility/Dexterity: 40%of people over the age of 65 experience limits in activity
due to changes in the skeletal-muscular system. Bone, muscular changes and health conditions (such as arthritis, Parkinson’s Disease and stroke) can mean decreased dexterity. (May be experienced as stiffness, aches).
Touch: Skin sensitivity and the ability to detect pain decrease with age. It is more
difficult for the older person to distinguish textures and objects by touch alone. An older person is more apt to be cut or burned and not know it until severe damage has occurred because the pain threshold increases. Reaction time is slower.
Hearing: Hearing loss is potentially the most serious of the sensory changes. Unlike
poor vision, it rarely inspires sympathy and understanding; it is more likely to cause loneliness and depression. Approximately 30% to 50% of older adults have a hearing loss that affects their communication with others. More older men than women are affected, probably due to working in noisier environments. Older people have a reduced ability to hear sounds of low intensity and high frequency. S, F, P, and TH become difficult to hear.
(Condensed from: “Understanding the Aging Process through Simulation,”
Schmall and Staton.
Illinois Teacher of Home Economics.
Volume 25, No. 4. March/April 1982)
The farther we travel through the events of our lives, the accidents, losses, blessings and personal choices of health, mind, emotion, and spirit; the families and friends, the teachers of what to go for, and those we learn to set boundaries on; all make us more and more individual from each other, if we only bother to look.
Last Completed Projects
| topic title | academic level | Writer | delivered |
|---|