Reasearch

5. About how many old people are on antidepressants?
7. How many old people live in poverty?
10. What is the suicide rate for old people?
12. How/on what do they spend their money?
14. Are they sexually active?


Depression is common in elderly people. Old people are at greater risk of developing adverse events while taking any medication. Its symptoms include chronic worry and anxiety and other problems, such as muscle tension, sleep disturbance and fatigue.As many as 7.3 percent of older people suffer from anxiety, and the percent is even higher among those receiving medical care. Social inferiority, isolation, physical weakness and vulnerability, all of which form part of the experience of poverty combine for many older people to make old age itself a form of social exclusion. Instead of achronological definition, old age is defined in many societies as a state of dependence and incapacity.Older people in poverty themselves tend to sharea view of ageing as incapacity. A commondimension of older people's poverty is a sense of uselessness and low self esteem,related to their perceived inability to participate in family and social life. "Between 1997 and 2006, the number of people living in severe poverty – defined as living on less than 40% of median population income – increased by 600,000. The poorest quarter of pensioner households saw their incomes rise by less than 1% last year, well below inflation. The poorest single pensioners saw their real incomes drop by 4%." The highest suicide rates of any age group occur among persons aged 65 years and older. There is an average of one suicide among the elderly every 90 minutes. In 1998, suicide ranked as the sixteenth leading cause of death among those aged 65 years and older and accounted for 5803 deaths among this age group in the U.S. Risk factors for suicide among older persons differ from those among the young. In addition to a higher prevalence of depression, older persons are more socially isolated and more frequently use highly lethal methods. They also make fewer attempts per completed suicide, have a higher-male-to-female ratio than other groups, have often visited a health-care provider before their suicide, and have more physical illnesses. Most old people spend their money on healthcare. They are retired so they are lving off social security, and the money they spend is just used on housing, haathcare such as medicine, insurance, and hospital/doctoral visits. Other than that its just on food,travel and clothing.Most Americans remain sexually active into their 60s, and nearly half continue to have sex regularly into their early 70s, researchers are reporting today as a result of the most comprehensive national survey to date of sexual behavior among older adults. But many older people also report struggling with sexual problems, like reduced desire and erectile difficulties. With more than 3,000 Americans, 57 to 85 years old, who gave detailed descriptions of their sexual activities.The National Institutes of Health, found that 84 percent of men from 57 to 64 reported having had some sexual contact with another person in the last year, compared with 62 percent of women in the same age group. Those figures dwindled to 38 percent and 17 percent, respectively, in people 75 and older. Among those adults who were sexually active, about two-thirds had sex at least twice a month into their 70s, and more than half continued at that pace into their 80s.



http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/318/7199/1640
http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/healthday/2009/01/20/antidepressant-eases-anxiety-in-older-adults.html
http://www.thematuremarket.com/50_plus_marketing/millions_elderly_people_live_in_poverty-10451-5.html
http://www.netwellness.org/question.cfm/44637.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/23/us/23sex.html

15 (absent)

1. Do they ever think about death?
2. How do they feel being old?
3. Do old people make up most of the world's population?
4. Do they live their lives more spontaneously or planned?
5. About how many old people are on antidepressants?
6. How many are left without families caring/checking up on them?
7. How many old people live in poverty?
8. What is it like living in a nursing home?
9. How many people are actually active in their community?
10. What is the suicide rate for old people?
11. How many old people suffer from life threatening diseases?
12. How/on what do they spend their money?
13. What do they do in their free time?
14. Are they sexually active?
15. Do they have people to speak to?

Old People

I love old people. I think they are wise and intelligent. The things they say are usually very interesting, thing you don't really hear from anyone else. I work in a Pharmacy in Brooklyn, so i have a lot of interactions with old people. I see them every other day for several hours all speaking either Polish, English or Spanish. When you help them with something they get this joyful look of gratitude on their faces. After picking up their medications and making their way up to the register to check out, all they want to do is talk. They tell you their life story or what happened yesterday or whether or not they are in pain today. I'm not always in the mood to socialize but I feel like they need someone to talk to, so I become their target of torture. When old people walk into the pharmacy they always smile no matter what mood they're in. Even if they are in scorching pain they will still be nice to you and respect you no matter what age you are. I noticed it depends on one thing, if you are nice to them, they are nice to you.
I also see my grandparents quite often. It is said that your grandparents love you more than your actual parents. I don't know if i agree with that but sometimes it seems that way. If I do something bad, they are understanding and they won't yell. They try to teach me a lesson about it. To them, life isn't about punishment and arguments and grief, it's about what you have to do to make it better. I feel like everything my grandparents say is true. It's because they have lived so long and already gone through the problems and situations I have in life. Many times I don't believe what they say or won't take the advice they give me because I feel like my scenario is different and they just don't understand, but I always catch myself going back to what they said and accepting it. Every time I visit them or they visit me there is a sense of ease and relaxation. Everything is good and tensionless. I think they feel the same way about me about it, because it gives them a chance to talk to me and find out what's going on in life and how they can be of help.