(Yen, Shim, Martinez, & Barker, 2012). Case Illustration 3.3 demonstrates the capabilities of an elderly gentleman who, despite his advancing chronological years, remains actively engaged in life. Age is one point on the continuum, and numerous factors impact the aging experience.
Case Illustration 3.3
Mr. Simmons is an 85-year-old, happily married, retired university professor in physics. He has no chronic diseases and continues his longtime exercise routine: running 5 times a week and strength training 3 times per week. He also swims twice per week and gardens when the weather permits. His primary care physician tells him that he has the vital signs of a highly functioning 50-year-old.
Mr. Simmons keeps his mind sharp by learning new activities and has decided to try three new activities each year and retain the one activity he likes the most. He is taking violin lessons and is learning to speak Spanish. He learns this language through auditing courses within his former university environment. He socializes with family and friends regularly and takes long distance trips 3 times a year. He is very religious and very active within his synagogue. He is an optimistic, easily engaged individual who believes that every day is a new beginning.
Social Participation
According to data from the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (NSHAP), age is positively associated with increased participation in social activities (e.g., volunteering, religious events) in part because older adults have more time after they retire (Cornwell, Laumann, & Schumm, 2008). Participating in one’s social world is seen to be a significant factor for maintaining overall health and well-being. African-American and white older adults have cited social activity as an important contributor to aging well (Corwin, Laditka, Laditka, Wilcox, & Liu, 2009). Greater community engagement and social participation, in turn, are associated with better health in old age and much reduced risk of mortality—as significant an effect as smoking, drinking, exercise, and diet (Holt-Lunstad, Smith, & Layton, 2010).
Perspective
Many adults reaching the age of 50 or 60 begin to free themselves from cultural constraints and express themselves in ways that they had not dared before. They become less defined by what others think of them and more by what they think of themselves. Increasingly freed from the burden of always having to fulfill other people’s expectations, their lives start to reflect a new kind of willingness to be exactly who they are. They break free from histories of physical stress, neglect, and abuse. They become more alive (Robbins, 2007). Guided Practice Exercise 3.8 provides the opportunity to explore why and how older persons choose to reinvent themselves in their later years.
Guided Practice Exercise 3.8
Are you familiar with older persons who have decided to “live life to the fullest”? This newfound freedom is not unusual later in life. What activities does he or she now participate in? Examine why this behavior is different from his or her youth. What do you think motivates him or her to break free from past roles, responsibilities, and normative behavior? How do you feel when you hear an older person discussing that he or she just went skydiving at the age of 85?
Scientific studies have found that attitude is profoundly important to health. In 1984, the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Successful Aging began one of the largest and most interesting aging studies ever undertaken. Recognizing that the field of gerontology had become preoccupied with studies of disability and disease, the Research Network began studying healthy elderly people. A central goal of the MacArthur study was to determine what factors enable some people to retain their mental faculties as they age. The researchers found that one of the most statistically significant predictors of maintaining cognitive functioning with age is the sense of self-efficacy. Elders who have a “can do” attitude are far more likely to retain intact mental abilities (Rowe & Kahn, 1998).
Instead of thinking of it as a tragedy when their bodies begin to slow down, happy older adults accept the limitations that arise and see the transitions they are going through as opportunities to ground themselves in a deeper sense of self and a greater wisdom. Their love for others and the world becomes more accepting. They increasingly let go of minutiae and the nonessentials of life. Their perspective shifts, details soften, and the larger panorama comes into focus. They are able to enjoy life more than when they were young because they have a deeper understanding of it (Robbins, 2007). These are people who do not conform to a youth-obsessed culture’s expectations of what their later years will be like. Instead, their lives come to enact an entirely different vision of aging. No longer so driven by the desires that shaped the first part of their lives, their lives become more about meaning than about ambition, more about intimacy than about achieving. They experience the second half of their life as a time of deepening creativity and ripening of the soul (Robbins, 2007).
Leisure Activities
Participation in challenging programs has a positive effect on physical health, mental health, and social functioning in older adults. Cognitively fit older adults benefit from participation in leisure activities. Among cognitive activities, reading, playing board games, and playing musical instruments were associated with a lower risk of dementia.
Dancing is the only physical activity associated with a lower risk of dementia (Verghese et al., 2003). Senior participants in a Dancing Heart program reported better health, stating that the dance and movement improvisation activities improved their flexibility, coordination, balance, and endurance, and the shared reminiscence and discussion increased their memory and socialization skills (Tabourne & Lee, 2005–2006). Researchers found that long-term social dancing may be associated with better balance and gait in older adults (Verghese, 2006), and dancers reported slightly more improvement in sleep, mood, and the ability to participate in hobbies, do housework, and have sex than the others.
Playing music, specifically taking group keyboard lessons, was found to increase human growth hormone (hGH) levels. Growth hormone levels decline during aging and contribute to unwelcomed effects of aging (Clements, 2010). Low hGH is implicated in such aging phenomena as osteoporosis, energy levels, wrinkling, sexual function, muscle mass, and aches and pains while controlling for differences in life events and social support. Boyer (2007) found that participants in music classes also showed a decrease in anxiety, depression, and perception of loneliness.
Participating in the arts improves older adults’ quality of life as well, particularly for those who suffer from dementia. Participation in weekly sessions focused on objective and subjective indicators of affect, and self-esteem contributed to each individual’s sense of well-being (Rentz, 2002). An increase in quality of life was measured following music performances and wall murals, which can be effective for cueing residents away from situations that may evoke agitation as well as potential harm and litigation (Kincaid & Peacock, 2003). In older adults without dementia, creating visual art was found to alleviate boredom, loneliness, helplessness, and distraction from physical pain and stimulated cognitive faculties (National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, 2005).
Research into the effects of exercising the body, mind, and social ability proves promising. Healthy adults who received 10 memory training sessions, reasoning training, and speed training did better than the control group (Willis et al., 2006). Researchers found that fitness training may also improve some mental processes, and physical exercise might slow the effects of aging and help people maintain cognitive abilities well into older age (Kramer, Colcombe, Erickson, & Paige, 2006). Such positive effects of leisure activities prove the importance of encouraging all older adults participate in them.
Intimacy
Older people desire and continue intimate relations, and they embrace the need for love, partnership, and physical intimacy
