Older people in today's society

Due to the accelerated aging of the population, this last but no less important segment of the population has been targeted: "the elderly."

What it represents, senescence or as others would say decadence, that we see in this stage of life produces us consciously or unconsciously (it depends on the degree of empathy we have) an attitude of rejection, of escapism, of flight from the evident reality that is shown to us and through which we will all irreversibly pass and experience in our body as such. From my professional and personal experience with the "elderly" I have been able to verify some points that I would like to point out and share.

In this PsychologyOnline article, we will talk about Older people in today's society.

In the first place, reaching this stage of life and at the same time the last one creates in the person, the greatest physical change and emotional (and in many cases also cognitive) through which the human being passes and from which there are infinite ways to tackle it.

Not long ago, I was at a conference by a colleague who addressed the topic of "resilience" as the ability to adaptation and improvement of the subject before periods of adversity throughout life. The good use of this cognitive ability is in this period a very effective tool to live it positively, since due to its idiosyncrasy there are countless adverse situations that must be passed through, be it illnesses, deaths, grief etc. And in the way that we know how to show our support, it will help to make it a pleasant stage and not so detrimental.

We all have someone close: parents, grandparents..., someone with whom we identify them and for that reason, and for that desire to categorize them We label everything as something alien to our life of comfort, we have them parked, in the second row for the mere fact of not being ourselves tools. Those parents, those grandparents represented what we are now and represent what we will be, beyond all the advances in science that appear every day and sell us as eternal youth, but that will not be able to avoid the inevitable.

How would we like to get there? Maybe we should stop the maelstrom in which we live at some point and think about it because, even if we have many or a few years left, surely in our family, in our close environment there are those who already are and need us to facilitate and make that reality more bearable with all its peculiarities and its losses. I take as an example one of my patients, who told me that before he occupied his pockets carrying tobacco, now he fills them with the pillboxes to which every three or four months he adds one more pill, let's imagine the assortment, it has many colors and sizes.

Let's be more understanding, more empathetic and know how to recognize the important role that people play. greater for our society and for our lives in particular, and also know how to transmit it to the generations future. From them I have learned two essential things and that is a common denominator to most:

• live life intenselye, because against time and death you cannot fight, and that one passes quickly and this one is insurmountable.
• live with the conviction of to be loved and to love, that's what accompanies you until the end of life, maybe the rest hardly matters

Let us value this real experience that is common to all and try to give it back to them through affection, attention and company. Many of them lose more or less capacities but retain what is called "emotional memory", the perception of the affective communication given by gestures such as caresses, a smile, and which both help and comfort them.

And above all and most importantly let's never make them lose their DIGNITY, essential in every person.

This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.