Gerontology: The Science of Aging

Etymologically, the word gerontology comes from the Greek term geron, gerontos / es or the oldest or the most notable of the Greek people; to this term joins the term logos, lodge or treatise, group of connoisseurs. For this reason, gerontology is defined as "science that deals with old age", and this is also included in the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy. In this Psychology-Online article, we will make a brief study of the Gerontology: The Science of Aging. Historically, gerontology is a young discipline that - despite Metchikoff's use of the term in its current sense in 1903 - has developed, practically, in the second half of the century XX.

Index

1. Conceptual framework
2. Goals of gerontology
3. Branches of the science of old age

As Birren (1996) points out, gerontology is a very old subject of knowledge but it is an extraordinarily recent science.
It has developed in the second half of the last century because it is when an extraordinarily important phenomenon begins to take place: the aging of the population. This phenomenon has been due to two essential factors: on the one hand, mortality has decreased while mortality has increased. life expectancy and all this, together with a sharp fall in the birth rate, the latter aspect that seems to be changed in this XXI century.

Old age has already been addressed in ancient textsAs Lehr (1980) points out, the Old Testament highlights the virtues that adorn older people, their role of example or model, as well as of guidance and teaching.

As in other disciplines, it is in philosophy where we can find clear antecedents of gerontology. Thus Plato, presents an individualistic and intimate vision of old age, highlights the idea that age as you have lived and the importance of how you should prepare for old age in the youth. Thus, Plato is an antecedent of the positive vision of old age, as well as the importance of prevention and prophylaxis.

Conversely, Aristotle he presents what we might consider some stages of man's life: the first, childhood; the second, youth; the third - the longest -, adulthood, and the fourth, senescence, in which deterioration and ruin are reached. He regards old age as a natural disease.

We see that these two antagonistic and contradictory visions of old age, which already occur in Plato and Aristotle, will be represented throughout the history of human thought. Thus, for example, Cicero follows Plato's positive idea; and Seneca follows Aristotle's line of thought.

But if we talk about the beginning of scientific research in gerontology, we have to talk about the century XVII, and specifically Francis Bacón, with his work History of Life and Death. death). In this text, Bacon puts forward a precursor idea that would be fulfilled three centuries later, namely, that the human life would be prolonged at the time when hygiene and other social and medical conditions improvements in.

However, while we can count on these great ideas, it is not until the 19th century that scientific work in gerontology begins.

The French Quetelet is the first to clearly express the importance of establishing the principles that govern the process through which the human being is born, grows and dies.

Francis Galton, British, highly influenced by Quetelet, works on individual differences on physical, sensory and motor characteristics, data that he presents in his work Inquiry into human faculty and its developments (Study on human faculties and their development).

Stanley Hall, an American psychologist, should also be highlighted, who in his work Senescent, the last half of life (Senectud, the last half of life) tries to contribute to the understanding of the nature and functions of old age, helping to establish the science of gerontology contradicting the deficit model so in use then. One of his empirical discoveries is to have highlighted that individual differences in old age are significantly greater than those that appear at other ages in life.

So far four authors who can be considered paradigmatic in an initial scientific research on old age and aging, and therefore, are antecedents of gerontology.

The recent history of the scientific gerontology opens with the American Cowdry (1939) and, specifically, with the text directed by him Problems of Aging (Problems of aging). In this work, psychological and social aspects are incorporated into the treatment of medical and physical conditions of age, which is why it can be considered a first treatise on gerontology. It is also in 1939, under the auspices of the Macy Foundation, when the first association for aging research is founded in the United States (Club for Research on Aging).

But it is after the Second World War that most gerontology associations develop, starting with the North American one (Gerontological Society) in 1945. The Spanish Society of Geriatrics and Gerontology was created in 1948, and by the same dates or shortly after many other European and Latin American associations, among which the International Association of Gerontology founded in Liège stands out in 1948.
Also on these dates, organs of expression of scientific gerontology began to be published, beginning with the Journal of Gerontology published in 1946, one of the magazines with the greatest recognition and impact.

Gerontology has a double objective:

• from a quantitative point of view, prolongation of life (give more years to life, delay death), and
• from a qualitative point of view, improving the quality of life of the elderly (give more life to the years).

According to Laforest (1991) the three main characteristics of gerontology are:

• Gerontology is a existential reflection, belongs to the human as such.
• It is also a collective reflection. Due to the demographic phenomena of the last two centuries, it is not only the individual that is aging but also society.
• It is essentially multidisciplinary.

From a practical and social perspective, we observe that gerontology gathers a broad, diverse scientific knowledge with numerous applications.

Kart (1990) points out that gerontology has to relate basic and applied research. Given the variety of converging perspectives, it must have an interdisciplinary approach to the study of aging.

It encompasses sciences such as geriatrics, social gerontology, aging biology, aging psychology,... and all those sciences and disciplines that have The scientific study of aging is aimed at, whatever the contents, variables or factors they include, whether they refer to individual aging or Social.

Moragas (1992) believes that Gerontology does not constitute an autonomous discipline or profession, but simply a peculiar approach. The different questions or problems posed by aging - understood as a human phenomenon, such as childhood or adulthood - in contemporary society can and must be resolved by the disciplines or professions involved in gerontology (medicine, psychology, pedagogy, social work, law, ...), with a focus gerontological.

It is clear that gerontology is a scientific field with an interdisciplinary perspective in the treatment of issues and problems that affect the aging process.

Gerontology, or Science of Aging, is considered the mother science, and is divided into four sections:

Biological or experimental gerontology:

It is also called aging. It is a multidisciplinary science that aims to know both the intimate mechanisms of aging and its etiopathogenesis. Its development as a science went through two phases: the first merely empirical and speculative, drew deductive conclusions, and the second, is experimental, linked to the demonstration of its theories.

In the objective of slowing down aging, or “getting older and better”, preventive biological gerontology occupies a prominent place, which is divided into different sections:

• Pharmacological prevention. With the use of drugs such as antioxidants, vitamin therapy E, magnotherapy, etc.
• Dietary-hygienic-psychological prevention.

Climate and ecology also have a great influence on aging. Hence the high longevity of populations that live in certain areas of the world: Valleys Highlands of Ecuador, isolated valleys of the Caucasus, some isolated nuclei of the Polynesian Islands, etc.

Clinical Gerontology or Geriatrics:

According to Rubies Ferrer (1989), geriatrics is classically defined as “the medical science whose purpose is the diagnosis of diseases of old age, their cure, rehabilitation and reintegration of the patient in their habitat (home or institution) to this must be added the prevention of such diseases".

Richard and Munafo (1993) also refer to clinical gerontology or geriatrics, integrating into it the recovery or functional adaptation of the elderly, and, in this, rehabilitation and occupational therapy.

Social Gerontology:

It is what is commonly known as Gerontology. It is also multidisciplinary. The following professionals take part in it: social workers, economists, lawyers, architects and politicians. As auxiliary sciences it has demography and epidemiology.
According to Rubies Ferrer, it covers all the social, political, economic and health problems of the environment relative to the old.

Gerontopsychiatry or psychogerontology:

Study the psychological and psychiatric aspects of the elderly. Dementias and depressions are highlighted as characteristic pathologies that will mark the death of the elderly.

Psychogerontology is, for Richard and Munafo (1993) the science that tries to describe, explain, understand and modify the attitudes of the aging subject. This vision refers to the psychological aspects of the elderly person, rather than psychiatric ones. Dosíl Maceira (1996) also defend the conception of psychogerontology as the psychology of old age.

It must always be borne in mind that the theoretical and practical approach of Gerontology is bio-psycho-social. This implies what we already mentioned above, its interdisciplinarity

The basic knowledge of gerontology is the following:

• Biologicals: They refer to research on the changes that with age and the passage of time occur in the different biological systems of the body.
• Psychological: refer to the study of the changes and / or stability that the passage of time produces in psychological functions such as attention, perception, learning, memory, affectivity and personality, among other phenomena psychological.
• Social: refers to the search for changes due to age related to social roles, exchange and social structure, as well as in what form cultural emergencies contribute to these changes (growth or decline), as well as to the aging of the populations.

It is clear that gerontology has different objects of study: the old, old age and aging.

These objects of study must be approached from a basic and applied research perspective; since gerontology is clearly interventive - it tries to improve the living conditions of the elderly.

The diversity of knowledge that the approach to the old, old age and aging requires, leads us, as we have seen, to the interdisciplinarity, and as a consequence to a broad gerontological training, without closing ourselves to the exclusive specification of our area of knowledge.

The gerontologist has to integrate the different basic knowledge of gerontology.

Finally, it should be noted that specific gerontological problems may need mono or interdisciplinary solutions and work, or not, as a team; depending on the nature of the problem, but you always have to be prepared in the field of gerontology to participate in decisions with other professionals.

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.

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