Introduction to the article
This article will help you understand older persons, especially those close to you. You will also know how older persons need to be treated. This article will help you understand some important facts about older persons and the reasons behind their slightly different behaviors.
Table of content
- International day of older persons
- Who is an older person?
- Nursing homes for older persons
- Top ten facts about older persons
- Conclusion
International Day of Older Person
People feel that older people are being neglected, and many face abuse by their kids.
It raised the thought of spreading awareness about older persons and their needs.
The United Nations General Assembly declared that the world would celebrate the international day of older people on October 1. This decision was taken on December 14, 1990.
Who is an older person?
Someone over the age of 65 is usually considered an older person. Usually, the older people we are connected to are our parents and grandparents. However, applying a strict definition is difficult because people can biologically age at different rates. As a person grows, he develops new habits and behaviors that the rest of society might not accept. The development of such traits is due to their age, which is what the international day of older people makes us aware of.
Nursing homes for older persons
Nursing homes, also known as retirement homes, can be located in almost every country.
These institutes are specially built and run for abandoned older people. When parents or grandparents start to behave differently, people kick them out of their houses instead of understanding them. In old age, people deserve to know how they understood their infants, but many of us don’t even try to understand them. It is why almost all nursing homes are crowded with older people.
Also Read: Top Ten Goals of Youth on International Youth Day
Top ten facts about older persons
1. People in nursing homes
There are large numbers of older people living in nursing homes and depending on charities.
3.6% of those people are 65, and the rest are older than this. Almost 50% of those have children or grandchildren unwilling to take them home and look after them.
2. Elderly women
All the people in nursing homes are mostly older women. Men are likely to live with their partners, but when those men pass away or leave, their spouses go to live in nursing homes. The smaller number of men in nursing homes means they can do some easy jobs and take their responsibilities in their stride.
3. Chronic illness
Almost every 4 of 5 older persons will get a chronic illness and battle it till their last breath.
These diseases might include arthritis, osteoporosis, and heart diseases.
4. Social isolation
Because of their hard-to-handle behavior, people isolate them and avoid talking to them or spending time with them. This social isolation makes them weak and vulnerable to abuse. It might make them self-harm, or even the thought of killing themselves might pop into their heads.
5. Mental growth
With increasing age, our bodies might not work as well as when we were young, but our minds never stop working. New neurons keep growing in the old brain. With their help, brains learn new things and construct new knowledge. Our brain happens to reshape itself in response to learning.
6. Behavioral change
Psychology says that when a person gets older, he loses his ability to tolerate things and starts getting easily annoyed. This behavioral change is the natural response to growth. Those who live with older persons should be very patient with them and listen to them as carefully as they listen to the babbling of a toddler.
7. Psychological condition
7 out of 10 people happen to face psychological conditions or problems. These conditions include dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, or simple loss of memory.
8. Physical activities
As time passes and a person ages, his ability to work gradually fades. A study says that by age 75, 1 in 3 men and 1 in 2 women completely lose their ability to do physical work. Such people can hardly perform their daily living activities like eating, walking, bathing, and even using the toilet.
9. Subsidies
The government of every country gives subsidies to older people, but most of these people can’t go to get them because of their illnesses. Many people note that donations are taken away by the kids who abandoned the people who deserve the subsidy.
10. Mood swings
Mood swings are also part of the natural behavior in old age. People over 75 are more likely to get annoyed at small things and might create scenes. It’s not in people’s hands to control their mood swings.
Conclusion
In the end, we concluded that the lives of older persons are as important as young person’s lives. Their behaviors and vulnerabilities are not in their hands but are a natural response to their growing age. Leaving older people for any reason is never right. All the parents deserve to be treated the way they treated us as kids, because an older person’s mind is more like the mind of a toddler.
