Our Later Years

1. Our Later Years
By: Jessica Kazanovicz

2. “The quality of our lives often depends more on
our health than on our age.”
 Eat well
 Exercise
 Strong social
contacts

3. Feminization of Aging
 Women live nearly seven years longer than men;
increasing numbers of women are living eighty or more
years.
 Along with the benefits come certain problems:
 Chronic illness, increased dependence on medical care, care
giving or needing care, insufficient economic resources, and
possibly surviving one’s partner, relatives, and closest
friends.
 Retirement: age 65-67

4. Loss of a Partner
 Large numbers of women
outlive their husbands, often by
a decade or two.
 More than 11 million women
constitute over 80% of the U.S.
widowed population.
 Widows are vulnerable to
disease and often lose or cannot
afford health insurance
coverage.
 Grieving process takes a while,
along with the surrounding
situations.
 Writing, and talking about the
loss helps.

5. Getting Medical Care
 Health care is needed when we  Establish good communication
age, because older women with the health care provider.
face physical, emotional and
social changes and challenges  Health care providers may
that require specialized judge older women’s
training and care. complaints and health
 Women who have health problems to be neurotic,
insurance under a spouse's imaginary or inevitable far
employment-related health more than men’s at an earlier
plan can lose coverage when a age.
spouse retires.

6. Physical Impairments and
Chronic Conditions
 Everyone ages differently
 New medical advances making problems in the past now treatable.
 Getting Around may include devices such as walkers and wheelchairs
 Sensory loss, eye sight, distance, cataracts, glaucoma, detached
retina, diabetic retinopathy, hearing, joints and feet, foot problems,
bones, falls and fractures.
 Struggling for survival can be more disabling to health and well-being
than medical conditions.
 Isolation from family and friends, caring for home, poor medical care
due to high costs, income, social security Medicare and poverty.

7. Depression
 Because women live longer,
we are vulnerable to life events
that cause sadness and even
depression: loss of a spouse or
partner, poverty, chronic
illness, isolation and
loneliness.

8. Memory Changes
 Memory is the sharpest and quickest in our first 25 years, the brains
capacity to reorganize and grow connections continues throughout
life.
 Memory problems are more pervasive as we age. It takes more
conscious effort to gather, learn, and recall details.
 It may take a few moments to remember a name, and much later, it
may take even longer for facts to surface.
 Prevention: brain exercise such as word games, crosswords and jigsaw
puzzles or drawing. A healthy diet is also important.
“There’s nothing wrong with my memory – it’s all in there. Its only the
retrieval system that’s a little slower.”

9. Caregiving
 Women are the primary caregivers
 Women accept and even except that others will depend on us,
yet many of us fear becoming dependent on others.
 Caring for one’s parents can create stress, physical strain and
exhaustions. Family caregiving means that you will be providing
care in isolation, without pay or supportive services, with no
one to take over when you need a break, and possibly without
job or even health insurance.
 It can also be very satisfying
 Those who care for aging parents need help as well

10. Caregiving
 Alternative living arrangements: Living with others (relatives, family,
friends) can be cost-effective and care-effective, because housemates
can look out for one another, rather than paying for others to do so.
 Assisted Living: Facilities that provide rooms or apartments as well as
a range of services in a communal setting, a middle ground for elderly
people who need care.
 Life Care: These communities offer apartment living for people in
relatively good health, with medical and social services nearby and
assisted living units and a nursing home on the premises.
 Nursing Homes: Need for constant nursing care. Only 5% of elders live
in nursing homes, but 75% of those who do are women.

11. Right to Die
 Do you believe one has the right to choose the means of
their own death?
 Permitting suicide shouldn’t be a way for the medical system
to shrink its responsibility to provide support and comfort to
the dying.
 Some people prefer to die surrounded by family and friends.
Some may be thinking about taking a fatal substance.
 It is a complex issue

12. Hospice Care
 Hospice – and hospice services at home – are intended as a
humane alternative to hospital or nursing home end-of-life
care.
 Comforts the dying, rather than prolonging life

13. Survival Skills
 We are adaptable. We may never “get over” set-backs, but
it’s possible to continue living well.
 We can’t deny human mortality and the physical changes
we experience.
 In our later years many of us feel more entitled than ever
before to do what pleases and satisfies us, to slow down,
to let go of the strain of former obligations and to express
thoughts and feelings more strongly than ever before.