1. Kathleen Stassen Berger
Part VII Chapter Twenty
Adulthood: Biosocial Development
The Aging Process
The Impact of Poor Health Habits
Measuring Health
Variations in Aging
Prepared by Madeleine Lacefield Tattoon, M.A. 1

2. Adulthood: Biosocial Development
Age matters…
How old are you? Do you feel
your age?
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3. The Aging Process
• Senescence
– a gradual physical decline related to
aging… happens to everyone in every
body part but the rate of decline is highly
variable
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4. The Aging Process
• Physical Appearance
– outward signs of senescence are present long
before old age arrives
• first visual in the skin
– collagen – the connective tissue of the body,
decreases by about 1% per year
• hair turns gray and get thinner
• skin becomes drier
• “middle-age spread”
• people get shorter
• muscles weaken
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5. The Aging Process
• Sense Organs
– senescence varies from organ to organ
• the five senses become less sharp…
each organ loses some functions faster
than others
– changes in eyesight is the most obvious
– losses occur in hearing
» presbycusis
» the loss of hearing associated with senescence
often does not become apparent until after age 60
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6. The Aging Process
• The Aging Brain
– the brain slows down with age
– neurons fire more slowly and messages
sent from the axon of one neuron are
not picked up as quickly by the
dendrites of another neuron
– multitasking is more difficult
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7. The Aging Process
• The Sexual-Reproductive System
– is slower and fertility is reduced with
age, but adults of all ages enjoy “very
high levels of emotional satisfaction and
physical pleasure from sex within their
relationships”
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8. The Aging Process
• Infertility
– 2% of healthy couples in their earlier 20s, in
medically advanced nation, are infertile
– 33% of 30 year-olds in poor nations are
infertile
– the highest rate of infertility occurs in countries
with the highest birth rates, due in part to the
lack of contraception and the high incident of
untreated sexually transmitted diseases
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9. The Aging Process
• Assisted Reproduction
– assisted reproductive technology (ART)
• the collective name for the various methods of
medical intervention that can help infertile
couples have children
– in vitro fertilization (IVF)
• a technique in which ova (egg cells) are
surgically removed from a woman and fertilized
with sperm in the laboratory… after the original
fertilized cells (the zygotes) have divided
several times, they are reinserted into a
woman's uterus.
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10. The Aging Process
• Menopause
– the time in middle age, usually around
age 50, when a woman’s menstrual
periods cease completely and the
production of estrogen, progesterone,
and testosterone drops considerably
– strictly speaking, menopause is dated
one year after a women’s last menstrual
period
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11. The Aging Process
• Menopause
– hormone replacement therapy (HRT)
• treatment to compensate for hormone
reduction at menopause following
surgical removal of the ovaries… such
treatment, which usually involves
estrogen and progesterone, minimizes
menopausal symptoms and diminishes
the risk if osteoporosis in later adulthood
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12. The Aging Process
• Menopause
– andropause
• a term coined to signify a drop in
testosterone levels in older men, which
normally results in reduced sexual
desire, erections, and muscle mass
• also know as male menopause
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13. The Impact of Poor Health Habits
“Almost all diseases and chronic
conditions that are normally
associated with aging (arthritis to
strokes) are powerfully affected by
the routines of daily life”.
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14. The Impact of Poor Health Habits
• Tobacco and Alcohol Use
– tobacco
• in all its forms contains harmful drugs
• nicotine is the most addictive
• fewer people are starting to smoke
• many quit by late adulthood
• death from lung cancer is down by 20%
from 1980 - 1995
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15. The Impact of Poor Health Habits
• Tobacco and Alcohol Use
– alcohol
• adults who drink wine, beer, spirits, or other
alcohol in moderation (no more than two
moderate-sized drinks a day) live longer than
those who never drink
• moderate drinking is a reduction in coronary
heart disease
• alcohol increases high-density lipoprotein
(HDL), the" good” cholesterol and reduces low-
density lipoprotein, the “bad” cholesterol that
causes clogged arteries and blood clots
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16. The Impact of Poor Health Habits
• Lack of Exercise
– adults exercise less as they age
– low exercise rates are blamed…
• lack of commitment
• lack of support in the immediate social
context
• community’s failure to provide
appropriate facilities
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17. The Impact of Poor Health Habits
• Lack of Exercise
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18. The Impact of Poor Health Habits
• Overeating
– too much eating combined with too little
activity
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19. The Impact of Poor Health Habits
• Resistance to Good Nutrition
– misinterpreting scientific research
– high-fat diets
– heavy drinking and smoking
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20. The Impact of Poor Health Habits
• Obesity
– the leading cause of premature adult
death
– a worldwide epidemic, followed by
diabetes
– U.S. the global leader in obesity and
diabetes
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21. The Impact of Poor Health Habits
• Obesity
– in late adulthood, few people are obese
• thinner ones are more likely to survive
• older people eat less
• the current cohort have always been
thinner
• older people are more protective of their
health
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22. The Impact of Poor Health Habits
• Obesity
– additional reasons…
• genes - regulating hunger, metabolism,
and fat accumulation
• parental attitudes and practices -
children are taught to overeat
• environment – modern cultures
encourage overeating
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23. The Impact of Poor Health Habits
• Obesity
– weight-loss drugs urge caution
• Phen-fen was found to increase the risk of heart
disease
• commercial diet drugs are additive and
ineffective over time
• other drugs upset the stomach
– surgery
• gastric bypass surgery which permanently alters
the anatomy of the digestive system
• death can occur
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24. The Impact of Poor Health Habits
• Preventive Medicine
“The damage and death caused by tobacco,
alcohol, and obesity make it obvious that
prevention is less risky than treatment.”
– much prevention involves choices people
make
– preventive screening and medical measures
are helpful
– social measures that protect against harm and
help those who suffer from trauma
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25. Measuring Health
• Mortality and Morbidity
– mortality
• death—as a measure of health, mortality
usually refers to the number of deaths each
year per 1,000 members of a given population
– morbidity
• disease—as a measure of health, morbidity
refers to the rate of disease of all kinds in a
given population—physical and emotional,
acute (sudden) and chronic (ongoing)
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26. Measuring Health
• Disability and Vitality
– disability
• long-term difficulty in performing normal
activities of daily life because of some
physical, mental, or emotional condition
– vitality
• a measure of health that refers to how
healthy and energetic—physically,
intellectually, and socially—an individual
actually feels
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27. Measuring Health
• Disability and Vitality
– quality-adjusted life years QALYs
• a way of comparing mere survival
without vitality to survival with good
health—QALYs indicate how many years
of full vitality are lost to a particular
physical disease or disability—they are
expressed in terms of life expectancy as
adjusted for quality of life
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28. Measuring Health
• Disability and Vitality
– disability-adjusted life years (DALYs)
• a measure of the impact that disability
has on quality of life—DALYs are the
reciprocal of quality-adjusted life years—
a reduction of QALYs means an increase
in DALYs
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29. Variations in Aging
rates of aging vary, but they are not random…
– gender
– genes
– ethnicity
– income
– education
– location
– lifestyle
– culture
…speed up some aspects of senescence and slow
down others
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30. Variations in Aging
• Gender Differences
– senescence affects women more than
men
• small, superficial signs of aging, changes
in skin, hair, weight, are of more concern
(to both sexes) to women
• women age slowly, females live longer
worldwide
– twice as many in the U.S. by age 85
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31. Variations in Aging
• Socioeconomic Status (SES)
– well-educated, financially secure people
live longer, avoid chronic illness and
disability, and feel healthier than the
average person of their age, sex and
ethnicity
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