1. Lifespan: The Final Stage
Presented by Sharon J. Kernen, Ph.D.

2. I always prefer to believe the best of everybody, it saves so
much trouble.
~Rudyard Kipling~

3. 1902 to 1994

5. Reflection on who you have been and who
you are.
 What do you see? A life lived with
integrity or despair.
 Each has lived a full life of
accomplishments and failures.
 When you are able to embrace it all, you
have found WISDOM.

6.  Do you reap what you sow?
 Attachment dimensions are associated with
current and future care-giving, care-
receiving, and perception of carer burden
 Four main styles identified with adults:
 Secure
 Anxious-preoccupied
 Dismissive-avoidant
 Fearful-avoidant
Investigators tend to describe the core principles of
attachment theory in light of their own theoretical interests

7.  Attachment avoidance was associated
negatively with adult children’s future
care and positively with burden
 Contrastingly, attachment anxiety was
positively associated with older parent’s
seeking support, perception of burden,
and intention to seek further support

8.  Willingness to seek future care predicted
by anxiety
 Fear of abandonment and other
characteristics of attachment anxiety
 Anxious individuals’ need for validation and
reassurance, and extreme reliance on others
prompts seeking high levels of care and
excessive demands
 Anxious older parents may be aware of the
effects of their insecurity
RESEARCH IN THIS AREA IS STILL IN ITS INFANCY

10. Never look down on anyone, unless you are helping them up.

11.  GRIEF: keen mental suffering or distress over
affliction or loss; sharp sorrow; painful regret;
a cause or occasion of keen distress or sorrow.

12.  Kübler-Ross Model
1) Denial
2) Anger
3) Bargaining
4) Depression
5) Acceptance

13.  Complicated Grief: Those significantly
and functionally impaired by prolonged
grief symptoms for at least one month
after six months of bereavement.
 Chronic Grief: Different from normal
grief by feelings of hopelessness, loss of
meaning and/or belief systems, intense
preoccupation and longing for a lost
loved one or situation, apathy, a
lingering sense of disbelief about the loss,
avoidance of situations or thoughts that
are reminders of the loss.

14.  Dysfunctional Grieving is a maladaptive
emotional and behavioral response to
loss. It is in contrast to adaptive or
normal grieving, which progressively
moves the bereaved toward healing.
 Prolonged Grief Disorder refers to a
syndrome consisting of a distinct set of
symptoms following the death of a loved
one that are so prolonged and intense
that they exceed the expectably wide
range of individual and cultural
variability.

15. At times it feels as if aging is about nothing
but loss
 Health
 Physical function
 Friends and family move
 Kids go away to college
 Mental Capacity
 Chronic Pain
 Loss of energy
 Spousal death
 Death of friends, family, siblings
 Depleted income

16. Dementia too often becomes the final major
issue. Insecure attachment affects the ability
to elicit help from caregivers.

17. When we choose to surround
ourselves with lives even more
temporary than our own, it is a
fragile circle, easily breached.

18. • Feel productive, useful, and needed
• Engage actively in life in order to meet
their needs
• Feel companionship and closeness that
provides security, protection, and support
• Because of the responsibility, we take
better care of ourselves
• Feel touched physically and emotionally
• Someone to communicate with
• Feel unconditional love

19. You can never do a kindness too soon
because you never know when it will
be too late…Ralph Waldo Emerson

20.  In some ways, separation seems almost a
“rite of passage”
 At almost every major crossroads,
separation of some kind takes place
 Sometimes it seems an opportunity to
redefine yourself
 For the mature adult, it can be
devastating and lead to ANXIETY!

23.  Mature adults make up 12% of population and
account for 18% of suicides
 Some feel this is under-reported by 40% as
silent suicides are not counted
 High rate of completion
because they use firearms,
hanging and drowning

25. X
x

26.  Loss of interest
 Cutting back social interaction, self-care, and
grooming
 Going off diets and prescriptions
 Feeling hopeless, worthless
 Putting affairs in order, giving things away, or
making changes in wills
 Stock-piling medication or obtaining other
lethal means
 Preoccupation with death

27. Be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, tolerant of the weak,
because someday in your life you will be all of these.
~George Washington Carver~

28.  May your golden years be truly golden
 May you always find compassion
 May you always have someone to love
 May the road rise up to meet you and the wind
be ever at your back
 Embrace your life, complete with
accomplishments and failures, and know true
wisdom
Sharon J. Kernen, Ph.D.
kershar@comcast.net
505-263-8055