Introduction
Hello everyone, my name is Corissa, but my family just calls me Roo. One thing that I would like to share about myself is that I am a cat lover and I own a tuxedo cat named Gucci. When it comes to my experience with older adults, I would say most, or maybe even all, of my experience is personal, more so than professional. I was raised by my grandparents for my preteen/ teen years so I spent alot of time around older adults and have even helped in the caring of them. From this class, I hope to gain more knowledge on older adults from a professional stance. Hopefully, this class will even give me some insight into whether I would be interested in working with this age group once I graduate.
The Meaning of Aging
When it comes to the two terms, “older adulthood” or “later life”, these terms for me refer to an age group or phase in life that I have not gotten the chance to experience for myself yet. When I hear these terms, I usually imagine someone older, around the age of 65 and up. I believe when I hit 65 years old, I will consider myself an older adult. I envision myself as a short older adult with gray hair that is hopefully in great health and happy with the life I have lived and am currently living. I believe my health will be fairly well, and I’ll spend most of my time with my grandkids, traveling, or keeping myself active by volunteering for different groups. I can’t decide if time with my family will bring me the most pleasure or the groups I volunteer for. There are only really two problems that I particularly fear about becoming an older adult, and those are diabetes and a heart attack. Diabetes is concerning to me because most older adults in my family are diabetic. The fear of a heart attack comes from my mom passing from a heart attack recently, before she even reached 60.
Corissa,
Thank you for sharing your experiences and your thoughts. We all appreciate it. And hello to Gucci from my fur baby Sonny (yellow lab). I understand fur babies. You have a unique perspective being raised by your grandparents. Not everyone has that opportunity. Just being with older adults provides a perspective you can’t get any other way.
I hope that our class can give you additional information and understanding about the realities of older adults. I think Cruikshank offers some challenges to the traditional theories of aging, and Aronson challenges the response of the medical establishment. And the podcasts we will be discussing can provide you with insights from professionals who are working with older adults now.
I look forward to many more conversations.
Dr P