Aging As A State Of Decline - 1428 Words

1. In her speech, Jane Fonda spoke about aging and the effect that it can have on a person. Fonda talked about â€Å"Life’s Third act† or the last three decades of a person’s life. Fonda explained that the advances in medicine and technology enabled the human race to live longer than before (Fonda, 2012). According to Fonda, humans are living on average, thirty years longer than past generations. The human life span has been extended and humans are spending a great deal of their lives in older age (Fonda, 2012). Fonda explains that we should not accept aging as a decline to our mental and physical capacity. According to her, our spirits do not age but mature over time which explains why people over the age of fifty are generally happier, less†¦show more content†¦When I think of my patients who are totally dependent on us health care workers, I also think about myself when I am in that situation. It is unsettling to think that someday I would depend on s omeone to perform simple daily living activities that I have always done on my own. Fonda’s speech explains that we could find advantages to aging that only seen when we are at that stage. I still fear having to end up in a state of total dependence on someone else. However, as Fonda stated, it is how we approach those changes that will determine the quality of life that we would lead in old age (Fonda, 2012). 2. The MSNBC webcast recounts different stories of the aging population in America. One of the cases mentioned in the web cast is Arden peters and his wife Maxine. The aging theory of wear and tear can be applied to the case of Arden peters who has lost his wife Maxine due to dementia and Parkinson’s. He himself became too weak to care for himself due to the process of aging (MSNBC, n.d). He reached a point where he required someone to care for him. His friend Warren DeWitt is taking care of him and previously helped him take care of his wife until she passed away (MSNBC, n.d). The theory of wear and tear is based on the notion that aging is caused by damages done at the cellular level over time (Hawkley, Berntson, Engeland, Marucha, 2005). The processes that could damage the cells could be sickness, radiation, and accumulation of toxic materials over time