Older Adults and their way of life

Who are actually the old people?

Old people can roughly be divided into three parts, 'young-old' which is the term used for the age limit of 60-69, 'middle-old' for 70-79 and 'very old' which is 80+. Nowadays unfortunately, people hardly reach their 70's. If a survey is done and people are asked- "who are the old people and how would they describe them?'', then many will have various illustrations as retort, but similar answers that are expected are that the individual with wrinkles on the face, having droopy eyes, balding and if focused on the personality, then a person with the most experiences, yet naive due to the age, weak and having difficulties doing the daily life activities will be regarded as old people.

Their perspective of seeing life

Each individual has their own goals and targets to achieve and when it comes to the senior citizens, they see life in a bit distinct way; mostly in a colorful and lively way. Their life forward is kind of planned to them since they know everyday is just the same. They know life will go on without any drastic changes, so they accept whatever life has to offer. Mostly, they don't care what future has in hold for them and likes to go with the flow of time. Additionally, they are more optimistic and prefers to lean towards the bright and happy side. For them, peace is to sit back in a rocking chair, enjoy life with a book in their hand and sipping on their favorite beverage which for the most part is tea.

Loneliness, social isolation and unspoken emotions

Almost every time, it can be seen that one of the spouses die in old age before the other one, leaving him or her alone. For elderly people, the company of their respective spouses matters the most as they have no other thing to worry or contemplate about, for example, career, life goals and so on and so forth. Besides, the children forget their parents when they get older, leaving them lonely and that contributes to the enhancement of the risks of mental health issues. To an extreme point, they are forced to go to the old age home by their own children and expected to live the rest of the life there among strangers. Moreover, when any program or family event takes place, old people are neglected so they sit in the corner without any company, while the other ages of people have someone to talk to or share things with. These overwhelming emotions get piled up in their hearts and they, not being able to share their feelings with anyone, which result in health issues and sometimes a heart attack or a stroke.

Rights of the senior citizens

Older people face urgent and unusual challenges of human rights .In developed countries like USA, the aged population is provided with basic necessities and taken well care of by the government, while in developing countries like Bangladesh and India, the aged people who are poor are thrown out of their homes by their own children and having no other options left to them, they have to live on the streets begging, with no extra clothe to wear on winter and vulnerable to weather conditions. They are hopeless, hungry, dirty, helpless and without any choice, they have to depend on their fate or sometimes miracles to happen and think that they might have to breathe their last breaths on the streets. In order to prevent it, government should take immediate and fruitful measures to help these poor old humans by ensuring income security, housing, protecting services, utilities or the least that can be done is providing them with food so that they don't have to starve to death.

Is it truly the end phase of their life?

Logically speaking, old age is apparently the last stage of life, but there is an internal age for everyone. For instance, a person can be of age 70, but from inside he or she is still in their early 20's. They can still be young from heart and enjoy life like any other individual and most importantly, they can still learn new things, explore and travel places, improve their performance in a variety of expertise, create new memories and so much more. They can also join exercise groups, take part in many elderly-based competitions, learn instruments, go to parties arranged by people of the same age of them and make the best out of everything. It is time to do things which got missed out in their young period of time due to unavoidable situations and indeed age should never be a barrier for experimenting and celebrating the gift which is given to us called- life.