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ODs can help elderly patients maintain quality of life
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Most people disdain the aging process. To me, it is “much ado about nothing.” Age 65 is neither the beginning nor, it is hoped, the end of anything. It is a number, nothing more, nothing less. Life does not begin at age 50 or 65 or any particular age. Scientists refer to seasons or stages in the life cycle. There are tasks of “oldhood” just as there are tasks of childhood.
With advancing years, life can and should become richer and more enjoyable. For many, responsibilities have diminished. The children have earned their college degrees and are into their careers. Leisure time is available for involvement of enjoyable, rather than mandated, activities. When physical powers lessen, one’s mind can continue to give meaning and satisfaction to life. Learning is a lifelong experience.
One has to live and enjoy each day, whatever the chronological age.
Considering the adage, “I have never been this old previously,” each day holds the promise of being new and exciting. We have the opportunity to experience new developments, respond to new challenges, satisfy curiosities, enjoy pleasure, aid one’s fellow man, and strive for happiness and fulfillment. We should also be better able – with increased experience and maturity – to cope with life’s inevitable conflicts and disappointments.
Alfred A
Rosenbloom Jr.
As one gerontologist wrote recently, “For all the discrimination against it, the elderly is the only minority that most people would prefer to join.” Indeed, the over-80 population is growing four times faster than any other segment. The majority of our patients suffer from ocular health diseases that occur most commonly in this age group: age-related macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy and glaucoma.
The conferring of “veteranship” on this group is patronizing, demeaning, even insulting, and certainly unwanted. Its members are no different from Americans generally, and they wish to be treated that way. What is needed is a fundamental change of popular attitudes to abolish the now-irrelevant mystique of age 65. Until such change of outlook takes place, it will be almost impossible to put into place new public policies appropriate to the changes that have taken place in the human life course.
Alan Pifer proposes a new concept that embodies, symbolically, a new approach. He calls it the “third quarter of life” – the years from about 50 to 75. This concept assumes that everyone is now going to live to the age of 100 – a somewhat tongue-in-cheek suggestion, although more and more people are, in fact, going to reach that age. It rests also on empirical observation that significant changes take place in the lives of many people who are in their early 50s. The upper end of the third-quarter concept is determined by the readily observable fact that most people are vigorous, in good health, mentally alert and capable of making a productive contribution until they are at least 75. This may be a bit on the high side for some, but not for most.
A significant proportion of the population, about 20%, or some 50 million people, falls within the third quarter today. What is especially startling is that in the year 2010, some 85 million Americans are in the third quarter, and they make up close to a third of the population. How the nation deals with this large group of citizens and what opportunities it offers them to stay in the mainstream of its life constitutes a public policy issue of immense magnitude. Let us note with pride that the optometrist has an important role in providing comprehensive primary vision care to enhance the quality of life, with its pleasures and opportunities.