There are 46 million people over the age of 65 in the U.S. By 2050, about 30 percent of the entire population in this country will be over 60, a staggering rise from the current level of about 20 percent.Image may be NSFW.
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Experts at the National Institute of Mental Health point out that about two million seniors today suffer from clinical depression, which is often brought on by discouraging bouts with physical ailments like Parkinson’s disease, arthritis, cancer, Alzheimer’s and heart disease.
It’s a downward spiral of physical-mental health challenges for millions of seniors, many of whom are not even financially equipped to deal with medical bills that routinely accompany multiple trips to doctors’ offices, clinics and hospitals for treatment.
According to the Social Security Administration, people who reach the age of 65 can expect to live until their mid-eighties, but in many cases that just means more physical and mental health problems, not to mention the added financial stress.
The Statistics are Daunting
The raw numbers are frightening: almost 35 percent of all older people who lose a spouse becomes seriously depressed for up to a year after the loss. Among that group, about half of them will remain depressed for the rest of their lives.
Healthcare expenses for older people with depression are more than 45 percent higher than for older citizens who don’t suffer from depression. In addition to problems like depression, elders face an increased chance of contracting physical maladies like cancer, diabetes, osteoporosis and dozens of other serious medical conditions.
The sad fact of human nature is that the body begins to wear itself down, even under the best of circumstances, after about five decades of life. Past the mid-sixties, all the statistics get much worse.
Given the plethora of potential problems older Americans face, it’s understandable that many seniors have trouble sleeping, or spend a large amount of their free time worrying about what ill circumstances might befall them in the not-so-distant future.Image may be NSFW.
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What are the most common worries, concerns, and fears for a typical senior citizen? The list includes things like dementia, sickness, becoming homeless, loss of independence, loneliness, loss of family members, dying, having to deal with poverty, loss of personal dignity and many more.
Common Fears for Aging Senior Citizens
It’s bad enough to lay awake each night worrying about money, health problems, being alone, losing family or friends, the onset of disease, issues related to physical pain, and an entire universe of financial problems. What’s worse is when many of these fears become reality. Here’s a short list of common reasons senior citizens worry about the future:
Health Care Expenses
A natural result of increased need for health care means greater expenses. With advancing age, people necessarily spend a greater portion of their limited incomes on hospital bills, doctor visits, treatments for all sorts of illnesses and other health-related problems. Compared to every other age demographic, those in the over-65 group rack up more hospital days and doctor visits year after year.
While Medicare, which typically covers about 80 percent of some medical expenses, does help those over 65, many elderly folks are responsible for huge amounts that they can neither afford or plan for. Significantly, Medicare doesn’t pay for some of the biggest medical bills seniors encounter, like mental health treatment, nursing home charges, home care expenses, or prescription drugs.
And when it comes to full-time nursing home care, most seniors can’t afford the quality of service they so desperately need. In the U.S., as in many other countries, nursing homes are notorious for being exceedingly costly and for offering less than ideal levels of care. In fact, some seniors end up getting worse care in nursing homes than anywhere else.
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Homes that struggle to maintain skilled staff, which is a common problem, can cause residents to end up in situations of neglect or even abuse. Seniors who know that nursing home care is in their future often suffer from extreme anxiety and depression as the time draws near for moving into a home.
Elder Abuse
No one can say for sure exactly how many older citizens are the victims of elder abuse because law enforcement statistics are sketchy at best. Experts note that the majority of cases go unreported for various reasons. One common estimate is that about one-tenth of all U.S. seniors have been subjected to at least one incident of elder abuse, whether physical, psychological, sexual, financial or emotional.
Many healthcare professionals believe that elder abuse actually has the ability to shorten a person’s life when the circumstances are severe, as in the loss of savings, medical neglect or mental torment.
Seniors who stay in close contact with friends, family and their medical support teams are able to minimize the chances that they will become abuse victims. Still, older adults often worry about their increasing vulnerability to this type of problem.
Inability to Handle Common Daily Tasks
A common concern, even among people who have not yet reached “senior citizen” status, is the fear of being unable to conduct one’s daily life. Normal tasks like cooking a meal, getting dressed, bathing, doing laundry, walking to the mailbox, remembering to take medicine, making phone calls, using the computer for routine communication, and staying in touch with friends and family often become difficult or impossible with advancing age.
What medical professionals refer to as “activities of daily living” include all those things younger people take for granted but seniors often struggle with.
Mental and Physical Problems
Plenty of seniors never face any serious mental or physical health issues at all until their dying days, after reaching their nineties in many cases. But statistics are against them. As human beings begin to reach their late seventies, a multitude of physical and mental problems can begin to surface.
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The brain, bones, muscles, general mobility, hearing, vision, and other bodily systems go into a natural state of decline. In addition, about ten percent of people over 65 suffer from various forms of dementia, Alzheimer’s disease is the most prevalent, and the most devastating.
Among the over-65 population, nearly 65 percent require help with one or more activities of daily living (ADLs), like doing laundry, brushing their teeth or making a simple meal.
This natural, and often obvious, loss of function leads millions of elderly people to fear the very real possibility of mental and physical disease.
Losing Their Homes
The prospect of losing one’s home is a very real fear that occupies the minds of many seniors. Currently, about a third of all subsidized living quarters in the U.S. are occupied by seniors, many of whom had to move out of their own homes for physical or mental health reasons.
Loneliness and Grief
There are significant mental health issues related to the fear of being alone. Loneliness, often brought on by the death of a spouse, important family member or friend, can lead to social isolation, depression and sometimes a total withdrawal from society.
Grief is a commonplace challenge for older people whose fears already include so much else. The most common source of grief is the loss of a spouse. Most every senior citizen whose husband or wife gets ill endures the lingering worries that often accompany a serious illness.
What’s more, seniors don’t have as many chances for social activity as younger people do. That’s just a fact of how society is structured, and it’s one reason nursing homes and assisted living facilities make such a concerted effort to get seniors “out and about,” mixing with others in games, shopping trips, hikes and whatever else they are physically able to handle.
As people age, the retire from their regular jobs, their spouses and close friends become ill and die, their children relocate, they sooner or later lose their capability to operate a car, and eventually face illness and death themselves.
Grief is bad enough, say experts, but it’s particularly difficult when someone faces the death of a spouse, around whom their whole life was organized. Grief typically leads to anxiety about “what else might happen” and often lasts long after the loved one passes away.
There’s typically a cascade of effects following a spouse’s death, including grief, depression, anxiety and the very real problem of loneliness. Because about one-third of all people over 65 live by themselves, social isolation and loneliness are two of the most persistently challenging problems that seniors face.
Declining Ability to Live and Independent Life
It’s noteworthy that one of the biggest areas of concern for older adults is neither a physical nor a mental health issue. It is the threat of losing independence as a result of increasing age. Every senior citizen knows the social repercussions of losing a driver’s license, becoming unable to lift any amount of weight, not knowing how to get in touch with medical personnel, and not being able to prepare one’s own meals.
Most people expend great effort throughout their lives learning how to live without help from others. As age advances, we all have to face the prospect of giving up some of those responsibilities. That’s only natural and everyone expects it to happen. But once independence begins to gradually evaporate, seniors often become gripped with fear and anxiety. The most common triggering event is the loss of a driver’s license.
In American culture, that little document represents social, physical, and legal independence. When an older person has to give up the right to drive, whether as the result of memory, vision, hearing or other health problems, the sense of generalized anxiety can be overwhelming.Image may be NSFW.
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Accidents: Falls and Injuries
Do seniors lose sleep worrying about accidents and falls? Many not only lose sleep but express these serious concerns to health professionals. Weak bones and decreasing muscle mass means an increased likelihood of falling, breaking bones, head injury, and other common, but often quite serious, injuries.
Financial Instability
When retired people are hit with large medical or other kinds of bills, they often fall into a long-term financial hole. That’s because, unlike their younger counterparts, older folks are usually unable to work at a job that might help them pull through a monetary crisis in their lives.
The average senior citizen lives on a much lower income than younger people, and often on a fixed income. As the cost of living inevitably rises, oldsters find themselves in a money bind, unable to keep up with rising price levels.
In most cases, this typical dilemma results in a lowered standard of living. Many seniors who were used to a certain lifestyle, even a moderate one, are no longer able to maintain it. Alongside this common source of anxiety for older Americans is the additional concern about all sorts of unexpected expenses for healthcare and housing.
The Many Problems Of Growing Older
Even though Social Security benefits often help ease the financial pain faced by the elderly, about 65 percent of seniors who rely exclusively on Social Security find themselves living well below the government’s definition of “poverty.”
Facing a vast array of difficult circumstances facing older adults, not just in the U.S. but all over the world, it’s no wonder that even the healthiest of seniors begin to worry about what dangers might be lurking in the near future.
The entire scenario adds up to a modern world in which senior citizens often lose sleep simply from anxiety over what might happen to them in terms of health problems, financial setbacks, memory loss and other kinds of mental instability.
The good news is that there is help, and plenty of it. Organizations like the Alzheimer’s Foundation and the National Institute of Mental Health are just two of the dozens of entities that offer free, easily accessible resources for seniors who need help dealing with anxiety, loss of a loved one, financial insecurity, physical and mental health challenges and more. Most everyone has at least one senior citizen in their lives that could use a helping hand.
Because so many older adults are reluctant to ask for assistance, younger people who pro-actively offer a sympathetic ear or helping hand to their older acquaintances or family members can do a lot to resolve the modern-day dilemma that so many seniors face.