One of the problems that middle-agers face is caring for aged parents. One of the problems elderly people face is loss of independence and sometimes having to move in with children and in-laws. And some maY,have to play by new government rules in order to participate in various aid programs. At best, getting old creates a new set of problems for both the individual and society. In the remainder of this chapter we shall discuss the psychological aspects of these problems. A household made up of children, adolescents, youth, and old age certainly provides a laboratory setting for studying human relationships.
Decrease in Performance
From a rapidly increasing amount of research come some generalizations which add up to saying that aging is associated with a gradual decrease in the performance of most bodily organs. The speed of this change varies. however, from one organ system to another, even in the same individual. For example, muscle strength decreases 50 percent between the ages of thirty and ninety, while the speed of an impulse passing down a nerve fiber is reduced only 15 percent in this same time span. Among production workers only a slight decrease in productivity occurs after age forty-five. The decrease does not become substantial until age sixty. As for office workers, little if any decline occurs prior to age sixty, and the subsequent decline is minor.
Researchers looking for suggestions of changes in mental function resulting solely from age have found virtually no changes in the fifties that were inevitable. Some persons in their sixties and seventies show loss of memory, reasoning, and decision-making ;ibility, but m.any do not. It may be that the brain does not become exhausted so much by overwork as by what happens during the process of working . The individual may become worn out from the emotional stress accompanying the effort. Of course, there .may also be decline in the ability of the brain through distise.
