What is Gerontology?

Summary

In this enlightening talk, Kiren Emerson, a gerontologist at the University of Georgia, emphasizes the importance of gerontology, the study of aging, for both personal and professional reasons. She highlights the rapid growth of the aging population, debunks common myths about aging, and illustrates how understanding this demographic shift is crucial for various careers and societal structures. Emerson encourages learning about gerontology to navigate an aging society effectively.

Takeaways

• 📚 Gerontology is an interdisciplinary field that studies aging at the individual and population level, incorporating knowledge from biology, humanities, public policy, economics, sociology, psychology, and public health.
• 👨‍🏫 Kiren Emerson, a gerontologist at the University of Georgia, emphasizes the importance of gerontology for both personal and professional reasons, highlighting its relevance in various aspects of life and careers.
• 📈 By 2030, the number of older adults in the U.S. is projected to increase to 72 million, representing about 20% of the population, indicating a significant demographic shift.
• 👶 The baby boomer generation, born between 1946 and 1964, is a major contributor to the aging population, with every 8 seconds a baby boomer turning 65 for the next 18 years.
• 🌐 Life expectancy has increased significantly, with Japan at 83 years and the United States at 78.6 years, reflecting a global trend of longer lifespans.
• 📊 Population pyramids illustrate the aging process, showing an increase in the number of older adults and centenarians, and a notable difference in the number of women compared to men.
• 👵 The aging population has personal implications for everyone, as we all age and may need to support older family members or become caregivers ourselves.
• 💼 Careers in various fields, from healthcare to fashion, will be impacted by the aging population, requiring professionals to have knowledge in gerontology to better serve an older demographic.
• 🏢 The increase in life expectancy and aging population will affect societal structures, including education, housing, and public policy, necessitating adjustments to accommodate the needs of older adults.
• 🧐 Common myths about aging are debunked in the script, such as the misconception that all older adults are sick, live in nursing homes, or lack interest in sexual relations.
• 📘 For those interested in learning more about gerontology, the University of Georgia's Institute of Gerontology offers programs including undergraduate classes, a graduate certificate, and a master's degree with a focus on aging.

Q & A

What is the main focus of gerontology according to Kiren Emerson?

Gerontology is the study of aging at the individual and population level, encompassing an interdisciplinary field that includes information from biology, humanities, public policy, economics, sociology, psychology, and public health.

How does gerontology differ from geriatrics?

Gerontology focuses on the study of aging and its impact on society and the aging process, while geriatrics is the clinical and medical side of caring for older adults, which is left to clinicians known as geriatricians.

What is the projected number of older adults in the US by 2030?

By 2030, the projections indicate that there will be 72 million older adults, which is about 20% of the population.

Why is Georgia an interesting state to examine in terms of aging demographics?

Georgia has the fourth fastest-growing population of older adults, largely due to the baby boom generation, making it a significant state to study aging demographics.

How frequently are baby boomers turning 65 each day?

For the next 18 years, every 8 seconds a baby boomer turns 65, which amounts to over 10,000 a day.

What does the life expectancy look like in Japan compared to the United States?

In Japan, the life expectancy is 83 years, whereas in the United States, it is slightly lower at 78.6 years.

What does the term 'Elder speak' refer to and why is it considered inappropriate?

Elder speak refers to the practice of talking to older adults as if they are children. It is considered patronizing and condescending, and it is important to treat older adults with respect as adults.

What is one of the myths about aging that Kiren Emerson dispels in the script?

One myth dispelled is that all older adults are sick and disabled, which is not true as most older adults describe their health as good, very good, or excellent.

How can gerontology be relevant to a career in fashion design?

Gerontology can be relevant to a career in fashion design by considering the needs and preferences of older adults, such as designing clothes that are easy to put on and remove for those with arthritis.

What is the percentage of older adults living in nursing homes at any given time?

Less than 5% of older adults live in nursing homes at any given time, indicating that it is not as common as some might believe.

What is the University of Georgia's Institute of Gerontology offering in terms of educational programs?

The University of Georgia's Institute of Gerontology offers an undergraduate class called 'Aspects of Aging,' a graduate certificate in Gerontology, and a Master's in Public Health with a focus on Aging.

Outlines

00:00

📚 Introduction to Gerontology

Kiren Emerson, an expert in gerontology at the University of Georgia, introduces the field as an interdisciplinary study of aging at both individual and societal levels. Gerontology differs from geriatrics by focusing on the societal impact of aging rather than medical aspects. The speaker emphasizes the importance of understanding gerontology for both personal and professional reasons, highlighting the rapid growth of the aging population, especially in the United States and Georgia. The speaker also discusses the significant increase in life expectancy and the implications of an aging society, using population pyramids to illustrate demographic shifts over time.

05:00

👩‍⚕️ The Relevance of Gerontology in Various Careers

The script discusses the relevance of gerontology across various professions, noting a shortage of geriatricians and the need for more healthcare workers to cater to the aging population. It points out that even careers not traditionally associated with aging, such as web development, law, and fashion design, will be impacted by the demographic shift. The speaker also addresses societal and public policy implications of an aging population, such as retirement, healthcare, pension plans, and social security, emphasizing the far-reaching effects on all aspects of society.

10:01

🧐 Debunking Myths About Aging

The final paragraph tackles common misconceptions about aging, such as the patronizing treatment of older adults, the arbitrary nature of age 65 as a marker of old age, and the stereotype that all older adults are sick or live in nursing homes. The speaker refutes myths about memory loss, personality changes, and the capacity for learning new things in old age. They also correct the belief that older adults are not interested in or capable of sexual relations, emphasizing the importance of understanding and respecting the diversity and individuality of older adults.

Keywords

💡Gerontology

Gerontology is the study of aging at both the individual and population levels. It is an interdisciplinary field that draws from various disciplines such as biology, humanities, public policy, economics, sociology, psychology, and public health. In the video, gerontology is presented as an exciting and important field that influences and is influenced by society, and it is the central theme around which the entire discussion is structured.

💡Geriatrics

Geriatrics is the branch of medicine that focuses on the clinical care of elderly people. It is distinct from gerontology in that it deals with the medical and health aspects of aging, whereas gerontology has a broader scope. In the script, the speaker clarifies the difference by stating that gerontologists do not deal with the clinical side of aging, which is the domain of geriatricians.

💡Interdisciplinary

Interdisciplinary refers to an approach that integrates knowledge and methods from multiple academic disciplines to solve complex problems or to understand phenomena that cannot be adequately addressed by a single discipline. In the context of the video, gerontology is described as an interdisciplinary field, highlighting its integration of various fields to study aging from multiple perspectives.

💡Aging Population

An aging population refers to a demographic trend where the median age of a population increases, typically due to declining fertility rates and increased life expectancy. The video emphasizes the growing number of older adults, particularly in the United States and Georgia, and how this trend will impact society, making gerontology a relevant field of study.

💡Baby Boomers

Baby Boomers are individuals born during the post-World War II baby boom, between 1946 and 1964. The video discusses the significant impact of this generation on the aging population, as they are reaching the age of 65 at a rate of over 10,000 per day, contributing to the increase in the number of older adults.

💡Life Expectancy

Life expectancy is a statistical measure of the average number of years a person may expect to live, based on their year of birth. The script mentions the increase in life expectancy from 47 in 1900 to 78.6 in the United States and 83 in Japan, illustrating the reason behind the growing aging population and the importance of gerontology.

💡Population Pyramid

A population pyramid is a graphical illustration that shows the age and gender distribution of a population, typically with age groups represented on the horizontal axis and the number of people on the vertical axis. The video uses population pyramids to visually demonstrate the changes in age distribution over time, showing the increase in the number of older adults and the implications for society.

💡Caregiver

A caregiver is someone who provides care to an individual who cannot fully care for themselves, often due to age or illness. The script discusses the likelihood of becoming a caregiver at some point in one's life and how knowledge from gerontology can assist in guiding both the caregiver and the elderly person through the caregiving process.

💡Professional Relevance

Professional relevance refers to the applicability of a field of study or knowledge to one's career or professional life. The video argues that gerontology has professional relevance across various careers, not just in obvious fields like geriatrics, but also in less intuitive ones such as web development, law, fashion design, and even pizza delivery, due to the broad impact of an aging society.

💡Public Policy

Public policy refers to the decisions made by governments that affect the whole society. In the context of the video, public policy is discussed in relation to how an aging population influences various aspects of society, including retirement, healthcare, pension plans, and social security programs, highlighting the need for gerontological knowledge in policy-making.

💡Myths about Aging

The video addresses several common misconceptions or myths about aging, such as the belief that older adults should be treated as children, that turning 65 automatically makes one old, or that all older adults are sick and disabled. These myths are debunked to challenge stereotypes and emphasize the diversity and capabilities of older adults, reinforcing the importance of understanding aging from a gerontological perspective.

Highlights

Gerontology is an interdisciplinary field that studies aging at the individual and population level, incorporating knowledge from various disciplines such as biology, humanities, public policy, economics, sociology, psychology, and public health.

Gerontology differs from geriatrics, which focuses on the clinical and medical aspects of aging.

By 2030, the number of older adults in the US is projected to increase to 72 million, representing 20% of the population.

Georgia has the fourth fastest-growing population of older adults, largely due to the baby boomer generation.

Life expectancy has increased significantly, with Japan at 83 years and the US at 78.6 years as of the transcript's knowledge cutoff.

Population pyramids illustrate the aging population, with a notable increase in the number of centenarians and people in their 90s.

The aging population has significant implications for personal and professional life, affecting various careers and industries.

Geriatricians are in short supply, with only four certified geriatricians for every 10,000 people aged 75 and older in the US.

There is a growing need for healthcare direct workers to support the aging population.

Physical therapists will likely have many older clients due to the high prevalence of chronic conditions among older adults.

Even careers not traditionally associated with aging, such as web development and fashion design, can benefit from gerontological knowledge.

Aging impacts society and public policy, including education, housing, social security programs, and retirement.

Common myths about aging, such as the belief that all older adults are sick and disabled or live in nursing homes, are debunked.

Older adults are a diverse group with varying life experiences and should not be generalized.

The University of Georgia's Institute of Gerontology offers programs for those interested in studying gerontology.

Gerontology is relevant to everyone, as society is aging and understanding this field is essential for both personal and professional development.

Transcripts

my name is Kiren Emerson I'm a

gerontologist at the University of

Georgia I really believe that everyone

should take an interest in the field of

gerentology because not only is it

important to you professionally but also

personally and I hope to over the next

few minutes convince you that this is an

incredibly important field that everyone

should take an interest in let's just

start with the basics what is

gerontology and how is it different from

geriatrics gerontology is the study of

Aging at the individual and the

population

level it's an interdisciplinary field so

we take information from biology from

Humanities public policy economics

sociology psychology Public Health un

name it we do a lot and that's what

makes this field so exciting we look at

how aging influences society and how

Society can influence the aging process

we look at disease patterns and we

examine how we can age successfully and

healthfully we look at public policy and

how aging can influence those pretty

much the only thing we do not do is look

at the clinical and medical side of

things we leave that to the clinicians

which we call

geriatricians now that I've given you

idea of what gerontology is let's talk

about some statistics stay with me these

are pretty interesting in 2010 we had

about 40 million older adults about 13%

of the population that's already a lot

but by 2030 the projections are that

we're going to have 72 million older

adults about 20% of the population what

that means is that one out of every five

people are going to be age 65 and older

in

2030 in the US Georgia is actually a

particularly interesting state to look

at we have the fourth fastest growing

population of older adults this increase

is in great part due to the baby boom

generation they're the ones born between

1946 and 1964 did you know that for the

next 18 years every 8 seconds a baby

boomer turned 65 in total that's more

than 10,000 a day but that's not the

whole story life expectancy in general

is increasing in 1900 life expectancy

was 47 now in Japan life expect

expectancy is 83 in the United States

it's a little bit lower it's

78.6 let me show you what some of these

numbers look like using a pictoral

version of these numbers using

population pyramids on the left hand

side you have blue for boys and pink for

girls it's fairly straightforward and

down here you have these numbers of age

categories so at the very bottom you

have kids age0 to four and then as you

go up they get a little bit older these

are middle-aged people and all the way

at the very top these are the

centenarians 100 and older you can see

that aren't that many this is in 1950 so

it actually looks like a pyramid right

most people are down here at the bottom

which are the

children now let's see what happens up

until 2010 I'm just going to show you

what looks what it looks like every 5

years so this is 1960 1965 1970 80 85 90

95 2000 and let's stop at 2005 and see

what's happened since 1950 you can tell

already it doesn't look like a pyramid

anymore right most of the people

actually right here in this middle bulge

area which is where the Baby Boomers are

you can see lower fertility less babies

are being born and most importantly for

us as gerontologists you can see a lot

more people right up here so you see

that centenarians and people in their

90s are becoming more common you're also

going to notice there's way more women

than men and this is common in pretty

much every society in the world that

women live longer than men and you can

see that pictured right here so let's

look what that's going to look like in

the future we have projections up until

2050 and again this is going to go by 5e

increments 2010

2020

2030

2040 35 and let's stop at 2050 these are

projections and you can see it no longer

at all looks like a pyramid it actually

looks a little bit like an upside down

pyramid of sorts but mostly you can see

there's lots more people up here and

this is 70 this is about the 65 cutof

off point you can see a lot more

centenarians up there in 1950 that was

just a line so you can see a lot more

people up here so just from this easy

picture way of looking at the world you

can see that the world is aging and why

in the future gerontology is can become

more and more of an important field of

study so why do those numbers matter

well first it's personal you're aging

right now and everyone around you is

aging and you want to be able to face

that aging future with confidence and to

know what you can expect and you want to

be able to help those around you age

successfully even if you can't quite

imagine yourself as an aging adult right

now imagine those in your life that are

older like a grandparent or an older

Mentor you want to be able to know what

they're going through and to be able to

help them through their aging process

and odds are high that you might be a

caregiver at some point in your life and

the skills and information that you can

learn in gerontology can help you guide

that person and yourself through the

caregiving process second it's also

incredibly important for your

professional life might not seem

intuitive but pretty much any and all

careers that you choose are going to

somehow be related to aging there are

more obvious careers like geriatrician

but even those are in short supply right

now we have four certified geriatricians

in the US for every 10,000 person's age

75 and older it's not nearly enough and

only 1% of people in medical school are

choosing geriatrics as their specialty

so clearly it's going to be a shortage

in the future there are also not enough

Healthcare direct workers right now

we're going to need 1.1 million more of

those direct care workers to help with

our older

population then there's public health

workers the endless supply of

opportunities that you have for helping

with quality of life that's incredibly

important and physical therapists with

80% of older adults having at least one

chronic condition and 50% having two or

more you're going to have a lot of older

clients as a physical therapist even

careers that might not be so intuitive

to involve aging are going to involve

some gerontological knowledge what about

a pediatrician while grandparents

raising grandchildren is on the rise and

so you might see grandparents bringing

in their grandchildren into your office

what about developing a new website

a onethird of baby boomers are the ones

who are on the internet guess who has a

lot of money one study actually showed

at about 70% of the disposable income is

going to be among older adults in the

future so who are you going to advertise

to what about law while Wills in

Testament financial planning Healthcare

planning those are all going to bring

you older clients how about fashion

designer just because someone has

arthritis and has trouble with buttons

and zippers doesn't mean they don't want

to dress fashionably so having older

clients in mind for a fashion design can

be incredibly

important how about something like a

pizza delivery person a few years ago

there was a story in the newspaper that

an 82-year-old woman Jee Wilson had

ordered the same pizza every day for 3

years dietary choices aside one day she

didn't call in to order her usual

pepperoni pizza and the Domino's workers

got worried she didn't call in for 3

days and so one of the workers went out

to her house knocked on the door knocked

on the windows and she didn't answer so

that a pizza delivery person called 911

and they realized that Jean had fallen

and couldn't get up so the pizza

delivery person saved This Woman's life

so there's pretty much no career that

you can think of that isn't going to

have to do with

aging my third point about the impact of

Aging is what it has on society and

public policy if people are living that

much longer it's going to pretty much

affect every part of society and that

includes education housing churches

local governments public policy social

soci Security Programs you name it it's

going to be affected so let's just look

at one idea here what about retirement

if people live 30 years past their

retirement what's that going to look

like how is that going to influence

Healthcare in the country what about

pension plans what about savings Social

Security what about those people who

choose to retire but still want to be

engaged in the community are there

programs for them what about the people

who don't retire what are the

implications for you about that as you

can see just this one issue is really

intricately woven in our society and

there's so many more issues that we

could talk about so I hope that I've

convinced you that gerontology is

incredibly important but before I leave

you I want to challenge and talk about

some of the myths that you might know

about

aging the first myth is that it's okay

to treat an older adult as if they're a

child this is so common that we even

have a term for it we call it Elder

speak even if it's done unintentionally

it is not okay to talk to an older adult

as they're a child it's patronizing and

condescending so just talk to them as if

they're an adult and be respectful myth

number two a person becomes old the day

they turn 65 65 is actually a fairly

arbitrary number and you don't wake up

on your 65th birthday and all of a

sudden you're old and for a lot of

people old age is actually the best time

of their life just look at the Rolling

Stones they're still touring and

together their age is 270 or look at

Betty White she hosted Saturday Night

Live at the age of

88 myth number three all older adults

are sick and disabled or

both that's not true yes a lot of

conditions are related to old age and

yes physical changes will happen as you

age but that doesn't mean that all older

adults are sick and disabled in fact

most older adults actually describe

their health as good very good or even

excellent myth number four all older

adults live in a nursing home the

reality here is that actually less than

5% of older adults live in a nursing

home at any given time so it's not that

common myth number five old age is

accompanied by memory loss and dementia

while memory changes do occur with age

this varies greatly by people and

intelligence and creativity does not

necessarily Decline and while age is a

risk factor for dementia it is not a

normal part of aging myth number six

older adults are all alike older adults

are actually the most diverse group

you'll probably ever meet they've lived

long and varying lives and assuming that

they're all alike is just not accurate

myth number seven older adults have no

no interest in or capacity for sexual

relations that's not true like a lot of

other things sexual behavior in old age

looks a lot like it did for them in

their middle and younger years in fact

Studies have shown that it's more about

health not age per se and that about 70%

of men and women are still actively

engaged in sexual activities later in

life myth number eight personality

changes with age which is why there's so

many cranky old people out there that's

not true personality actually remains

fairly stable though some person it

traits become a little more pronounced

in old age so if you're a cranky person

now you're going to be a cranky old

person later myth number nine you can't

teach an old dog new tricks that's not

true older adults can learn new things

they might be a little bit slower but if

you give them some extra time a little

extra practice they can learn new things

just like anyone else myth number 10 I'm

not going to be a gerontologist or a

geriatrician so I don't need to know

about aging have you been listening to

me clearly you need to know about aging

you are aging and society around you is

aging and that's important to you both

professionally as well as personally so

you need to be prepared for an aging

Society now where can you find out more

about this right here at the University

of Georgia's Institute of gerontology we

offer several programs we have an

undergraduate class called aspects of

aging and we offer a graduate

certificate in gerontology you can do

that on its own or in combination with

another graduate degree in any field and

we also offer a masters in public health

with a focus on Aging if you want to

know more about any of these programs

just visit our website or give us a call

we'd love to hear from

you