Many psychological disorders take place much later in life and they are usually precipitated by common crises of aging as well as changes that happen physically, socially and cognitively. There’s a rather significant alteration in our body image with aging process and it is often accompanied with diseases. People also experience a decrease in self-esteem because of retirement and progressive role change status. Older people are also more likely to experience the loss of family members and close friends because of natural deaths or actual separations in another state or country. All these factors could have an impact on their psychological well-being. Another major aspect that contributes strongly to psychological problems is that many elderly are willing to accept these disorders. They will endure depression and pain; and think of them as natural part of any aging process. They do not seek help and professional assistance until it becomes acute and more severe problems start to appear.
Common symptoms that appear with psychological disorders may include: withdrawal from daily activities that they enjoyed before. They may also lack of interest in maintaining physical appearance. Elderly with psychological disorders could also experience insomnia, hostility, delusions, constipation or diarrhea, loss of appetite, suspiciousness, feelings of becoming powerless and many other somatic complaints. When elderly parents or friends are exhibiting these common symptoms, it should be imperative that they be physically and mentally examined by medical professionals first hand. This should be performed before any other treatments are performed. Many of these problems can be associated with typical medical diagnoses.
It should be quite normal for our brain to slowly age and weakened like the rest of the body. With aging, there are multiple changes in our memory performance, too. We don’t learn as quickly compared to when we were much younger. However, we should be able to learn various new information. Elderly have more moments where they forget easily and they cannot recall someone’s name. This should be considered as a normal part of any change that could occur with aging process. Millions of people in United States have various levels of cognitive impairments. This number tends to increase as a specific group of population known as “Baby Boomers” begin to increase in age. Alzheimer’s is one of the mental problems that start from physical brain illness. In recent years, Alzheimer’s disease is much more widely publicized in the media and various circles of health-care professionals.
Clinicians are now able to diagnose patients with Alzheimer’s quiote accurately, although full confirmation can only be possible with autopsy. In this case, pathologists typically can find disease’s characteristic tangles and plaques in affected brain tissue. Clinicians usually diagnose “probable” Alzheimer’s patients by taking a comprehensive medical history and performing lab tests, brain scans and physical exam. They also conduct neuropsychological tests that gauge attention span, memory retention, problem-solving abilities and language skills. The most common sign of Alzheimer’s disease should memory loss with mood swings and erratic behaviours.