Working with senior citizens is one of my specialties.
Many people find the transition from full time work to full time retirement difficult. Like all transitions, it creates anxiety and sometimes depression. We need to think about it and reorganize the way we spend our time. We need to think about the way it affects our relationships. Retirement requires some planning, just as a vacation does.
Gender differences
There seems to be a gendered trend among older couples. Women often take marital difficulties to heart, blame themselves or their partner, feel sad and worry. Men often do not want to talk about it, get frustrated and sad. A 2015 study supports these findings.
Volunteering helps senior citizens live longer and healthier lives.
According to recent research volunteering helps senior citizens live a longer and healthier life. Much of the research was conducted by: Dr. Linda Fried (dean of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University), Patricia Boyle (a neurologist with the Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago) and Becca Levy (a professor at the Yale School of Public Health)
What they found is that:
- Older adults with a positive self-perception of aging lived 7.5 years longer than those who were less positive (Yale and Miami University)
- Senior citizens who rated highly on a purpose of life scale had a 30% lower rate of cognitive decline than those with low scores (Rush University Medical Center)
- Residents of retirement communities and senior housing facilities with greater purpose in life had a reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease (Rush University Medical Center)
- Senior housing residents without dementia but with a greater purpose in life had a lower risk of developing impairment in basic activities of daily living and mobility (Rush University Medical Center)
- Experience Corps volunteers improved significantly in physical activity and mental health compared with other similar adults, a likely reason those with arthritis reported less pain and those with diabetes needed fewer diabetes medications (Johns Hopkins/Columbia/UCLA)
- People who’d volunteered in the previous 12 months had an improved their mood, lowered their stress levels and felt healthier, according to a 2013 UnitedHealth Group survey.
Volunteering “makes you happier and spares you depression. And heart attacks. It helps keep you sober, and boosts your immune system,” according to Barbara Bradley Hagerty. “A 2011 study from the University of Michigan, Stony Brook and the University of Rochester found that volunteering only lowers your mortality risk if you do it primarily to help others. There was no mortality benefit for people who volunteered for “self-oriented” reasons.
Carnegie Mellon found that 200 hours a year correlated to lower blood pressure, that’s about 4 hours a week.