Age or discrimination due to age 7 examples

Ageism occurs when age is used to categorize and divide people, causing damage, injustices and disadvantages.

Ageism can adopt various forms, such as discrimination, prejudices, policies and practices that accentuate these stereotyped beliefs. Can influence both psychologically and behavioral and physiological. To level psychological, People who perceive negative stereotypes about their age can experience stress. Behaviorally, An unfavorable image that a person of herself can lead to incurring not adequate behaviors, such as neglecting the guidelines of prescribed medications. To level physiological, Stereotypes indicate brain changes that are later evidence.

Origin of age

Ageism was a term established in 1968 by the psychiatrist and gerontologist Robert Butler, who categorized it based on three elements: attitudes towards older people, advanced age and aging process.

According to Stephany Bravo-Segal and Feliciano Villar, in their study on the representation of the elderly in the media during the COVID-19 pandemic, the communication media play an important role in ageism. For example, they emphasize that 71.4 % of the headlines analyzed represented in an unfavorable way to the elderly, presenting them as a homogeneous group and associating them with deaths, deficiencies in residential care or extreme vulnerability. In addition, pejorative and improper terms predominated, such as "elders" or "grandparents", with which a negative representation was made.

Bravo-Segal and Villar highlight that with the Covid-19 pandemic, a narrative ageista of the elderly was reinforced, based on the decline, fragility and dependence to justify discriminatory practices aimed at that sector of the population.

In the speech, ageism was presented through expressions around aging, including those gerontophobic. Speech age also manifested itself in the use of paternalistic or infantilizing expressions, which assumed that the cognitive level and the ability to understand the elderly were lower.

Gerascophobia: obsession for not aging

In addition to this, the aforementioned authors found some medical practices aimed at, in situations of resource scarcity, Discard the application of some adult treatments by virtue, only, from an age criteria.

Likewise, the holders reflected the proposal of some health authorities that the measures of social isolation and subsequent distrust had as criteria the age, establishing the most durable or severe to the elderly of a certain age, arguing an alleged protection.

Such measures, the Negative treatments and imposition of greater confinement, They were based on fragility and helplessness, without considering the diversity that exists in the elderly, thus promoting a paternalistic stigmatization and overprotection, in addition to violation of the rights of the elderly and the principle of equality.

Manifestations of age

Ageism can manifest in different areas that range from work to the family.

1. At work: Prejubilations are made, since older people have a lot of experience and this is a higher salary. Another fact is not to hire older people, preferring the youngest, or resorting to mandatory retirements.
2. In the health: People who suffer a negative treatment for their age can suffer from depression.
3. In the economy: many people, due to their age, do not have access to certain advantages or services that others do.
4. In the family: Many times it happens in the family, when they consider that the elderly are not useful or treat them as if they were children.
5. In love: The belief that older people do not need their sexuality or that this is very rare predominates.
6. Intensed age: When they take advantage of the vulnerability of the elderly, as in financial scams or stereotypes of the elderly in advertising or media campaigns.
7. Involuntary: With attitudes or ideas that are exclusive, such as the absence of ramps, railings or elevators.

Ageism can lead to the elderly have less productivity, autonomy or cardiovascular stress.

The most worrying thing is that, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), one in two people in the world have ageist attitudes, which impoverishes the mental and physical health of the elderly, reducing their quality of life. In addition, in the elderly, ageism is associated not only to a worse physical and mental health, but also to greater isolation, loneliness, financial security, lower quality of life and higher rates of premature deaths, according to WHO.

WHO also estimates that 6.3 million cases of depression worldwide are attributable to ageism. In countries such as Australia it is estimated that, if 5 % of people over 54 had a job, AUD $ 48 would be generated every year. 000 million in the economy.

It is necessary to generate a movement, such as the WHO, to change the way in which it is thought, feel and act in relation to age and aging, in order to move towards healthy aging.

Unfortunately, the Covid-19 pandemic show Therapies that save lives.

Age at which we start aging, according to study

Bibliography

• Bravo-Segal, s., & Villar, F. (2020). The representation of the elderly in the media during the Covid-19 pandemic: towards a reinforcement of ageism? [OLDER PEOPLE REPRESENTATION ON THE MEDIA DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC: A REINFORCEMENT OF AGEISM?]. Espanola de Geriatria and Gerontology, 55 (5), 266-271. https: // doi.org/10.1016/J.REGG.2020.06.002
• Bravo-Segal, s. (2018). Age in mass media: a form of discursive abuse towards older people. Speech & society, (1), 1-28.
• Hopf, s., Walsh, k., Flynn, e., & Georgantzi, N. (2021). The Relationship Between Ageism and Well-Being as Mediated Through Covid-19-Related Experiences and Discourses. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18 (19), 10490. https: // doi.org/10.3390/IJERPH181910490
• Tarazona-Santabalbina, f. J., Martínez-Velilla, n., Vidán, m. T., & Garcia-Navarro, J. TO. (2020). COVID-19, Elderly and Ageism: Errors that will never happen again. Spanish journal of geriatrics and gerontology, 55 (4), 191.