Old Myths: Frequent Misconceptions about the Elderly

Abstract

It is perhaps only human to be influenced by the worse case examples, and negative stereotypes of older people will be hard to reverse, but to see all older people as being frail, dependent and diseased is a serious and unjustifiable distortion of the true picture. Sociodemographic trends justify society’s concern about the impact of the growing number of older people, but for many the prospect of an ageing population is not simply about numbers, since their fears are greatly influenced by the prevailing images of old age. It is likely that when asked to think of an old person, most of us, whether lay or professional, are likely to picture a frail, bent person, slow to move and think and short of memory. More specific medical stereotypes such as incontinence, dementia and deafness are also likely to spring to mind. As with many commonly held beliefs, there is some basis for this one. The prevalence of disease and dependency problems is higher in the over-65-year-old age group, and the frequency of reported health problems increases with advancing years (Abrams, 1978; Office of Population Censuses and Surveys, 1982; Ford and Taylor, 1985). These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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