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AGEISM   
AGE-GRADING

ageism: the subtle or blatant dismissal
of your unique status and value as a human being

Do your aging experience in the best way possible! 

If you are one person who loves life and desires to do your "aging experience" in the best way possible, it may be time to do some research. How would quality of life work? Where would you start?

Some say a good idea is to begin by "cleaning out the attic" - tossing misconceptions and negative attitudes about advancing in years into the circular file.  You would need to think creatively for "de-Cluttering"  means  inspecting and disposing of some unhealthy - yet well-established -  stereotypes about aging and Older People.

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THE SOCIAL CLOCK - AGE-GRADING

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click the graphic for
SELF-GUIDED LEARNING TOURS
AND FREE PDF FILES ON AGEISM

AGE-GRADING- In sociology and anthropology, an age grade or age class is a form of social organization based on age, within a series of such categories, through which individuals pass over the course of their lives.

HEADS UP ! we all experience IT
if we are lucky to live long enough

“American society has been described as maintaining a stereotypical and often negative perception of older people [expressing a] negative and/or stereotypical perception of aging and aged individuals…[this is] readily apparent in such areas as language, media, and humor and has been termed "ageism". ~ Linda M. Woolf, Ph.D.

According to recent research, “Old people...prompt a range of negative feelings in others...chief among those is anxiety... a common response to older people among the young... old people remind us what may, or likely will, happen to all of us eventually.(Greenberg, Schimel, & Martens,). http://www.sagepub.com/upm-data/50361_ch_9.pdf

•  “The way that society carries certain expectations for behaviors for people of various ages (sometimes called the “social clock” or “age grading”) is ageist in that it segregates younger and older people into “us and them.” http://ow.ly/x9Epd    Gunhild O. Hagestad* and Peter Uhlenberg 
  

•  Gretchen Anderson, the healthcare designer, who said that if we view seniors through the products that are available to them, then they would be viewed as "cranky, stupid, and tacky" goes on to say that when we talk about needs of older people, "there is a tendency to imagine someone whose eyesight, dexterity, and hearing are so impaired that they are incapable of having an experience. "
  
  
•  She further notes, "It is therefore assumed that they [we] will make do with, or perhaps even prefer, a mechanistic, bulky product that smells like a hospital.’   Anderson, G. (2006) Frog design mind: product design for the elderly, online at http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/columns/ frog-design-mind-169097.

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AGEISM & AGE-GRADING
 9 Examples of Ageism and Age-Grading

HOW MANY HAVE YOU  EXPERIENCED  OR PLACED ON YOURSELF? 

Ageism & Age-Grading  a subtle or blatant dismissal of you as a person  can take on many forms.  Most older adults experience  being misjudged and marginalized. In some instances, there can even be disrespect in the form of subtle or blatant dismissal of your value.

1. Joking about “senior moments” and memory loss.
   
   
2.  Medical professionals talking over or past an Older Person
   as if he/ she is not present.
   
   
3. Younger adults mocking older adults ( boomers ) for being “slow.”
   
   
4. Ads that depict boomers and older adults as out of date
   and/or lacking knowledge about modern culture and new technologies.
   
   
5. A patronizing attitude/reference in writing or speech
   towards older adults -  as in “Our Seniors.”
   

source: ALFA

6.A soft drink commercial features an older man and his grandson. The man’s hand is shaking so much from the ravages of age that his grandson is able to exploit his condition and shake up a bottled beverage.

7.An office supply company commercial features an older woman and her family. In this ad, a confused woman takes a photograph of her family with a stapler.

8.An ad for bottled water features an older man in a nursing home. After drinking the vitamin-infused beverage, the man gains the strength to flirt with his nurse.

9.An ad that first ran during the Super Bowl features an older couple. Fighting over a bag of chips, they push each other to the floor and hit each other with their canes. The woman loses the battle and winds up holding her husband’s dentures." 
http://www.aging.org/i4a/pages/Index.cfm?pageID=1929

off their rockers ?

or just having fun ?

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TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE

10 TRUE  or FALSE Questions

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 answer the following  true or false questions to test your knowledge about aging

1.The majority (more than 50%) of older adults will become senile (defective memory, disoriented, demented) during old age.
T___ F ___

2.Most older adults have no desire or capacity for sexual relations. In other words, most older adults are typically asexual.
T___ F ___

3.Chronological age is the most important determinant of someone's age.
T___ F ___

4.Most older adults have difficulty adapting to change. In other words, they tend to be set in their ways
T___ F ___

5.Physical handicaps are the primary factors limiting the activities of older adults.
T___ F ___

6.Declines in all five senses normally occur in old age.
T___ F ___

7.Older adults are incapable of learning new information. In other words, "you can't teach an old dog new tricks"
 T___ F ___

8.Physical strength tends to decline in old age.
T___ F ___

9.Intelligence tends to decline with old age.
T___ F ___

10.The majority of older adults say that they are happy most of the time.
T___ F ___

click here link  to correct answers

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counteracting

Age-Grading and Ageism
CHANGE  STARTS WITH Y O U

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 “As with any 'ism', age-ism  can impact one's self-esteem and limit human potential. Older adults are a valuable resource in our society, both economically and socially."

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POSITIVE AGING®

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Richard Ambrosius is an evangelist for positive aging, marketing strategist, storyteller and motivator. He is currently the Principal at Positive Aging®, a consultancy he first launched in 1997.He has served the start-up brain fitness company, NeoCORTA, two national senior living development and management companies, one of the nation’s first free-standing Area Agencies on Aging, and chaired the Rebranding Aging Task Force for the International Council on Active Aging (ICAA) that their Changing the Way We Age Campaign.

In 1976, he began a career in aging as Executive Director of a not-for-profit Area Agency on Aging in Northwest Iowa. In 1980, President Reagan appointed Dick as the youngest member of the National Advisory Committee to the 1981 White House Conference on Aging where he delivered a keynote address on rural aging.  He founded one of the first full-service marketing firms (1982) to specialize in older markets. He has conducted presentations in 49 states and within numerous Fortune 500 corporations.

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Action to Dissolve Age-Grading

ACTION ? click here

National Issues Forums (NIF) is a network of civic, educational, and other organizations, and individuals, whose common interest is to promote public deliberation in America. It has grown to include thousands of civic clubs, religious organizations, libraries, schools, and many other groups that meet to discuss critical public issues. Forum participants range from teenagers to older adults, prison inmates to community leaders, and literacy students to university students.

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