Reaching Old Age: Tips for Entering Old Age with Less Anxiety and More Acceptance

In vortexFrom 2021, controversial Argentinian filmmaker Gaspar Noé chronicles the last days of an elderly couple’s life—played by master of horror cinema, Dario Argento, and French new wave icon, Françoise Lebrun—, to trace a hyperrealistic story elegy on the fears that fall back on old age.

The growing vulnerability, the threat of acute, chronic and mental illnesses, the fear of death, loss and oblivion appear in the story, without subtlety but nor with the usual exaggeration of the director of Irreversible. Tenderness and rawness mixed together: this is Noah’s image of the last stage of life, the vortex in which he remains before the irremediable end.

“Life is a dream, isn’t it?” Lebrun asks, while sharing a moment of peace with Argento. “Yes,” Argento replies, quoting Edgar Allen Poe: “A dream within another dream.”

The third age and the transition to it are periods of “high emotional turbulence”, as Mónica Gabler, psychologist and psychoanalyst in training at ICHPA describes it, due to a series of changes at the cognitive, physical, social, economic and cultural. level, which in addition they put people face to face with death. For the same reason, says Gabler, “it is common for states of sadness and restlessness to occur” and for psychological consultations to increase. “Not necessarily because of depression, but yes because of the depressive states necessary for work.”

However, to remain in the idea that old age is only a nightmare would be a serious error. Of course, there are structural factors that tend towards pessimism—such as health and pensions—that are not easy to ignore or avoid. But, there are other aspects that today involve an emotional charge that, according to specialists, there is no reason to carry.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), old age begins at age 60. Despite age standardization, this period is “one of the most heterogeneous times” of the human being, explains Andrés Pavolvic, geriatrician at the German Clinic. Indeed, the physical, emotional, social and cognitive abilities are totally different in each individual. Thus, among specialists, the plural “old age” is used, which shows “the tremendous variability of experiences and ways of seeing life that exist among the elderly”.

There are people in their mid-80s who are independent, who maintain a vital attitude and who are able to walk like they have a rocket in their shoes. But there are also others who are just over 60 and who already have serious complications to move around, they are more bland and depend on the help of third parties to carry out their activities. It is a sample of the heterogeneity of the elderly.

This is the difference between biological age and chronological age. While the last refers to how many years the person is, the other focuses on their functional ability. “An individual with the same chronological age as another (75 years, for example), may have a lower biological age and, therefore, greater autonomy or functionality,” remarks Pavlovic.

Aging is an extremely complex multifactorial process that has not been fully understood. This means that the rate at which people age is relative, as it is a function of the genetic and epigenetic characteristics of the individual, as well as environmental and social factors.

The speed or “rate of aging”, explains Pavlovic, can also be accelerated in relation to “the number of diseases that a patient accumulates during his life, his lifestyle (diet, physical activity, alcohol consumption, drug use), to his musculoskeletal condition”. capacity, mental health and cognitive reserve”.

But beyond individual capacities, it is inevitable that, sooner or later, the changes produced by cellular deterioration will eventually manifest themselves. There is, explains the geriatrician, “a progressive decline in the person’s own capacities (both physical and cognitive) and an increased risk of developing diseases, acute or chronic”.

This is why it is so relevant to maintain medical control. Pavlovic knows that starting to go to the geriatrician can generate some resistance, but “nobody gets any younger or older” doing it. “Since there are so many different experiences of aging, the job of the geriatrician is to focus directly on the person in front of him and to adapt to his needs, his tastes and his opinions; Based on this, develop a joint plan.

Retirement is a milestone that in many cases hits hard on the emotional side and also on the economic side. “Obviously someone who has old age insurance income-wise is going to be calmer than someone who doesn’t,” says Pablo Toro, a psychiatrist at the UC Christus Health Network.

The fear of feeling that you will no longer be useful is very common at this stage, explains Cecilia Artigas, psychoanalyst and full member of ICHPA. “There is an anchoring of identity in the activity, at work, in the social and cultural role, so retirement can leave the feeling of ‘now what do I do?’ It’s very painful,” he said.

Loss of autonomy is another fear associated with old age. Not only financially, but also due to physical and mental deterioration. “One of the most common concerns during the consultation is the fear of ‘depending on others'”, explains Andrés Pavlovic.

The fear of becoming a burden is also often heard in psychological consultations, according to Artigas. The potential for people to be transferred to a residence or facility for their care is another source of anxiety.

In vortex, Argento plays a writer, who remains active but has already suffered his first heart problems; the threat of a new crisis is a factor of tension. Meanwhile, Lebrun plays the role of a retired psychiatrist with advanced dementia who spends the day lost and wandering. Their only son, a man in his 40s, is financially unable to support them, so he offers to place them in a nursing home, while his father objects to them leaving the house. that they have built “all their lives”.

Cecilia Artigas explains that the transition from middle age to old age is a duel, since you have to accept a series of losses: at the level of desires and life projects, but also of the physical and the environment itself. .

“We become aware that time passes, especially in this Western culture where it is seen in a more linear way: we are born, we grow, we develop and, finally, we die. It becomes clear that there is not much time left and that they are living in the last few years, ”explains the psychoanalyst.

This process includes reflecting on what remains, what has not been done, what has not been achieved and what could not be resolved. It is, in the end, a duel for the life that has passed. And it is common for this to be accompanied by a state of anhedonia, an inability to appreciate or feel pleasure.

The heterogeneity of old age also manifests itself in this duel. “There are people who are very complicated by the changes in physical appearance, but for others the social changes are more complicated: how contact networks are changed, job opportunities, etc. “, explains Pablo Toro. However, the psychiatrist ensures that many of these situations have a discriminatory cultural origin.

“Most of the reasons for anxiety in older people have to do with the stereotypes and stigma that exist towards old age, something that today is summed up in the concept of ageism,” Toro explains. “In it, the elderly are portrayed as lacking in functionality, accompanied by the exaltation of youthful values.”

ageism (“ageism”) is a concept invented by the psychiatrist and gerontologist Robert Butler in the 1960s, to classify the discrimination and stereotypes that are exercised against the elderly at the political, social and cultural level, which are mainly maintained by the fear of death, disability and addiction. “All of this (the negative and distressing perception) is much more of a social and political problem than a medical one,” says the UC Christus Network psychiatrist.

“The elderly are not prioritized or put forward,” adds Cecilia Artigas. “It’s true that we have to take care of them, but we need a holistic vision of old age. Their wisdom, experience and learning should be valued as something they can pass on to new generations. Instead, they are installed as passive, dependent subjects. Hence the fear of being a burden.

It is clear that the cultural framework does not help much. Nor pensions. How then can a more bearable transition and adaptation to old age be achieved?

“One of the keys is planning, both from an economic point of view and from the point of view of activities and leisure”, explains Andrés Pavlovic. “The possibility of developing hobbies, studying or learning new things, interacting more with family and friends, or developing other spaces where the accumulated experience is valued, are elements protectors for as active and healthy aging as possible,” he adds.

The State, through the National Training and Employment Service (Sence), offers a series of free courses for the elderly. You can see the list by clicking on this link . here

• Staying active socially and in learning has been shown to lower the risk of developing cognitive disorders, such as memory loss and dementia. Also physical activity, even if it is practiced in a reduced way, brings a series of benefits on health and mood.

• Pablo Toro, for his part, says that we must “purify ourselves of all notions linked to ageism, and see aging as a normal process”, which, beyond health problems, “can bring out very good and much deeper abilities, such as support to take care of others, wisdom, experience, tranquility, something that is highly valued in other cultures”.

• Cecilia Artigas and Mónica Gabler aim to strengthen support networks or join new ones. “The environment is essential for them to feel supported, contained and understood. That they can experience changes in the company, as we go from childhood to adolescence and, later, to youth and adulthood. We have to let the processes live, not block them,” says Artigas.

The psychoanalyst also recommends not making death a taboo and being more open to talk about it: the beliefs, the fears, the emotions it projects. And also to “historicize one’s own history”, that is to say to review life, to get rid of what has not been acquired or acquired and to recognize what has been acquired and acquired. “Bring the past to the present and thus get out of the linearity of time. Step into timelessness and enjoy the moment. This, says Artigas, can help to accept life in the present.