After completing the reading from Taking Care, Ethical Caregiving in our Aging Society, by the President's Council on Bioethics, I couldn't believe that I had already faced this same topic before. I have a sociology class that discusses this problem practically everyday. We talk about the future and what it holds for society. It was nice to see that other people are wondering the same thing.
First is the idea of "Aging and Contemporary Society". In the past aging was right in front of our eyes. When passing by, you could determine that age approximately of the person you were looking at. Everyone seems to follow a pattern back then. There were certain signs that showed when they hit a certain age. To be classified as old back then, was normal.
With the numerous changes in society's way of dealing with "old" age, this idea has changed dramatically.
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Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (Medica...Now you have medicines to keep you up to par with illnesses. You have hip and joint replacements to keep you in pace. Also, cosmetic surgery allows you to look as if you were still young.
Therefore, instead of the old times when seen as either young or old, you now see classes of age. These classes are the young old, the old old, and the oldest of old. Depending on how you look in appearance, or what inabilities you have, you fall into one of these categories.
The problem with all of this so called "Aging in Contemporary Society" is the future outlook of it all. Despite the fact that we have many preventable measures to help with the process of aging to be smoother, we still must face that "old" is and will come. Therefore we must predict the possibility of the aging person needing to be...