Challenges in education; Aging

What happens to people as they begin the aging process. Some people try to avoid the aging process and we now know this is impossible at least as far as we can tell. So the only question comes how to do it gracefully successfully and happily rather than making it a miserable thing to be avoided and dreaded. The speaker is Dr. Erdman palm or staff coordinator of a new long term study of aging process is getting underway at the Duke University Center for the Study of aging and human development. In a moment he talks of people and aging. Challenges in education presented by Duke University. Here with today's feature is Charles Bronson. Since 1955 a study has been made of 260 elderly people all over 60 years of age. At the Center for the Study of aging and human development. But now a new and different approach is beginning with 500 younger persons to see how people adapt

to aging. Dr. Palmer explains. Now we want to study more about how the Fosses develops in the Middle Ages. So this study will include people starting at 45 and will go through people aged through 69 actually. And it will be focusing on how people adapt to the stressful events that typically occur in the middle ages such as bereavement children leaving home death in the family. Serious illness retirement having to move to new communities. These sorts of problems that people typically face as they approach their retirement years. Just how do people react to these different stresses. Here again is Dr. Palmore. People react in different ways. Some people become completely broken up and are unable to adapt to these new

situations that they face. Some people withdraw from society from interaction with other people and almost become hermits. Other people try to overcompensate for the failing health. For the declining functions in some areas and they try to do too much we find that these patterns seem to depend on people's previous lives which is not too surprising if they have had a history of successful adaptation to change. This will continue in these adaptation to the new stressful events. On the contrary if people have had difficulty adjusting in the past if they have tended to withdraw when stress occurs they will continue this pattern and will withdraw more when new stresses occur. In addition to studying younger people than before this new project is unusual because it is an interdisciplinary attempt and very difficult to arrange.

Dr. Palmer explains into disciplinary means between and in cooperation with. Different disciplines of study for example we have psychologists. I myself am a sociologist. We have physicians we have ophthalmologists. We have audiologist. We have skin specialists psychiatrists we have specialists from many different disciplines and we don't just study this group of people from our own vantage point but we try to work together as a team. And this is a difficult thing to really achieve. As you might imagine when everybody has got his own peculiar interesting peculiar point of view. But when it can be done it can be very fruitful because then you get a better well grounded perspective on the entire ageing process rather than looking at it from just one side or the other.

Participants in this study will receive a complete physical examination that is valued at more than a hundred dollars and they will provide additional understanding of people and aging. This is Charles Price will with challenges in education from Duke University. This program was distributed by the national educational radio network.