Psy290 Life Span Development
Introduction
Late adulthood can be described as the stage of life that starts at the age of 60 and goes up to the final stage of life. Various changes, such as physical, psychological, and social well-being, characterize late adulthood. This then counters the stereotypical belief that most seniors do not indulge in sexual activities, keeping in mind that most of them are even sexually active. The studies show that sexual activity does not cease in late adulthood because people may seek intimacy and touch in different ways, better health services, longer life expectancy, and a changing culture that encourages seniors to embrace sexuality. Nonetheless, this extended sexual activity is associated with increased STIs (sexually transmitted infections), and the problem has drawn concern from health facilities in the last few years. The purpose of this paper is to look into the increase in the rate of STIs among people aged 60 years and above to establish what has ensued and how the situation should be apprehended in order to resolve it (Lally & Valentine-French, 2019). In particular, it will outline three scholarly explanations of ways through which elderly individuals are probably more likely to contract STIs than young adults and, in the process, provide two probable solutions to this problem.
STI in the Elderly Phenomenon
The various types of STIs amongst the elderly population have been tasted to have risen in the recent past. For instance, based on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there are higher cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis in patients who are 65 years of age and above in the current decade. This demographic shift in the Older Population is driven by factors such as gender, marital status, living alone, and being widowed (Htet et al., 2023). This is especially true for older adults, especially males, and females who are single through either death or divorce; they pursue the act of dating without being in a position to embrace safe sex or without any knowledge about it. Family culture and religiosity are also other essential factors that influence perceived sexual health; elderly individuals are significantly less willing to consider permissive ideas like talking about STIs and other health-related matters.
Furthermore, other contexts of residents’ lives, including retirement homes, assisted living, and nursing homes, entail social interactions and may involve sexual relationships that are not protected by adequate access to sexual health services and health information. Combined with the fact that older adults are more susceptible to infections, all these factors play a role in escalating infection rates among this population subset. Such knowledge is vital to enable the formulation of well-defined approaches in addressing such dynamics. These three factors form the backbone of analyzing why this population is at a higher risk of catching STIs; this includes poor sex education, weak immunity, and underestimation of personal vulnerability among the elderly population.
Reasons for High Rates of STIs in the Elderly
The first significant factor that is attributed to high STI rates among the elderly is ignorance of their services due to a lack of sex education. The current generation of the elderly raised their children or, possibly, themselves did not have proper access to information about STI prevention, as the topics of sexuality and reproduction were not popular or stigmatized during most of the twentieth century. This generation was not privileged to be part of the more recent package and informed sex education programs where complete information is provided. Hence, older adults will not practice condom use or rarely talk about the subject with sexual partners or doctors because of embarrassment or belief that STIs are rare among their age bracket. Everage condom usage among older individuals is considerably lower compared to other age groups, which is attributed to the belief that people do not need to engage in protected sex(Cummings-Clay, n.d.). These are critical factors as to why there is poor education, which makes people engage in risky sexual behaviors, hence increasing their chances of getting STIs. Adding to this challenge is the fact that healthcare providers seldom engage older patients in sexual health dialogue and Daten, which could be due to tallying older persons for no sexual activity or simply because they might find it embarrassing to discuss sexual health. It is upon this consideration that efforts aimed at gradually increasing adult literacy become paramount in the fight towards containing the spread of diseases, particularly among the elderly.
The second one is a decline in immune function, which is another cause of the upswing in the frequency of STI detection. This is because people’s bones and other body parts start deteriorating when they grow old, and hence, they cannot fight infections as before, including STIs. Due to this immunosenescence, not only can elderly adults acquire infections more readily than young people, but they can also develop more severe signs and symptoms of such infections as well as more complex complications. For example, while contracting HIV is similar in both age groups, older persons have higher rates of disease progression to AIDS because of their generally weaker immune systems. Moreover, as people age and age, the hymen and tissues of the vagina and the rectum can be thinner; therefore, intercourse and other forms of intrusions can lead to micro-tears which make it easier for pathogens to infiltrate the body. Such physiological vulnerability means that protective measures should be upheld, and precautionary health checkups ought to be conducted habitually to diagnose and treat STIs among this group at the right time.
The third factor is the poor judgment of hazard risk within the elderly population. Several elderly adults either feel that they are not vulnerable to STIs in the first place or feel embarrassed to discuss their sexual behavior, as it is either stigmatized or stereotyped as something that is not part of older people’s lives. This eventually results in no precautions being taken – for example, condom use or specific types of STI testing. Moreover, older adults need to practice safer sex if they enter a new sexual relationship after a divorce or after losing a partner due to death; however, they may often overlook their partners’ sexual history, putting them at even greater risk of developing an STI. This underestimation is also supported by the fact that most healthcare providers do not use routine screening for sexually transmitted infections among the elderly, and therefore, many patients are not detected in the early stages of infection, leading to treatment complications.
Solutions
To reduce the increasing rates of STI in the elderly, two main approaches can be taken. First, formal programs in secondary sexuality education for the elderly should be implemented, and there should be use of formative sex education programs that are culturally appropriate for the elderly. Such programs should mainly center their provision on STI prevention, safe sex practices, and early, routine, and voluntary sexual health checkups. Education can be given in various formats and various locations, such as in community centers, to senior living facility residents, healthcare practitioners, and even online. With such portrayals and descriptions of the issue, the gaps in knowledge must be addressed, and the appropriate directions for behavior change among the elderly must be given.
Second, based on the findings that elderly patients desire frequent and nonjudgmental communication about sexual health with healthcare providers, healthcare professionals need to be educated about how to speak to elderly patients regarding sexuality. This involves integrating sexual health assessments into routine physical examinations and establishing patient-centered fetching free from bias that enables comprehensive patient reporting of sexual behaviors and issues. By educating different healthcare providers on the importance of identifying the sexuality and sexual health needs of older persons as critical areas of intervention, more comprehensive STI testing and timely treatment among older adults with better sexual health repercussions can occur. Furthermore, advertising campaigns that demystify elderly sexuality can help these senior citizens embrace information and entreat help without fearing stigmatization.
Summary and Conclusion
Conclusively, it can be argued that the elderly group of people are having a steady rise in their STI prevalence through the outlined attributes like lack of sex education, compromised immune system, and perceived risk. Both concerns need to be solved through the promotion of adequate sexual health education and the enhancement of doctor-patient communication, particularly with the elderly (Du et al., 2022). The importance of addressing the issue of STIs among older adults cannot be overstated due to the fact that society has become more accepting of sexual activities, especially among senior citizens. Sustainable solutions to this issue include the following are some of the potential solutions to this Issue: The way out, therefore, is to increase awareness of the problem, people’s discussion of it, and the practice of preventive measures.
References
Chamberlain University. (n.d.) Lifespan development. Adtalem-edapt. Retrieved
from https://adtalem.edapt.ai/student/course/5559b5e6-707f-42ae-9e79-1db00a30c7ed
Cummings-Clay, D. (n.d.). Child development. Achieving the Dream. OpenStax, OER Commons. Retrieved January 16, 2024, from https://library.achievingthedream.org/hostoschilddevelopmenteducation/
Lally, M., & Valentine-French, S. (2019). Lifespan development: A psychological perspective (2nd ed.). Open Textbook Library. https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/textbooks/lifespan-development-a-psychological-perspective
Du, M., Yan, W., Jing, W., Qin, C., Liu, Q., Liu, M., & Liu, J. (2022). Increasing incidence rates of sexually transmitted infections from 2010 to 2019: an analysis of temporal trends by geographical regions and age groups from the 2019 Global Burden of Disease Study. BMC Infectious Diseases, 22(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12879-022-07544-7
Htet, K. Z., Lindrose, A. R., O’Connell, S., Marsh, J., & Kissinger, P. (2023). The burden of chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis in older adults in the United States: A systematic review. International Journal of STD & AIDS, 095646242211497. https://doi.org/10.1177/09564624221149770