The elderly population among different communities faces numerous challenges to cope with the fast changing lifestyle; they find themselves not rhyming with current generation life approach. With the differences they suffer from Discrimination and Social Exclusion; when living with an environment where one faces discrimination and social exclusion, there are high chances of getting stresses and depressed of the situation.
Getting old is inevitable; right after ones birth the process of growing old starts the World Health Organization within its programs has World Health Organization Ageing and Life Course Programme nicknamed “Active Aging” with the aim of developing mechanisms to assist elderly remain independent and active in the move to ensure they are integrated within the community in their old age life.
WHO is concerned on how longer people live as well as the quality of the lives they will live at old age. WHO demographic report of 1999 suggested that by 2025, the population of people above the age of 60 years is likely to increase by approximately 694 million (223% growth elderly population).
One common character that has been realized among the elderly is depression as they do not seem to be going okay with the requirements of modern life; they find themselves somewhat misplaced and not integrated in the system fully.
In simple terms, depression is a mental disorder where by one is not in the right mine to make sound decisions; it is not actually not a disease by itself but just a condition that would lead to diseases. When someone is depressed, he cannot reason well thus he cannot meet the expectations of life and further increases the discrimination and social exclusion.
Stressed people are more likely to suffer from diabetes especially in the old age: the state and equilibrium of insulin in a human being has an effect on how the person old age is likely to be.
There are two types of diabetes, one that the body is not able to produce its own insulin it is called diabetes type 1 (it is said to be insulin dependent). The second one is type two is characterized by insulin deficiency and resistance. It is the most common form of diabetes, in case someone is suffering from either than has stress, then the condition is life threatening.
Human beings are by nature social beings, they interact with each other at every stage of their development. When a person is stresses, he is more likely to withdraw himself from the people and his social life is affected. The internal surroundings that are, the family, friends and parental training can influence the attitude of an individual. The external factors are social interactions, educational institutions and church or other social groups.
The main contributor of discrimination and social exclusion is current generation lifestyle that seems to have been dominated by selfishness, individualism, and use of technology. The old people on the other hand seem to be willing to have social lives where they stay in extended family setting which younger generations seem to repel.
The number of old verses the young in modern community is another challenge, the old are reducing in number as they succumb to age and old age diseases. With the difference in ages, old people fail to get people they can socialize with; this leads to them feeling discriminated and social excluded.