Describe how you might incorporate the cultural perspectives on aging described by your colleagues into your own social work practice.
Respond to at least two colleagues who addressed cultures that are different from the ones you addressed. Share an insight from reading your colleagues’ postings. Describe how you might incorporate the cultural perspectives on aging described by your colleagues into your own social work practice.
Be sure to support your responses with specific references to the resources. If you are using additional articles, be sure to provide full APA-formatted citations for your references.
Discussion
Each culture possesses their own cultural belief which they attribute to the presence of or lack of cultural practices that contribute to what they believe is healthy aging. Some cultures believe that diet is the key to healthy aging; while others may contribute healthy aging to exercise, spirituality or their genetic composition. Some cultures also contribute their perspective of aging based on their grandparents and parents. Their grandparent may have lived to be in their 90’s or up to 100 years of age. So, the grandchildren may look at their age range as an attainable goal. According to Corwin (et al.2009), the African American culture defines healthy aging as the absence of prescribed medications, a strong sense of spirituality, socializing and traveling. Many believe that the absence of medications indicates that they are healthy because they do not have any health conditions to treat.
According to Figuiera (et al,2021), in Brazilian culture the aging process is one of the fastest that they have experienced and is contributed to socioeconomic barriers that exist between classes. Socioeconomic barriers that divide society are based on the lack of economic opportunities and create financial disparity. The Brazilian aging process is due to a lack of stress management due to financial lack which could affect the diets and contribute to lifestyle conditions that speed up the aging process. Changes made to improve socioeconomic conditions could impede the aging process in Brazilian culture. Figuiera (et al, 2021),defines healthy aging as a process that optimizes functionality and opportunities on a continuous basis to improve physical and mental health which aims to process independence.
The aging process in India is rapidly producing people with serious health conditions such as diabetes and heart disease that is contributed to poor cooking fuel, indoor pollution, and lack of financial savings (Scommengna, 2012). Adversely, people from India who are wealthy have a better perspective of aging. They have more active lifestyles, increased financial freedom and healthier diets. Healthy diets and active lifestyles lead to improving the aging process.
African American and Indian culture have the same perspective of aging and consist of the same idealisms. They both believe that the absence of medications and health conditions are indicators of good aging. However, Brazilian aging perspective is different from both African American and Indian culture due to socioeconomic conditions. Poor aging factors are due to socioeconomic factors in all three cultures. These differences exist due to financial disparates that lead to poor eating habits, lack of physical activity, lack of resources and lack of stress management. African American’s did not contribute physical activity to healthy aging.( Figuiera et al, 2021). Different perspectives may impact social practices by creating barriers to assisting clients with services associated with aging. Different clients may require different services to reverse or improve aging through services offered in the agency that would require cultural competence. Acquiring cultural competence requires collecting information through assessing lifestyle habits about the client that would allow me to determine what areas of their life to assist in making improvisions to improve the life of the client.
Answer preview to describe how you might incorporate the cultural perspectives on aging described by your colleagues into your own social work practice.
APA
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