Stress and Old Age by Wilbur Watson

Author:Wilbur Watson [Watson, Wilbur]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781351318884
Google: 9zvrtAEACAAJ
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2017-01-15T05:39:36+00:00

CHAPTER 6

Residential Change, Stress, and Mortality

Whether voluntary or involuntary, uprooting and relocating individuals and groups from one place of residence to another is a frequently occuring phenomenon in modern industrial societies. However, the social, economic, psychological, biological, and other effects of migration are not well understood, nor evenly distributed among the individuals and groups who migrate. Residential relocation is not necessarily a source of distress, but it may be. Transplantation shock is the manifestation of distress experienced by a person following relocation. It may be expressed by inordinately low levels of morale, high rates of morbidity, declining physical functioning, and mortality. In this chapter and the next three, we will study a variety of changes in behavior under conditions of forced or involuntary migration. We will begin with a focus on changes in mortality rates.

In previous research on relocation effects among elderly people, results have shown a probability of fifteen to thirty-five percent mortality, in any given sample, within the first three to four months after relocation (Blenkner 1967; Lieberman 1961; Marlow 1972). These studies and others (Pastalan 1976) suggest that those elderly persons least likely to survive uprooting and relocation are those ranked low in mental status, physical self-maintenance ability, and who are involuntarily removed from their place of residence. Along with health differences, mental status, and selfmaintenance abilities, the increased mortality rates show the need for careful research on age, sex, pre-relocation signs of depression, felt support from family and friends, and other factors that may help to distinguish survivors from non-survivors following relocation.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.