Socio-psychological adaptation in later age and conditions of successful aging

Abstract

The article deals with the aspects of social and psychological adaptation in elderly and senile age and analyses the conditions for successful aging. The authors assume that people in elderly age have significant individual characteristics and, as a consequence, research results are often contradictory. It is shown that the socio-psychological adaptation in elderly patients is determined by individual psychological qualities, by specificity of their identity, by strategies of their adaptation to old age. This may be the strategy of the "closed loop" type, that is maintenance of self as an individual, or an alternative strategy, maintaining self as a personality. It was noted that adaptation to old age was flying differently in women and men, which may be due to gender differences in lifestyle, the strongest identification of some men with occupational roles, and of women with homework and family obligations. It is shown that successful aging contributes to the formation of androgynous type of gender identity, which provides flexibility in respond to different situations.