Aging Project: Analytical Essay

            It seems that people always talk about wanting to get the licenses of elderly people taken away because of how bad of drivers they are.  Sometimes, but not always, they’re right.  But it’s not their fault.  With aging come certain physical and mental changes that make it more difficult for an older person to drive. 

            As people age, some of the physical changes that take place are decline in eyesight and hearing, decline in reflexes, and stiffness in the back and neck.  These can obviously lead to trouble, because you need to be able to see and hear well enough while you’re driving, as well as being able to turn your head to check for cars while performing a turn or a lane change. 

            Another thing that could cause the elderly to drive poorly is their medications.  According to the article “Age & Driving…”: “Certain medications or combinations of medications can affect senses and reflexes.”  So it’s not necessarily the older person’s fault if they’re a “bad driver.” 

As shown above, there are many physical and medical reasons as to why they would be.  However, that doesn’t justify them being on the road.   If they are having problems like this, they should get evaluated by a doctor to make sure they’re still capable of driving because it can be very dangerous.  For example, in the article from the Westport News website titled “Should Elderly Drivers Be Retested?”: “…a 72-year-old New Canaan man faced vehicular manslaughter charges for allegedly striking and killing a motorcyclist last fall. In Darien, an 89-year-old man turned himself in after allegedly hitting and severely injuring 15-year-old pedestrian on Hoyt Street. He claimed he didn't know he hit anything until he saw the accident reported in the paper the next day.”  This raises some red flags, for me at least.  I don’t know if it was because they were just bad drivers, if they just weren’t capable anymore and needed to be reevaluated, or both.  If it is the second one, then we can do something.  If we are able to get people at a certain age to be evaluated regularly on their driving skills and physical and mental condition (say, sixty-five or seventy) and have their licenses confiscated when they’re deemed unsafe by a professional, then I feel like our roads would be a lot safer.  Sure there are a lot of younger drivers that get into a lot of trouble, but I feel it’s easier to be able to take care of the elderly first.  Besides, the younger people have plenty of restrictions on their driver’s licenses as it is.   

It’s difficult what age to put the restrictions, evaluations, or confiscation at because the elderly still do need to go places such as the pharmacy to refill prescriptions or sometimes just to get outside so they aren’t just bumming around their house all alone.  They might get angry and even feel betrayed if their family alerts them of their driving tendencies, so you need to be careful in telling them that they should get evaluated or stop driving.  But it’s necessary to do so, to help our roads become a safer place.  

Aging Project: Annotated Bibliography

Doheny, Kathleen. "Assessing Elderly Drivers: Ability Means More Than Age." N.p., 13 Nov. 2012. Web. 17 May 2013.
     This article emphasizes upon figuring out when to keep an elder from driving based on their abilities, not their age alone.  It tells about different ways to know when the elderly person in question isn't able to drive anymore or as much, and even helps by giving tips on how to tell that person that they should no longer be driving.  

Neighmond, Patti. "When Should Seniors Hang Up The Car Keys?" NPR. NPR, n.d. Web. 21 May 2013.
     This is another article about helping a person tell their parent or other elderly relative that it's time to stop driving, and why you should tell them before it's too late.  

"Senior Driving." : Safety Tips, Warning Signs, and When to Stop. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 May 2013.
     This article gives tips on safe driving for seniors, and warning signs that they maybe should limit or stop driving.  It gives suggestions on things to notice such as neck pain or stiffness, diminished arm strength, and failure to notice road signs that would aid in deciding when to stop.  

"Older Drivers, Elderly Driving, Seniors at the Wheel." Older Drivers, Elderly Driving, Seniors at the Wheel. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 May 2013.
     This article has statistics about the elderly and how they are related to car accidents, as well as different solutions that are being suggested and ways that the country is addressing the problem by means of mandatory driving tests.  


"Should Elderly Drivers Be Retested?" Westport News. N.p., 10 Mar. 2010. Web. 21 May 2013.
     This article talks a bit about the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and their take on the natural decline in cognitive and physical abilities in the elderly and how it could affect their driving abilities. 

"Statistics On Accidents Involving Elderly Drivers." Wgrz.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 June 2013.
     This article had a few statistics that I thought would be useful.  It talks more about the other side, showing that the elderly maybe aren't that bad at driving after all.
     
     

Aging Project: Thesis

May 17:  I think that once people reach a certain age (i.e. 65 or 70) they should have to be retested or examined to make sure that they are still capable of driving safely.  They should also have these tests frequently and regularly to make sure that they maintain their driving ability.  The causes of poor driving in the elderly include stiff joints, declining eyesight and memory, and side effects from medication.

May 23: I still think that by a certain age, people should be regularly tested and/or examined to make sure they are still fit to drive safely.  If they seem to pose danger on the roads, their license should be taken away, because if they are dangerous enough they pose a threat to not only themselves, but others as well.  No one should have to worry about the being in danger on the road, and I think that reckless, unable, or unfit drivers pose too much of a threat in keeping peace on the roads.

Aging Project: Proposal

     My topic is on the subject of elderly people and their driving.  I will focus on when it's time for elderly people to give up their license and how they should go about finding out when to do so.  I chose this topic because I just thought it would be interesting to find out some solutions to an elder's driving and what specific problems cause them to not drive as well.  

Caring for Aging Parents--Annotated Bibliography

Beck, Martha. "Caring for Aging Parents - Martha Beck Advice - Oprah.com."Oprah.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Apr. 2013.

     This article is about helping you and your parents cope with their aging by means of nourishing a sick sense of humor and think about how much care is actually needed.  This goes well with King Lear because I think that Goneril and Regan need to learn some of these strategies to help not only themselves, but their father as well.  

How to Handle an Elderly Parent's Bad Behavior--Annotated Bibliography

Sollitto, Marlo. "How to Handle an Elderly Parent's Bad Behavior." AgingCare. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Apr. 2013.

     This article is about, as the title says, how to handle an elderly parent's bad behavior.  It goes into detail about behavior such as yelling, swearing, not showering, paranoia, and hoarding.  This fits with King Lear because he's basically turning into an adult child, a brat.  He's becoming very cranky and yelling and going into long speeches and curses towards his daughters.  

    

Sibling Strife--Annotated Bibliography

Hulin, Belinda. "Sibling Strife: How to Resolve the 3 Senior Care Issues Siblings Fight About Most." N.p., 4 May 2011. Web. 25 Apr. 2013.

     

     This article is about how one woman lost a lot because she was completely occupied while she took care of her mom.  Her siblings didn't really help her at all, which sort of shows that different relationships with the parents will lead to different roles in caring for them.  This fits well with King Lear because Cordelia probably would have taken care of him if she wasn't banished, and Goneral and Regan are sort of turning on the king and don't really want to take care of him.  

Is a Family Member Ripping Off Your Aging Parent?--Annotated Bibliography

Rosenblatt, Carolyn. "Is A Family Member Ripping Off Your Aging Parent?" Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 22 Apr. 2013. Web. 25 Apr. 2013.
     This article is about some of the warning signs that may point to a family member abusing and elder's finances.  This relates to King Lear because his daughters are sort of turning against him and now he wants their forgiveness, and will probably give them riches and maybe more land in order to persuade them to forgive him.  

     

     

Room/Allegory of the Cave Intertextuality

Donoghue, Emma. Room: A Novel. New York: Little, Brown and, 2010. Print.

"ROOM, by Emma Donoghue." ROOM, by Emma Donoghue. Http://www.hachettebookgroup.com/ 2012. Web. 29 Jan. 2013.

Plato. Allegory of the Cave.

 

 

"And if he were made to look directly at the light of the fire, it would hurt his eyes and he would turn back and take refuge in the things which he could see, which he would think really far clearer than the things being shown him."

                                                          -Socrates, Allegory of the Cave


     The Allegory of the Cave is a hypothetical story told by Socrates that is used to explain appearence vs. reality.  It tells of a cave where prisoners are kept, they are bound so that they can't move and can only face forward while their captors project images on the wall in front of the prisoners.  One of the prisoners is set free and, since he's only seen the projections on the cave wall, is confused on what is real and what isn't.  Once he figures out that the world outside the cave is real and the projections aren't, he goes back to the cave but the prisoners reject him, stuck in their own false reality. 
     The reasons this is like Room is because Jack is sort of like the prisoner who escaped.  Room was the like the cave, and Jack was being held prisoner in it; it was all he knew to be reality.  When he finds out that there is a world outside Room, he's stunned, he can't wrap his mind around it properly, just as the prisoner was blinded by the sun when he left the cave for the first time.  Ma could be considered one of the formholders (the ones projecting shadows on the wall) since she sort of led him to believe that Room was the only real place there is.  She's a prisoner in the sense that she can't escape from Room, but she already knows there's a world outside of it, so she's not really considered to be a cave prisoner.     

 

Cultural Factors: Generation

     I read the book Tuesdays with Morrie, and it was about a guy named Mitch who loses contact with his favorite college professor Morrie Schwartz.  Mitch gets back into contact with Morrie when he sees him in an interview on TV and finds out that he's deathly ill from a disease called ALS.  So every Tuesday, Mitch goes to meet with Morrie and talk to him about life and philosophy.  Mitch feels very happy to be able to spend time with his former professor again, and considers these meetings his "final class" with Morrie as the professor.  Eventually, Morrie is consumed and falls victim to ALS, slowly becoming a shell of his former self and dies. 
     This book is a memoir written in first person from Mitch's point of view.  It affects the way we understand the book because Mitch is from a newer generation than, say, Morrie, so he talks about more modern problems that he struggles with besides his former professor dying.  He seems to be much more concerned about his job and making money, which seems to be more of an issue now than in the past.  He apparently was concerned about his job enough to end up not having children with his wife.
     As I've said before, some of the issues Mitch faced are different than some of the issues Morrie faced because of the generational differences.  An example would be that when Morrie was young, his father tried to get him a job at a factory to help support the family, despite his young age.  Mitch never faced this, not only because his generation wouldn't allow them to work at a factory at such a young age, but also because of a difference in social class.  Morrie's family growing up was very poor, struggling to make ends meet, while Mitch's was likely somewhere in the middle class.