The Psychology of Aging: Its Significance in the Practice of Geriatric Medicine

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Abstract
Confronting the death experience is one of the major psychologic problems of the aged. Being unable to repress this fear completely, the aged person resorts to various mechanisms of adjustment. He may show evidence of rebellion, manifested by active aggressive behavior; regression, seen in his use of infantile tactics to attain his needs; or obsessive somatic concern. The physician must recognize that senescence is a psychobiologic as well as a biologic phenomenon, weigh the elderly patient's background and environment, and treat him as an individual and as though life were a continuous process for him.

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