April C.

Hayes
Reflection Paper: Long Term Effects of childhood Trauma in Late Adulthood (65+)
Phone Conversation Interview 4/11/14 @ 5:45pm with LaTasha Dixon Email Interview Conversation: 4/15/14 4/18/14 (Time Varies for both of us)

During my time conducting research and interviewing Mrs. Latasha Ive come to understand the importance of acknowledging all that elders have experienced throughout their lifetime. This semester I was given the opportunity to have a phone conversation and converse through emails with Mrs. LaTasha Dixon about her experience working for Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) In the office of Aging. Her duty location is Wellstar Cobb Hospital. Her work duties include monitoring patients progress and granting permission to return home and doing home visits to educate patients on their diagnosis. She provided useful information especially concerning some warning signs that an older adult may express if they have a history of sexual abuse. She mentioned how some adults may express sudden emotional reactions, and flashbacks from previous experiences can be a factor as well. During this developmental stage older adults are often judged and ignored due to others being unwilling to truly understand what all happens during this stage in life. This is a scary topic to approach because many do not want to bring up emotional topics to elders being at the last developmental stage in their life. Some useful and interesting

information I found while working on this presentation was a panel discussion on youtube with different researchers from different Universities in their gerontology center giving their insight on the benefits of aging successfully. One point that was brought up during the conversation that was of interest to me was how important it is for younger generations to witness older, functioning adults. The researchers explained how children grow up with their parents installing fear in them (cross the street safely, conforming to societal rules, etc.) Seeing older adults ( 65+) functioning in society helps children to be motivated and have courage to attempt different milestones. This fact brings a certain level of responsibility to older adults to remain active and remain relevant in their family and community lives as they age. In conclusion I have gained much insight from this research. I hope that in my future social work career I will be able to run across updated research on this topic or maybe even assist in gathering research on this topic as a graduate student. I think this is an important issue and there needs to be more information available for health service providers to have more in depth knowledge to apply while assisting clients.