1. The Life of Khalida Akram- Lahore, Pakistan 1
Running head: THE AGING PROCESS
Old Person Profile
Anam Shuaib
250348355
University of Western Ontario

2. The Life of Khalida Akram- Lahore, Pakistan 2
I love hearing about my grandmother’s adventures and her life before I knew her. She
used to be very active, and led a very interesting life; at one point in time she was orphaned and
lived on a street until one day her uncle took her in. A lot has changed since then, she is 90+
years old now, and she is physically dependent on other people and needs help with activities of
daily living (ADL) such as bathing, eating and other basics of life. Though gerontologists often
de-homogenize seniors by categorizing them as young-old between the ages of 65-75, as middle-
old between the ages 75-84, old-old between the ages 85-89 and frail-old if 90+; these generic
categorizations fail to account for individual variations for example my grandmother was frail-
old at 85 years of age while my landlord lady is young-old at 85 years of age. For this essay I
will be following a sequential trajectory of life courses and changes from my grandmothers
young-old days to her present state.
Young-old (55-64)
My grandmother was highly conscientious, impossible to please, stubborn and
independent. During her young-old days, she lived in a census family, she was a very wealthy
landlord, her husband, my grandfather was a computer engineer and her newly-wed son and his
family lived with my grandmother in her three-story mansion.
During this time my grandmother was very self-sufficient, she had a lot of friends who
visited her everyday. Despite being quite intimidating at times, she was actually a very charitable
person and was respected by everyone. Her neighbors referred to her as their big sister, she had
very strong ties with her friends, relatives and family. my grandmother had a very strong sense of

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control over her life and she was always needed, whether it’d be providing help raising her sons
children or helping the needy in her neighborhood.
She had a very good quality of life, and at this stage of her life she would have easily
fulfilled the five domains of quality end-of-life care identified by Canadians as: (1) receiving
adequate pain and symptom management, (2) avoiding inappropriate prolongation of dying,
(3)achieving a sense of control, (4) relieving burden and (5) strengthening relationships with
loved ones (Chappell, McDonald & Stones, 2008).
Middle-old (65-74)
My grandmother always got what she wanted, for example my grandfather absolutely
adored dogs, and she couldn’t stand them. He was only allowed one-third of the backyard in
which to train them, they weren't allowed in the house and when he wasn’t around to check in on
them, she’d give them spoiled food. But when he passed away, about a month later, she went on
her own and got herself a puppy without telling anyone, and took care of it herself and had it in
the house like how my grandfather wanted, it was her way of coping with his death because she
felt really lonely and devastated.
This coping strategy can be explained by continuity theory which states that as people
age, they try to preserve and maintain continuity of their life style by adapting strategies that are
connected to their past experiences to deal with changes that occur as a part of normal aging
(Chappell, McDonald & Stones, 2008).
A few years after my grandfathers death, my grandmother needed multiple kneecap
surgeries so we asked her to move in with us for a while, during her five year long stay in

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Canada, she quickly adjusted to her life here because her relatives from pakistan lived in our
building.
She started baby sitting our relatives son, these were her golden days; she was happy, she
felt young and needed again; she kept us siblings in check, we listened to her out of fear and
respect. She thought us about our culture, language and she passed down her knowledge and
skills to us. She did not speak much english but that did not stop her from getting involved in the
community. She was satisfied with her life because the pace of changes in her life was in line
with her personal preference and the new experiences were enriching and exciting (Chappell,
McDonald & Stones, 2008).
Soon after her baby-sitting days, she started volunteering at a center for seniors with a
predominantly urdu-speaking population. According to the empirical research on activity theory,
individuals who engage in informal social activates are more satisfied than those who do not, and
that involvement in formal activities may or may not enhance life satisfaction (Chappell,
McDonald & Stones, 2008). It is true that the type of activity does have an impact on the sense
of well-being. My grandmother was much happier when she used to babysit, as opposed to when
she started volunteering at the senior’s center where she had to put up with many rude patients;
one of them being a womanizer with Alzheimer's disease.
During this time her health began to rapidly decline, like many elderly person’s, she was
suffering through many chronic health conditions such as diabetes, chronic pain and arthritis. She
became addicted to her painkiller; oxycodone which is a prodrug for morphine and has a very
high potential for addiction when abused. My grandmother had a habit for taking this pill
whenever she felt the need, she refused to follow the prescribed dosage and ignored the warnings

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about the harmful effects of oxycodone abused. A lot of doctors are coming under strict scrutiny
for prescribing narcotics like oxycodone freely; its easy availability has made it a commonly
abused drug amongst the elderly in Canada. Recently there has been talks about reforming the
legislation to regulate oxycodone use. Even so, many patients will still be able to score more
drugs by “doctor shopping”, a move towards creating an online medical history will definitely
put a stop to this kind of abuse.
Old-Old (75-84)
A major turning point in my grandmothers wellbeing came when she went back to
Pakistan and became immobile as a result of her hip injury. Her injury caused her to become
completely dependent on others and so she had to move in with her son who had moved to a
different city. She became really bitter because all of a sudden she had lost her independency and
felt isolated from her friends, her close nit neighborhood and the small town she had grown up
in. She also probably felt very intimidated and overwhelmed by the outside world because she
seemed to have no interest in venturing out of the house. You could sometimes just sense that she
hated being in the new city, having being born and raised in a small town. She would always
fondly recollect her days of youth. This unfortunate phenomenon of mutually withdrawing from
the society is inline with the disengagement theory which states that “individual adjustment in
old age is accomplished by withdrawing from social life”, while at the same time the society
withdraws from the individual (Chappell, McDonald & Stones, 2008). I, however, am against the
disengagement theory, not only because there is no empirical evidence to prove it but also
because the theory doesn’t account for individual differences.

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During this time my grandmother also suffered from a lack of emotional and social
support from her son’s family, as she was left all alone in her room all day. This lack of social
support further exacerbated her already stressful state, as a result she became so upset about
losing her independency that every issue turned into a fight, for example she could no longer go
to the bathroom on her own but she refused to wear adult diapers because she felt that it was a
stab at her dignity, instead she would wet her bed and insist on lying in it as her own punishment
for losing her independence.
Frail-Old (85-90)
“Preparing for death can include a desire to bring meaning to ones life. Because of the
prolongation of the dying process due to chronic illness in old age, there has been increased
interest in spirituality and meaning of life towards the end” (Chappell, McDonald & Stones,
2008).
After my grandmother turned 85 she was constantly preparing for death, she had all her
funeral arrangements done, and well before she died, in anticipation of her death, she gave her
children all her savings, but then she lived for quite a while longer, and this gave her issues
because it further increased her dependency on others, like her son and decreased her social
standing.
One of the major issues I remember is that she started to get incontinence. Though it’s
common for elderly to gradually develop incontinence , she developed it very suddenly. The
doctors cleared her of any biological causes and referred her to a psychiatrist; the psychiatrist
informed us that the only thing she speaks of is how everything, even money which she has had

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comfortably all her life is being swept away from her and she feels like she is losing control and
therefore, her continence is probably as a result of her feeling like she is losing all control.
In the last year that my grandmother was alive, she was a very difficult person to please,
she refused to eat, sleep, go to the washroom etc., but to be fair she was also very sick and
depressed at the time, she would just lie down in her bed all day, barely speaking, barely moving,
and if she ever said anything, we all had to tell ourselves to grow thick skins because we knew it
would be something really rude, or bitter.
That same year we found out that my mom had a tumor in her brain and that she had to
have a brain surgery to have it removed. We were dreading about telling my grandma about it
because we weren’t sure how she would take it, would she get more depressed!? more bitter!?
etc.,. We all sat together while my mom told her, and she cried the entire first night, she didn't
move, didn’t pray, just cried. But the next morning she actually got out of bed, called her priest,
found a prayer that had to be recited over and over a million times- it seemed at that moment, as
if she had found her “purpose”, and though it was something small, just praying-it gave her a
sense of direction. She went to specific relative houses to distribute the prayers and asked them
to pray with her, she would come home and pray in the garden. She kept a little notebook to keep
track of the number of times she had recited the prayer. She became more open to conversation-
conversation about the prayer. If I asked her what the prayer meant, or even if I got philosophical
and asked her why she believed in it, she would actually converse. And even though my parents
are not religious, they did not question or challenge her because it made her feel like a mother
again, being able to think that she had to do something for her daughter, it gave her some zeal in
her life again.

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In order to write this paper, I interviewed four people on their grandmothers, this paper is a
compilation of their stories. What I found disturbing is that none of my interviewees had a
positive view of old persons. This proves that ageism is very real and prominent in our
westernized society, as the socio-economic status of the elderly declines, they become victims of
neglect and negative attitudes. In order to alleviate the problems faced by the elderly, we must
recognize how society shapes the experience of aging in both positive and negative ways, Since
the society doesn't work in interest of marginalized individuals, its not fair to say that the
individuals must adapt, there needs to be a fundamental social change to promote human agency
(Chappell, McDonald & Stones, 2008).

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Reference:
Chappell, Neena, Lynn McDonald, and Michael Stones. 2008. Aging in Contemporary
Canada, 2nd ed. Toronto: Pearson/Prentice-Hall.