Social Aspects of Ageing and Senility

Extract

The object of my study was an attempt to discover what social factors might be said to contribute to either mental health or mental ill-health in old age. I studied the histories of four groups of 50 aged in four different settings which in retrospect might be said to form a spectrum. That is to say that each subsequent social background seemed to be more conducive to normal ageing than the preceding one. The actual sequence of the whole investigation, for technical reasons, was, however, as follows: In the first place I made contact with patients in Tooting Bec Mental Hospital; as a second group I chose people in a Club for Old Age Pensioners in Streatham; thirdly, I visited old people living by themselves in Fulham; and finally, 1 interviewed a group who are living on an Estate at Mill Hill, the Estate being maintained by the Society of Linen and Woollen Drapers. In all but the last sample I studied the cases of 25 men and 25 women.