Gerodiversity - How Facing Adversity across the Lifespan can Foster Workplace Resilience

Symposium Topic: Older Women Who Work: Examinations of Grey and Grit Chair: Lisa Hollis-Sawyer, PhD, Northeastern Illinois University Participants: Mary Gergen, PhD, Penn State University; and Ellen Cole, PhD, The Sage Colleges. When Just Getting by Is Getting Old: Women Working in Later Life to Pay the Bills- Monica Teixeira, MA, Columbia College. The Impact of Aging and Authentic Leadership in a Higher Education Latina Leader - Julie Hicks Patrick, PhD, West Virginia University. Appalachian Grit and Older Working Women - Niva Piran, PhD, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada. Missions Continued: The Meaning of Work in Older Women’s Lifelong Journey - Ashley Stripling, PhD, and Jodie Maccarrone, MS, Nova Southeastern University. Gerodiversity - How Facing Adversity Across the Lifespan Can Facilitate Workplace Resilience Discussant: Ellen Cole, PhD, The Sage College

Developing Psychological Well-Being in Distressed Older Patients

Depression and anxiety are common disorders in older adults. For some, even after a combination of pharmacological and psychological treatments, residual symptoms and periodic relapse persist throughout the lifespan. This pattern can lead to pessimism, as well as an increasing deficit in euthymia. Well-Being Therapy is an innovative approach to addressing depression and anxiety symptoms that are often influenced and accompanied by low levels of psychological well-being. The core principles of well-being therapy, as well as the related concepts of euthymia, eudaimonia, and psychological well-being, are described and illustrated

From Striving To Thriving: How Facing Adversity across the Lifespan Can Foster Workplace Resilience

As women in the workforce age, they face a number of new challenges that intersect with previously experienced hurdles. These challenges are more pronounced in the case of older women, who may already experience discrimination based on other identities such as ethnic background or sexual minority status. This chapter illustrates how challenges for older working women such as ageism, lookism, and caregiving intersect with previously experienced hurdles and how these may be more pronounced for women who already experience discrimination based on race, ethnicity, country of origin, religion, disability, or sexual orientation. It provides key insights into resilience and the mechanisms by which adversity can promote late-life psychological well-being. The chapter then outlines pathways through which these challenges can facilitate growth and proposes a model of resiliency factors to inform gerodiverse women, professionals, and organizations about how to promote psychological well-being among our diverse and flourishing late-life female workforce.https://nsuworks.nova.edu/cps_facbooks/1682/thumbnail.jp

Exposure to Trauma, PTSD and Persistent Pain in Older Adults: A Systematic Review

The following study is a systematic review of the relationship between persistent pain and exposure to interpersonal trauma in older adults. The systematic literature review following PRISMA guidelines enabled us to identify only 3 studies published between 2000 and January 2020 that collected data on both interpersonal trauma and persistent pain in older adults. The examination of this relationship is sparse, yet the empirical support that does exist provides evidence that implies a bidirectional relationship is present between these variables; though, it may be complicated by other age-related factors such comorbid medical conditions (Alamdari & Lagana, 2015). For example, the prevalence of persistent pain conditions appears to increase as the incident exposure to traumatic events increases even after controlling for age as a variable (Atwoli et al., 2016) and it is recognized that cumulative exposure to trauma predicts more severe post-traumatic symptoms (Ogle, Rubin, & Siegler, 2013). Despite these initial findings, this review highlights the paucity of studies examining these factors and underscores the need for additional empirical work in this area. Future work should be designed to better streamline our understanding of how persistent pain is influenced by exposure to trauma and PTSD symptoms and what effect this comorbidity has on individuals later in life as well as how assessment and treatment protocols should be augmented to include these findings