Elderly Women Empowerment in the Aging Process: A Cognitive Perspective

Introduction

Aging is a current issue that has a physical, physiological, social, psychological and cognitive aspect that concerns human beings. Declines that occur with aging cause individuals to be psychologically negative. Social decline leads to a weakening of the individual's relationship with friends and neighbors. Aging-related diseases in the body, weakening of the anatomical structure, declines related to the five senses affect the psychological resilience of the individual. Physiological declines which revealed problems of adaptation to the physical environment, problems in blood pressure increase the risk of diseases and affect psychology. Besides, some declines in cognitive processes decrease the psychological resilience of the individual. Dysmnesia, amnesia, memory problems, learning, and perceptual problems, attention deficit, distractibility significantly affect the psychology of the individual. These declines due to aging reveal the importance of psychology and perception in terms of adaptation to the aging process. Many of these declines can be caused by individual problems.

Social roles, individual's place in society, cultural influences, physiological necessities are factors that have cognitive and psychological effects in the aging process. These factors vary significantly according to gender. Women have to cope with significant difficulties compared to men in terms of women's place in society, their roles in the family, family-work conflict, pregnancy, childcare, menstrual problems. The ability of the woman who tries to overcome these difficulties to pass the aging process successfully and to increase the well-being depends on the cognitive and psychological empowerment. Increasing awareness of the cognitive process may improve psychological resilience and ensure successful aging. Therefore, the empowerment of women in the aging process requires a cognitive approach.

The fact that women have to cope with physiological and social difficulties is a notable issue for aging and women studies. Particularly, the successful aging approach has important shortcomings due to the general framework of the approach and the fact that the differences between men and women are not taken into consideration. This deficiency can be overcome by examining the empowerment of women in the context of aging. Women experience some difficulties throughout their lives for physical, biological, social, and emotional reasons. Some of these difficulties are pregnancy, social pressure, menstruation, work-family conflict, infant care, gynecological diseases. These factors affect the psychological impact of women and the successful aging in the aging process. The social, physical and biological necessities of being a woman affect the aging process and the psychology of women. Achieving success and psychological resilience during the aging process is possible by empowering women with a cognitive approach. Therefore, the aim of the study is to reveal how to empower elderly women to cope with the psychological and negative effects caused by the difficulties experienced in the aging process with a cognitive approach. For this purpose, the literature was reviewed and the theoretical framework was formed. The results of the study were discussed with the studies in the literature and recommendations for future studies were presented.