Older Adulthood

Older Adulthood Old age is a time for reflecting upon one's own life and its role in the big scheme of things, and seeing it filled with pleasure and satisfaction or disappointments and failures. Older adulthood is a period between 60 years of age and death and is the time to enjoy the successes of life with integrity or despair over the failures of life and fear death. In order to get a better grasp on …

…they have been cheated out of something, they become depressed because they ask the question, "what if?" They can be unhappy for the rest of their lives. If the adult has achieved a sense of fulfillment about life and a sense of unity within himself and with others, he will accept death with a sense of integrity. Just as the healthy child will not fear life, said Erikson, the healthy adult will not fear death.