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You just began seeing a new client, Martha. She is an older lady in her 80s with several health difficulties. She lost her spouse to the COVID-19 pandemic. While her husband was hospitalized, she had to pay large bills, leaving her with little savings, therefore her son is financially supporting her. She feels like a burden and often experiences loneliness and suicidal thoughts. What would you do as a counselor?​

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You just began seeing a new client, Martha. She is an older lady in her 80s with several health difficulties. She lost her spouse to the COVID-19 pandemic. While her husband was hospitalized, she had to pay large bills, leaving her with little savings, therefore her son is financially supporting her. She feels like a burden and often experiences loneliness and suicidal thoughts. What would you do as a counselor?​

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I was shocked by my life expectancy of 97 years old. I think other factors that were not considered was family health, mental health problems that run in my family or I currently have, and what my support system looks like. I think too this greatly depends on if I continue to maintain good health and diet. My current diet was also not considered in this equation either or any other life situations that could happen unexpectedly.

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For me, I do think my estimated life expectancy would change some when I get married and also if and when I have kids. I think for the older clients, we can help give them tools and resources to improve their life in the present moment. We can help them to realize that it is never too late to turn things around for the better.

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Please click on the link below to take the short quiz based on your lifestyle! Based on the life expectancy age you received, what other personal factors might play into your life expectancy that were not included on the quiz? How can we, as counselors, support our older clients who receive a negative life expectancy age?

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Please click on the link below to take the short quiz based on your lifestyle! Based on the life expectancy age you received, what other personal factors might play into your life expectancy that were not included on the quiz? How can we, as counselors, support our older clients who receive a negative life expectancy age?

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Calculate your life expectancy based on academic research (in 2 minutes)

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Want to know what the data says about how long you’ll live? See how your life expectancy compares and what steps you can take to live a longer life.

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For me, I think diet would also factor into life expectancy, as well as having a social support network. Also, potentially personality characteristics. From our text, it seems those can influence life expectancy as well.

If a client does receive a negative age, I would explore with them how they feel about it and see if they want to make any lifestyle changes. I would not pressure them into doing so unless it seemed like they wanted to.

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I think some important factors left out would be the potential for adverse health issues regardless of someone’s healthy lifestyle. Environmental factors like earthquakes, hurricanes, and pandemics can also play a role in life expectancy. To support clients with a low life expectancy I think it would be important to increase their sense of self control over their lives and help them to achieve some positive health outcomes. This could look like joining fitness programs for seniors, finding resources to increase their nutrition, and including the family in the care of your client.

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Social support/lifestyle, spiritual/faith relationship to assess quality of life and nutrition. These factors may give a better estimate of one’s life expectancy or quality

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The quiz showed that I will most likely live to be 88 years old. I think factors that may play into me not living that long would be my diet and lack of exercise. Another factor is that I haven’t had children yet so that could affect my overall health and the possibility of living longer.

We can support them by telling them that quizzes like this can not actually comprehend how long we will actually live. Though if they are worried we can work on things like exercise and diet in order to help their odds of living longer.

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For Martha, I would start by working with her to process the feelings of loneliness and depression from her husband’s passing. I think she would need to work through that grief before anything else. Then I would work with Martha to see how we can get her connected with some good social support, preferably outside of her immediate family. Lastly, I then would try to help her figure out what activities feel life giving for her to help improve her integrity rather than her falling into despair.

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I would begin to ask socratic questions to help Martha see what interests she still has or friends. I think helping Martha to stay involved with friends is important for her health as well as activities that she enjoys. I think too if she could work once a week or twice a week that may be helpful too and help her to feel as if she is helping her son out. Also, help her to see the ways she has provided for her son, her sense of meaning in life, and help her work through the grief of her husband.

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I wonder how questions on medications might have affected the outcome or questions on mental health diagnoses. Or possibly even religious factors or other personality factors that might play into life expectancy. With older clients, it might be important to review aspects that are in their control that contribute to life expectancy, such as exercise.

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Within the time spent with Martha in the therapeutic relationship I would ask Martha questions about her life.  About the things she wanted to talk through, about opportunities for social engagement.

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Within the time spent with Martha in the therapeutic relationship I would ask Martha questions about her life.  About the things she wanted to talk through, about opportunities for social engagement.

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For this client I would spend some time talking to her about how difficult it was to lose her husband during the pandemic and how those events were not her circle of control. I’d also spend some time finding strengths the client has and building on them to increase her self-esteem and sense of belonging. I’d also like to incorporate some family counseling with her son and his family to see if we can find more ways to incorporate her into their lives so that she doesn’t feel like a burden.

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Social supports, family health hx, MH, long term goals. Retirement!

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Previous medical history was not included, what if I had a significant health event that indicates greater risk for a life threatening disease? It may be helpful for counselors to explore a clients medical history, particularly if they had any significant events. This could also help us understand better how to provide care for them.

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As a counselor, I think it would be important to discuss with Martha aspects of late adulthood that are experienced by many others during this stage and helping normalize this experience for her. Along with this, while major depression may not be as common in late adulthood, we have learned in lifespan class that those WITH major depression during this stage can experience more suicidal ideation, so helping her to recognize this and working through this would be important along with helping her find her strengths and maybe incorporating her son into counseling as well.

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I may introduce some CBT interventions such as challenging the thought of being a burden and normalizing why she may need her son's support due to her circumstances. If it seems like her son supports her emotionally, we may challenge the idea that he sees her as a burden. It may help for her to cultivate relationships with other family and friends as well. Finally, if her suicidal thoughts seem very serious, temporary hospitalization may be necessary.

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I would look at what other social circles she is involved in outside of just her son. Since the loss of her husband, it may be important to consider what other relationships she has and can invest in.

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At first I was encouraged at how high this quiz estimated that I would live, but it pointed out that I would need way more money to be able to retire. Then I realized that this quiz had vested interest with a company to help me with my financial goals. Now I am wondering if it estimates that everyone is going to live a long time so that it increases the fear among the younger generations to care more about their financial future. So, now it is challenging for me to view this quiz through any other lens than a tool to increase their business.

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Explore social supports with other family

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Social support & community is one factor. Socioeconomic status, and as we just learned from the presentation, diet and nutrition. I would encourage clients to set some lifestyle goals. Get involved in social support activities, build hobbies around increasing cognitive abilities, and potentially encouraging them to see their primary care provider about physical health concerns.

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During my time with Martha I would explore her feelings of loneliness and her feeling as though she is a burden. I would talk about her depression and help her find support groups of other people her age that are having similar thoughts and feelings.

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I would ask her about what she values and if she has relationships that provide social emotional support. Then explore possibilities that could provide meaningful social emotional support like groups that share her interests. Or a fitness group, like water aerobics.

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I think some aspects of this that could impact our life expectancy could be work, our environment, things that are going on in the world (like COVID-19), social interactions, amongst many other things.

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My life expectancy was 86! Although the factors were limited, it is clear that there are things we can do now to live a long, quality life. At my age, death is not something that often crosses my mind, but there are many choices I can make to increase the quality of my life in general.