The person elderly and the body: an inevitable transformation

Abstract

Nowadays, aging is viewed as part of the passage of time, which is experienced in a person's body. In a social setting, aging is seen as a process marked by increased physical limitations, bodily weakening and a reduction of social roles. Such losses are seen as health problems, largely manifest in the body’s appearance. A qualitative study, which is descriptive and exploratory and follows the phenomenological methodology according to the referential of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. The study was designed to understand the perception that the elderly has of the own body during aging. A sample of seven elderlies, members of both sexes with ages between 75 and 83 years old was selected from a community in Salvador-Bahia.  They participated in the research. Five categories of perceptual interpretation found to represent. The aging body is perceived by the elderly as a body that: … brings physical changes that are not always easily accommodated; presents losses of function; allows perceptual denial of the development of aging; appears to be slowing while the mind remains alert; appears to reveal one perceived reality. Such categorization reinforces importance of the view that “the aging process in the physical body is perceived through physical signs". Further comprehensive analysis, has suggested that integrating the perceptions of the physical aging process with those of being-in-the world, and allows us to recognize growth and development as a human's natural transformation, in which aging is a possibility that eventually shows up.