ontinually reduce opportunities for social integration. Further, new relationships established by older adults often fail to equal the quality of past relationships. Institutionalization, as opposed to independent housing, also tends to push the aged toward isolation, as opposed to social integration.
Social pressures and life conditions experienced by the aged "may result in unique life styles, social roles, and interpersonal stresses. Consequently the importance of age peers in supplying sources of support and knowledge in social life" is believed to become magnified in old age.8 While participation and commitment by older people in formal organizations, voluntary associations, and community involvement tends to decrease with age, their social values tend to be more stable across the life span, and "less susceptible to change through social loss and social pressure."9 The presence, therefore, of peers in the lives of older people tends to provide a basis for shared values, which can lead to greater social integration. In the development of adult groups, one of the major outcomes sought is overcoming the resistance to change on the part of an individual. The individual likely has experienced, or is experiencing, major changes in her or his life, and is likely resisting these changes. The process is particularly difficult for the elderly person being removed from her or his long standing way of life to be placed into some institutional (organizational) environment.
A deterioration in social integration characterizes a significant proportion of the elderly population.10 Effects of such deterioration are often manifested in both physiological and psychological problems. In many instances, however, the physiological problems either disappear or are ameliorated when the psychological problems are treated successfully. Effective interpersonal communications skills, both verbal and non verbal, may be affected by these fact...