of physician visits.
(3) People between 65 and 74 years of age have an average hospital stay of 8.2 days whereas people between 75 and 84 average about 9.1 days while people 85 and above stay about 9.6 days. The average hospital stay for younger people is about 7.1 days.
The center estimates that health care costs for the elderly are approximately one-third of the nation's total health care expenditures. Of these costs, the elderly pay around 25 percent; the rest is paid by Medicare and Medicaid, although it needs to be realized that indirectly the elderly have contributed to these funds.
Against this backdrop of increased susceptibility to poor health, the elderly--like most people--face a variety of psychological and psychosocial problems. Just like younger people and middle-aged people, one of the problem many elderly people face involves their marriages. However, the experience of a problematic marriage for the older person is not necessarily the same for the younger or even for the middle aged person (Gilewski, Kuppinger & Zarit, 1985).
Just as the individual is compelled to modify to successfully accommodate to old age, so must the aging marriage or family (Gilewski, Kuppinger & Zarit, 1985). The challenges facing older adult couples have been complicated and multi-faceted (e.g. declining health and retirement). At times, the intricacies of the issues have been intimidating, and it has been questioned in the literature (e.g. Beckham & Giordano, 1986; Gafner, 1989; Gilewski et al., 1985; Greenbaum & Rader, 1989; Wolinsky, 1986, 1990) whether these clients have the emotional and financial resources, life expectancy, or capacity to change to warrant the investment in time needed by the psychotherapeutic process. In other words, there are some psychologists and counselors who hold little hope for resolving the troubled situations of older people.
Other counselors/therapists do not share this view. Although the...