Aging and Sexuality

The major take away from this guest lecture is reducing the stigma that older adults are not sexually active.  A second takeaway I had from this lecture is hot to normalize the conversation of sexuality with a client since it is such a meaningful occupation in people’s lives.  It was stated in our lecture that orgasms can relieve pain, reduce stress, and improve sleep, which all of those can be beneficial for the older population.  During this lecture, the speaker address numerous factors that impact sexuality for older patients.  These included how sex was handled in the home, religion, history of trauma, physical issues, society’s pressure and body image, relationship quality and dynamics, and orientation.  When reading more into the topic that physical issues make sexual response that much for difficult in older adults, you learn that diagnoses like arthritis can make sex challenging and painful.  Another diagnosis that affects sex is diabetes because of the changes in the nerve fibers and blood vessels in the penis, it makes it more difficult to obtain and maintain erections.  Also, high blood pressure damages the lining of blood vessels which can limit blood flow causing difficulty when ejaculating and reduce desire. Another factor that stuck out to me was the body image factor, because I never stopped to think about how much the body changes when you get older and how that can alter someone’s thoughts of their own body image.

When thinking about how OT can help with this occupation in the older adult community, an educational group session comes to mind.  A support group of 70+ year old males and females to discuss sexuality.  This group can address multiple topics such as STIs and how to prevent them or body image with their changing body.  The topic of STIs would be important to this population because this could be a topic that was not addressed as much when they were younger.  Also, discussing their body image would be beneficial for people with diagnoses like cancer, that would cause their body to change and alter the way they think of themselves. When thinking about a one-on-one treatment, it could be for a female with arthritis in her hands and educate on how adding a male masturbater to assist with gripping with comfort on her partner during foreplay.  This would be an educational treatment session for her to learn about options that can cause make it less painful on her hands when pleasuring her partner.