There are five stages that we all go through in our life, theses stages are; * Infancy * Childhood * Adolescence * Young Adulthood * Late Adulthood
Each of these stages has an expected milestone that most people will achieve; it is not set in stone that you must achieve each milestone by the set age. Life span development should be considered as a gradual unfolding of developmental events. (HNC Social Care page 75).each stage of the development is broken down into 5 strands of development (SPECC) (see appendix 1) * Physical * Emotional * Social * Cognitive * Cultural
Physiologist have argued that if each milestone is not achieved it can then impact on the development of the later stages.
Mr Macdonald is the older adulthood stage of his life; Mr Macdonald should be in relative good health and fitness for his age. He should be enjoying more freedom due to his retirement. Emotionally Mr Macdonald should be spending time and enjoying his grandchildren and also trying out new activities. Mr Macdonald should also be taking more interest in his cultural surroundings and stimulating his mind as at his age cognitively things can start to slow down a bit. Due to his wife’s illness all his needs will be compromised.
Mr Macdonald faces alot of conflict in his life at the moment, Erikson’s theory of development has eight stages of development which are said to be universal and at some point in our life’s we have to go through each stage of development.
At this stage in Mr MacDonald’s life he is at stage eight which is Ego versus Despair. Mr Macdonald at this stage in his life should be enjoying his retirement and a healthy social life with his wife, he should also be enjoying spending time with