Photovoice Research Paper
Skin Care
Ronald G. Buell III
GERO 350
Professor Carter
4/8/15
Keeping skin healthy is vital for many body functions. It protects underlying tissues from harmful environmental influences and minimizes water loss. Sweating and shivering is very important in order to regulate body temperature. The skin also eliminates salts and other waste products through sweating. Such factors as smoking cigarettes, not wearing sunscreen and not eating healthy or taking the right amount of vitamins, if any, are all factors that affect the way an elderly individual’s skin will look like. Exposure to the sun is a huge problem for the skin of the elderly generation. They did not receive the same education about harmful ultraviolent rays that our generation was warned about. They did not use sunscreen as often which caused Extrinsic Aging. Extrinsic aging which is also known as photoageing is thought to be caused from over exposure to harmful ultraviolent rays from the sun. Ultraviolent radiation has caused damage to both the outer layers of the skin and nuclear and mitochondrial DNA (Leung & Harvey 2002). The typical elderly individual’s skin depends on multiple factors such as whether or not they used sunscreen during their lifetime, what kind of occupation they worked, the types of clothing they wore, the environment they lived in and of course how their skin in particular first reacts to the sun. Every individual’s skin reacts differently in the sun and depending on the amount of time spent in the sun daily greatly effects how the skin will react. Other factors such as whether or not the individual exposed themselves to more harmful rays in tanning beds or other types of sunlamp use greatly impact the skin. If an individual were to go tanning everyday up until their older age their skin would be put in a much worse situation than an individual who has spent time in the sun everyday but never went tanning. Hair