Gerontological education has become imperative in our changing world. Elderly people require a form of education that enables them to cope with grief, loneliness, fear of death, declining health, life adjustment, mental health issues and other losses that are peculiar to old age. The rapid socio-economic changes especially the current roughening economic conditions, coupled with a growing emergence of the nuclear family structure have collectively attacked some established traditions. The growing urbanization has claimed many young people who prefer to live in urban areas even if they have no employable skill, they simply drift to urban centres and isolate the elderly people in the rural areas. The educated children must of course seek and obtain jobs and settle down and live in their working environments which are usually far from their elderly folks. The growing emergence of unclear families implies that a person’s immediate responsibility is to take care of his/her immediate family (wide, children husband). The frequency of visits of sons and daughters to their old folks in rural areas to deliver material supplies have increasingly dwindled owing to hard economic realities, with attendant cutting down of areas of financial reopsonsbility. Life has become so difficult. It is in the light of the above that this paper seeks to address the issue of life adjustment and mental health education of the elderly (gerontological education), advocate it’s introduction as well as recommend techniques needed for such education.
Keywords: Education, Elderly, gerontological education, life adjustment mental health
