Changes in the Values:A Study of Mental Health Status of the Single Eldelry Persons Living alone in Chandigarh

There has been gradual increase in the population aged 60 years and older. In the population of the aged single elders are in more vulnerable condition. All single elderly persons do not constitute a homogeneous category as they are from different age groups and having marital status. The problem of an elderly widowed person may vary from elderly divorced/never married and the problems of elderly never married person may differ from elderly widowed/divorced. A recently retired person is more active than those elderly who are above 75 years and facing more problems in their day to day life. Change in the traditional values to modern values has made the life of single elderly more vulnerable which affect the mental health of those single elderly who are living alone in the community without any family member. Thus, single elderly persons are in need to highlight in this situation. This paper is modest attempt to understand the mental health status of single elderly persons due to changes in the values (traditional to modern values). For this, data has been collected through interview schedule in which 20 respondents are taken for analysis. The study has been dealt with various effects of mental health problems of single elderly persons. The result shows that 70% respondents feel in good mood most of the time, relaxed without any difficulty, feel peaceful, and enjoy the things they do. They are less helpless, irritated and sometime feel anxiety. Most of the respondents feel happy in the company of others. Whereas, 30% of the respondents feel that it is not wonderful be alive now and 35% feel that nothing turned out the want they wanted. In the concluding remarks, most of the single elderly persons are mentally healthy and happy.