Patrick is an 80-year-old man living in hostel accommodation in the city center: Human Growth and development Assignment, OC, Ireland

CASE STUDY

Patrick is an 80-year-old man living in hostel accommodation in the city center. Patrick is an alcoholic and spends most of his days on the streets, begging for money and eating in a cafe that serves Penny dinners. He does little in the way of socializing, other than with other people who live between the streets and the hostel, and has very little interaction with his family, other than the odd visit from his younger brother.

Patrick started life as a premature baby and spent the first weeks of his life in the ICU unit in the hospital. He was born into a family where there were already 5 children and was reared in a violent home with an alcoholic father who physically abused both Patrick and his mother.

He has always felt like an unwanted child: his mother had Bipolar disease and spent a lot of his younger years recovering from beatings in hospital, with the result that Patrick did not bond well with a reliable adult. He spent a lot of his teenage years in and out of adolescent centers and spent 8 years in prison for assaulting a shopkeeper and robbing the shop.