New Dimensions in Spirituality, Religion, and Aging expands the traditional focus of religiosity to include and evaluate recent research and discoveries on the role of secular spirituality in the aging process. Contributors examine the ways conventional religion and other forms of spirituality affect human development, health and longevity, and they demonstrate how myth-creation enables humans to make meaning in their lives. Taken together, the book points to further research to enhance current knowledge, approaches to care, and social policies.

As the older population in the United States is becoming more racially and ethnically diverse, it is important to understand the characteristics, the potential, and the needs of this population. In this new and fully revised edition of Aging and Diversity, Chandra Mehrotra and Lisa Wagner address key topics in diversity and aging, discussing how the aging experience is affected by not only race and ethnicity but also gender, religious affiliation, social class, rural-urban community location, and sexual orientation and gender identity. Taking this broad view of human diversity allows the authors to convey some of the rich complexities facing our aging population - complexities that provide both challenges to meet the needs of a diverse population of elders and opportunities to learn how to live in a pluralistic society. Mehrotra and Wagner present up-to-date knowledge and scholarship about aging and diversity in a way that engages readers in active learning, placing ongoing emphasis on developing readers' knowledge and skills, fostering higher order thinking, and encouraging exploration of personal values and attitudes.

New Dimensions in Spirituality, Religion, and Aging expands the traditional focus of religiosity to include and evaluate recent research and discoveries on the role of secular spirituality in the aging process. Contributors examine the ways conventional religion and other forms of spirituality affect human development, health and longevity, and they demonstrate how myth-creation enables humans to make meaning in their lives. Taken together, the book points to further research to enhance current knowledge, approaches to care, and social policies.

Enhancing the Wellbeing and Wisdom of Older Learners: A Co-research Paradigm examines how lifelong learning, becoming wise, and sharing wisdom are integrally linked to older people's wellbeing. The book highlights appropriate learning styles and pedagogies for older people, including research models emphasising participation, and offers recommendations for research in lifelong learning with the potential to effect change. Focusing upon a collaborative action research project, 'Sagaciation', chapters explore the involvement of older learners in the design and delivery of the scheme, which enabled them to expand their knowledge and skills, and to fully engage as critical and creative voices in a supportive and welcoming environment. The book offers an account of the process of the action research, as well as its findings. The project is set into the context of leading academic thinking on fields such as the growth of an ageing population, the rise of literature on ageing, negative and positive constructions of ageing, social gerontology, the wellbeing and health of older people, and educational gerontology. This book challenges negative representations of older people as a burden by offering a paradigm of hope, resilience, and sagacity within education and beyond. It will appeal to researchers, academics and postgraduate students in the fields of adult education, lifelong learning, gerontology, mental health and wellbeing, and the sociology of education, as well as to policymakers and those working with older people

This book provides readers with a compelling case for the inclusion of contextual therapy in comprehensive healthcare settings by presenting its applications to individual and family health across the lifespan. Part I gives an overview of contextual therapy, including case conceptualization, assessment, intervention, and supervision. Part II provides specific recommendations for incorporating contextual therapy in diverse and multidisciplinary settings. Case studies illustrate how concepts such as justice, loyalty, and balanced giving and receiving influence families' adjustment to chronic illnesses and mental health disorders. Accounting for the trend toward increased collaboration between providers in traditional mental health and medical settings, this book will empower clinicians to expand their current range of assessment methods, intervention techniques, and supervision experiences

This newest edition of a core graduate level textbook has added six new chapters to further enrich the "gerontological imagination," and encourage an interdisciplinary approach to the study of aging. Academically rigorous yet clear and accessible, the text provides the most current findings from leading gerontological researchers and practitioners. New and updated chapters examine biology, exercise science/nutrition, communication science, geriatric medicine and nursing, demography, anthropology, economics, human development, psychology, political science, sociology, social work, and law, to provide broadly drawn perspectives on the study of aging.

Special emphasis is placed on current challenges regarding policy and service delivery in the face of fiscal uncertainty. Additionally, this new edition covers international outlooks on aging given the increasing influence of globalization on individual lives. By interweaving knowledge from a broad range of disciplines, Wilmoth and Ferraro have created a comprehensive picture of gerontology today that will enhance course instruction and provide a new window into the future of the discipline. New chapters address:

Geriatric medicine and nursing Communication disorders and aging International and cross-cultural perspectives on aging Public policy and the needs of diverse aging populations Geriatric social work Legal perspectives on aging Key Features:

Interweaves current gerontological research and ideas from multiple disciplines Addresses biology, psychology, human development, sociology, and economics as they relate to gerontology Presents additional disciplinary perspectives including exercise science/nutrition, communication science, geriatric medicine and nursing, demography, anthropology, political science, social work, and law. Includes Ferraro's classic chapter on "The Gerontological Imagination"

Ageism is too often an accepted form of bias, even though the facts support the value of aging. Airline pilots forced to retire at the arbitrary age of 65 are usually at the top of their game. Forced retirement in most organizations remove highly skilled performers as well as role models and trainers for newer generations. Instead of revelling in who we are, we begin to try to look younger as soon as possible, with 16-year-old women receiving nose and breast surgery as birthday presents. People have become inured to "losing" abilities as they age instead of appreciating new abilities that only age can bestow. Everyone extols the need for gender equality, lest we lose the talents of half of our population. Yet, people over 65 are currently 15 percent of the US population (46.2 million) and is projected to rise to 34 percent. Due to the IRA legislation of the Reagan era - and the lack of need to purchase homes, college educations, cars, or health care-the discretionary assets are also substantial. It's time these people took control of their lives and influence on everything from business to politics.

The only graduate text to encompass the full range of issues regarding the psychology of aging This is the first graduate-level text that offers a comprehensive, in-depth chronicle of issues surrounding the psychology of aging emphasizing psychology, with a foundation in the biology, and an expansion into the sociological aspects of aging. The text is divided into three sections: biological underpinnings of aging, psychological components of aging, and social aspects of aging. Among the multitude of topics addressed are biological theories of aging, neuroimaging methods in aging research, neuroplasticity, cognitive reserve and cognitive interventions, a detailed overview of neurocognitive disorders in aging such as Alzheimer's disease and Lewy body disease, relationships in aging, work vs. retirement, cultural issues in aging, and aging and the legal system, to name just a few critical topics. With an emphasis on promoting critical thinking, the text is enriched with discussion questions in each chapter along with suggestions for more in-depth readings. In addition it includes chapter PowerPoints and an Instructor's Manual with sample syllabi for a 10-week course and a 15-week course. Written for graduate students in multiple gerontology-related disciplines, the text is also of value to individuals studying nursing, medicine, social work, biology, and occupational, physical, and speech therapies. Key Features: Addresses the biological underpinnings of aging, psychological components, and social aspects Written by a variety of experts on each area Emphasizes critical thinking throughout the text Presents discussion questions in each chapter Includes PowerPoints and an Instructor's Manual with sample syllabi Tailored to graduate students from multiple disciplines embarking on clinical or research careers involving older adults.

Issues in Aging combines social, psychological, biological, and philosophical perspectives to present a multifaceted picture of aging. Novak illustrates both the problems and the opportunities that accompany older age. This text helps students understand the tremendous variability in aging and introduces them to careers working with older adults. This new edition reflects the continued changes in the way we age. The fourth edition has been updated to include emerging issues in aging. These include the prevalence of HIV/AIDs in later life, current research on mental potential in old age, the creation of age-friendly cities, and new options for end-of-life care. Each chapter begins with a set of learning objectives to guide students in their reading, and concludes with a list of main points, questions for discussion or study, suggested readings, and relevant web sites to consult. Each chapter also includes up-to-date charts and graphs as well as key terms to help students understand the issues presented. Break out boxes reveal the human side of aging through the stories of individuals in real life and in the media.

As anthropologists, we offer this book about aging in a wide variety of human societies in the hope of its making three contributions. First, this book will help to remedy a massive neglect of old age by the discipline of anthropology. The pioneering work of Leo Simmons (1945) has remained a lonely monument since the 1940's, for despite recent interest in the subject of aging in modern Western societies on the part of social gerontologists and sociologists, little has been done by anthropologists on aging in non-Western societies. Where it has been treated at all, it has been in the form either of a few final paragraphs in the discussion of the life cycle or of a simple ethnographic fact among other facts about a certain social system. What has been missing has been any attempt to put aging in a cross-cultural or comparative perspective, to give this vital subject the same treatment that has been accorded marriage, for example, or death or inheritance or sex roles.
Second, this book will bring a needed cross-cultural perspective to the study of social gerontology. The recent explosion of interest in this field has been largely confined to the study of aging in North America and Europe. But we anthropologists feel that such a culturally limited study, though interesting and productive in its own right, is dangerously narrow if it does not consider what aging is like in other societies. What aspects of aging, for example, are human universals and have to be planned for as inevitable, and what aspects are cultural particulars and can be avoided, modified, or strengthened under certain social conditions? By presenting both a biological account of the universals of human aging (Weiss), and specific ethnographic accounts of aging in a wide variety of societies, we believe we can help to put North American aging into perspective
Third, we hope this book will serve as an illustration of a particular anthropological approach to unity and diversity in human societies and cultures. Perhaps the main task of sociocultural anthropology is a twofold one: the explanation of cross-cultural universals, somehow rooted either in the biological nature of the human species or in universal imperatives of social organization, and the explanation of intercultural variations, rooted in a dialectical interaction between culture and the material conditions (partially created by culture) in which it exists. If unity and diversity can indeed be explained in this way, the cross-cultural study of aging can serve as a paradigm. By first setting out what seem to be the universals determined by the biology of the human species, and by then exploring the range of variation in cultural solutions, we ought to be able to formulate a set of principles that will allow us to explain why variations occur in a certain way. Nine ethnographic case studies are enough, we believe, to enable us to formulate some preliminary hypotheses about the nature and causes of variation in the social process of aging.

As anthropologists, we offer this book about aging in a wide variety of human societies in the hope of its making three contributions. First, this book will help to remedy a massive neglect of old age by the discipline of anthropology. The pioneering work of Leo Simmons (1945) has remained a lonely monument since the 1940's, for despite recent interest in the subject of aging in modern Western societies on the part of social gerontologists and sociologists, little has been done by anthropologists on aging in non-Western societies. Where it has been treated at all, it has been in the form either of a few final paragraphs in the discussion of the life cycle or of a simple ethnographic fact among other facts about a certain social system. What has been missing has been any attempt to put aging in a cross-cultural or comparative perspective, to give this vital subject the same treatment that has been accorded marriage, for example, or death or inheritance or sex roles.
Second, this book will bring a needed cross-cultural perspective to the study of social gerontology. The recent explosion of interest in this field has been largely confined to the study of aging in North America and Europe. But we anthropologists feel that such a culturally limited study, though interesting and productive in its own right, is dangerously narrow if it does not consider what aging is like in other societies. What aspects of aging, for example, are human universals and have to be planned for as inevitable, and what aspects are cultural particulars and can be avoided, modified, or strengthened under certain social conditions? By presenting both a biological account of the universals of human aging (Weiss), and specific ethnographic accounts of aging in a wide variety of societies, we believe we can help to put North American aging into perspective
Third, we hope this book will serve as an illustration of a particular anthropological approach to unity and diversity in human societies and cultures. Perhaps the main task of sociocultural anthropology is a twofold one: the explanation of cross-cultural universals, somehow rooted either in the biological nature of the human species or in universal imperatives of social organization, and the explanation of intercultural variations, rooted in a dialectical interaction between culture and the material conditions (partially created by culture) in which it exists. If unity and diversity can indeed be explained in this way, the cross-cultural study of aging can serve as a paradigm. By first setting out what seem to be the universals determined by the biology of the human species, and by then exploring the range of variation in cultural solutions, we ought to be able to formulate a set of principles that will allow us to explain why variations occur in a certain way. Nine ethnographic case studies are enough, we believe, to enable us to formulate some preliminary hypotheses about the nature and causes of variation in the social process of aging.

As you age, you may find yourself worrying about your memory. Where did I put those car keys? What time was my appointment? What was her name again? With more than 41 million Americans over the age of 65 in the United States, the question becomes how much (or, perhaps, what type) of memory loss is to be expected as one gets older and what should trigger a visit to the doctor. Seven Steps to Managing Your Memory addresses these key concerns and more, such as... * What are the signs that suggest your memory problems are more than just part of normal aging? * Is it normal to have concerns about your memory? * What are the markers of mild cognitive impairment, dementia, Alzheimer's, and other neurodegenerative diseases? * How should you convey your memory concerns to your doctor? * What can your doctor do to evaluate your memory? * Which healthcare professional(s) should you see? * What medicines, alternative therapies, diets, and exercises are available to improve your memory? * Can crossword puzzles, computer brain-training games, memory aids, and strategies help strengthen your memory? * What other resources are available when dealing with memory loss? Seven Steps to Managing Your Memory is written in an easy-to-read yet comprehensive style, featuring clinical vignettes and character-based stories that provide real-life examples of how to successfully manage age-related memory loss.

Grandparents in Cultural Context gives a long overdue global view of the changing roles of grandparents. The eleven main chapters are by experts in the Americas, Europe and Russia, Asia, and Africa and the Middle East, and the editors integrate their chapters with previous writings on grandparenthood. Rather than technical or statistical research reports, each chapter provides a thought-provoking and comprehensive review of research, real-life case stories, cultural influences, and applied implications for grandparenthood across and within societies. Calling special attention to the roles of grandfathers and grandparenthood in societies previously un-represented in the literature, it provides several hundred new citations of work previously unavailable in English-language publications. Accessible to both scholars and students, it has several pedagogical features (e.g. web links, discussion questions) that make it useful as a text for upper-division undergraduate or graduate level classes in behavioral, social, and family sciences. It is relevant to psychology, gerontology, family studies, anthropology, family/comparative sociology, education, social work, gender studies, ethnic studies, psychiatry, and diversity and international studies programs. Practitioners, service providers, policymakers, and internationally minded grandparents will also enjoy this book.

Later-Life Social Support and Service Provision in Diverse and Vulnerable Populations offers current, multidisciplinary perspectives on social support and service provision to older Americans. The chapters trace how our understanding of social support among older adults has developed over the past 40 years and explore current gerontological research in the area. They consider how informal care arrangements articulate with formal long-term care policies and programs to provide support to the diverse population of older Americans. They also emphasize heterogeneity in the composition of support networks, particularly in relation to gender, sexual orientation, race/ethnicity, and immigrant status. Collectively, the chapters provide insight into the complexity of older adult's social support networks that can be used to improve the services provided to caregivers and care recipients as well as the policies that promote high-quality support to people of all ages who are in need of assistance.

Engaging with discussions surrounding the culture of disease, Disrupting Breast Cancer Narratives explores politically insistent narratives of illness. Resisting the optimism of pink ribbon culture, these stories use anger as a starting place to reframe cancer as a collective rather than an individual problem. Disrupting Breast Cancer Narratives discusses the ways emotion, gender, and sexuality, in relation to breast cancer diagnosis and treatment, all become complicated, relational, and questioning. Providing theoretically informed close-readings of breast cancer narratives, this study explores how disruption functions both personally and politically. Highlighting a number of contributors in the field of health and gender studies including Barbara Ehrenreich, Kathlyn Conway, Audre Lorde, and Teva Harrison, this work takes into account documentary film, television, and social media as popular mediums used to explore stories of disease.

This volume contends that young individuals across Europe relate to their country's history in complex and often ambivalent ways. It pays attention to how both formal education and broader culture communicate ideas about the past, and how young people respond to these ideas. The studies collected in this volume show that such ideas about the past are central to the formation of the group identities of nations, social movements, or religious groups. Young people express received historical narratives in new, potentially subversive, ways. As young people tend to be more mobile and ready to interrogate their own roots than later generations, they selectively privilege certain aspects of their identities and their identification with their family or nation while neglecting others. This collection aims to correct the popular misperception that young people are indifferent towards history and prove instead that historical narratives are constitutive to their individual identities and their sense of belonging to something broader than themselves.

Giving voice to the lived experiences of people with dementia across the globe, including Australia, Canada, Sweden and the UK, this critical and evidence-based collection engages with the realities of life for people living with dementia at home and within their neighbourhoods. This insightful text addresses the fundamental social aspects of environment, including place attachment, belonging and connectivity. The chapters reveal the potential and expose the challenges for practitioners and researchers as dementia care shifts to a neighbourhood setting. The unique 'neighbourhood-centred' perspective provides an innovative guide for policy and practice and calls for a new place-based culture of care and support in the neighbourhood.

A dramatic shift in the average age of the U.S. population and the increasing number of elderly Americans has introduced new and challenging healthcare dilemmas. This book addresses these issues with contributed chapters by the leading authorities in the field of behavioral medicine. It deals with health and healthcare needs of the elderly by considering basic changes that result from aging and some of the more specific problems that accompany it. Content highlights include a review of the basic tenets of genetics and molecular biology including some of the methods of looking at heritable differences in health and well-being. Quality of life concerns are addressed, including the differences between men and women, as well as other gender issues. Several chapters deal with the effects of aging on immunity. The latter part of the book emphasizes the psychosocial implications of aging on cardiovascular disease. Chronic illness among the elderly is also addressed.

Increasingly, scholars from many disciplines have begun to incorporate various modalities from the humanities and arts - novels, films, artwork, and other forms of expression - to help connect students with the experience of aging in deeply meaningful and person-centered ways. This collection examines how these approaches are incorporated into gerontology and geriatrics education. Rather than focusing solely on measurable outcomes, such as changes in learning over time - which is the purview of empirical pedagogy - chapters focus on strategies for successfully incorporating a specific work into the classroom, descriptions of humanities and/or arts exercises with students or older adults, and other ways that explore how the humanities and arts can be applied successfully and meaningfully in educational settings. This book was originally published as a special issue of Geronotology & Geriatrics Education.

A broad review of how nonprofits, businesses, and governments work together to tackle social problems Networks for Social Impact takes a systems approach to explain how and when networks make a social impact. Michelle Shumate and Katherine R. Cooper argue that network design and management is not a one-size-fits-all formula. Instead, they show that the type of social issue, the mechanism for social impact, environment, and resources available each determine appropriate choices. Drawing on research from public administration, psychology, business, network science, social work, and communication, this book synthesizes what we know about how to best design and manage networks. It includes illustrations from thirty original case studies which describe groups of organizations addressing issues such as gender-based violence, educational outcomes, senior care, veterans' services, mental health and wellness, and climate change. Additionally, the volume examines critical issues that leaders address in creating and managing networks, including social issue analysis, network governance, securing and managing funding, dealing with power and conflict, using data effectively, and managing change. Each chapter includes tools for network leaders to use to handle these issues. This book is neither an overly idealistic, pro-collaboration account of the benefits of network approaches, nor is it a critical view of these efforts. Instead, this clear and concise volume highlights the opportunities and challenges of networks.

`And that is one thing we need to relearn, that all of life brings its gifts - not only the first two or three decades.' - Rudolf Steiner When are we actually old? What happens as we age? How will we cope with old age? Growing old is an art, and to grow old in the right way we need spiritual understanding. In this enlightening anthology - compiled by a director of care homes for the elderly - wide-ranging cosmological perspectives alternate with detailed observations of the phenomena of ageing. Rudolf Steiner sees ageing within the context of the earthly and spiritual evolution that encompasses all forms of existence. The book thus begins with the primary meaning that ageing has in developmental terms and ends with a consideration of the human being as co-creator in cosmic processes - and with our capacity to become increasingly conscious of the tasks this implies. These key texts by Rudolf Steiner show how spiritual knowledge can broaden the current debate on the study of old age, the process of ageing, and the particular problems faced by older people. Concerns about our `ageing population' can be seen in a broader context that recognizes the fruits of old age. The productive relationship between childhood and old age - a running theme throughout this volume - is one example. If we grow old consciously, viewing ageing not only as a period of physical decline but as a time when we can actively participate in shaping life, then we can begin to find greater meaning in it. Chapters include: `The Core Messages of Ageing'; `Fundamental Principles of Gerontology'; `Ageing as a Developmental Process'; `Ageing: the Risks and Opportunities'; The Art of Growing Old'; `Old Age and Death'; `Growing Old - A Challenge for Education'; `The Cosmological Dimensions of Ageing'.

Five years after the publication of Eldercare 101, it's time to update and revise this important toolbox of critical resources and guidance that assists families and eldercare professionals with the navigation of the advanced aging of loved ones and/or clients based on the Six Pillars of Aging WellbeingTM. In this second edition, Mary Jo Saavedra adds salient new content that reflects the ever-changing landscape of aging in today's culturally-shifting, technological, and pandemic world. The book's online resources have been updated and supplemented with many new tech products on the market that support elders, including Saavedra's forthcoming holistic digital platform. Eldercare 101, Updated Edition will include input from six returning collabroators and twenty new contributors, ensuring that this essential content is up-to-date and accurate.

This volume describes how well we maintain the knowledge we acquire throughout life. Research traditionally focuses on memory for events that are retained over short time periods that can be accommodated in experiments. This book, by contrast, uniquely describes the evolution of methods suitable for investigating memory of complex knowledge acquired over several years and retained during the entire life-span. The methods substitute statistical for experimental controls, and the investigations involve several hundred participants whose memory is tested up to 50 years after they acquired the knowledge in question. The book covers educational content, such as mathematics and foreign languages; knowledge acquired incidentally, such as the streets and buildings of the cities in which we live; and knowledge acquired through the media. Previously unpublished research on age-related access to knowledge is included. The analyses are based on the accessibility/availability ratio, a metric presented for the first time. This metric allows comparisons of the portion of available knowledge that can be recalled as a function of age, education and other individual differences, and as a function of the domain of knowledge in question. The ratio can be used to evaluate methods of instruction and methods of studying. It can also be used to evaluate memory development and to diagnose memory pathology. The volume will be of interest to researchers in human memory, developmental psychologists, gerontologists in academic and applied settings, and educators.