Focusing on mental health rather than mental illness, this book adopts a lifecourse approach to understanding mental health and wellbeing in later life. Well-respected author and scholar Alisoun Milne explores the influences of lifecourse experiences, structural inequalities, socio-political context, history, gender and age related factors and engages with new ways of thinking about preventing mental ill health and promoting mental health in later life. Drawing together material from a number of different fields, the book analyses the meaning and determinants of mental health among older populations and offers a critical review of the lifecourse, ageing and mental health discourse for students, professionals, policy makers and researchers.

What's happening to me?' Successful translator and linguist Helga Rohra was understandably good with words - that is, until she found herself getting in a muddle when she spoke. She started to forget the way home, even though she could remember her address. Her confusing symptoms increased and Helga was diagnosed with dementia at age 50 - but she hasn't let herself be labelled with the usual stereotypes. With entertaining vim Helga shows that her life is still as abundant and self-determined as ever, dismantling the negative stereotypes that often surround a dementia diagnosis. She speaks frankly and with humour about her diagnosis and life with young onset Lewy Body Dementia. She explains the changes in her everyday life and the challenges she faces, and shares practical tips that prove it is possible to live well with dementia. Helga also talks about her activism work, which has made hers one of the key voices internationally in dementia advocacy.

As the aging population of the United States continues to increase, age-related policies have come under intense scrutiny and have sparked heated debates. This revised and updated edition of "The New Politics of Old Age Policy" explains the politics behind the country's age-based programs, describes how those programs work, and assesses how well--or poorly--they meet the growing and changing needs of older Americans.

The chapters address theoretical approaches to age-based policy; population dynamics and the impact of growing diversity within the older population; and national, state, and local political issues associated with major age-based programs. The contributors are leading experts whose essays range across disciplines, including political science, sociology, law, social work, social welfare, and gerontology.

More than any other source, this book presents the most current information on growing older in the United States, including detailed analyses of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, housing initiatives, the Older Americans Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, and tax policy.

Contributors: Christina M. Andrews, M.S.W., University of Chicago; Jeffrey A. Burr, Ph.D., University of Massachusetts-Boston; Andrea Louise Campbell, Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Caroline Cicero, M.P.L., University of Southern California; Kerstin Gerst, Ph.D., University of Texas Medical Branch; Judith G. Gonyea, Ph.D., Boston University School of Social Work; Colleen M. Grogan, Ph.D., University of Chicago; Madonna Harrington Meyer, Ph.D., Syracuse University; Christopher Howard, Ph.D., The College of William and Mary; Ryan King, S.B., Renewable Energy Systems Americas, Denver, Colorado; Sandra R. Levitsky, Ph.D., University of Michigan; Frederick R. Lynch, Ph.D., Claremont McKenna College; Laurie A. McCann, J.D., AARP Foundation Litigation, Washington, D.C.; Kimberly J. Morgan, Ph.D., The George Washington University; Jan E. Mutchler, Ph.D., University of Massachusetts-Boston; John Myles, Ph.D., University of Toronto; Christy M. Nishita, Ph.D., University of Hawaii; Jon Pynoos, Ph.D., University of Southern California; Richard A. Settersten, Jr., Ph.D., Oregon State University; Molly E. Trauten, M.G.S., Oregon State University; Cathy Ventrell-Monsees, J.D., Attorney, Chevy Chase, Maryland; Janet M. Wilmoth, Ph.D., Syracuse University

Intermediate care has become a buzzword within health and social care over the last few years. Seen as the panacea for a number of woes, particularly for older people, intermediate care has been held up as a way forward within contemporary health and social care.

This text explores in detail what is understood by the concept of intermediate care and, in particular, ways in which the needs of older people can be best met by this new range of services. Initial discussion centres on the concept of intermediate care and the motives for its development. This is followed by a summary of the range of intermediate care services that have been developed, with a discussion of some of the confusion that surrounds the concept.

The debate then moves on to centre on older people, discussing first why older people have come to be perceived as one of the main client groups that may benefit from intermediate care, and then how intermediate care could be developed to better serve their needs. An overview of ageing and the uniqueness of older people is then provided, followed by an exploration of some of the challenges faced by older people within society - and how this has extended into the delivery of health and social care.

What happens when the parents of migrants age and need care in mobile and aging societies? Ethnomorality of Care acts as a window in sharing how physical distance challenges family-centered elderly care by juxtaposing transnational families with non-migrant families. A novel approach that explores intentions and moral beliefs concerning elderly care alongside practical care arrangements, Ethnomorality of Care presents a concept of care which recognizes how various factors shape the experience of care, including: national, regional, and local contexts, economic inequalities, gender, care and migration regimes. Based on the findings of a multi-sited research carried out between 2014 and 2017 in Poland and the UK, this perceptive volume also seeks to demonstrate how researchers and practitioners can use ethnomorality of care approach to examine non-migrant families and other types of care. Helping readers to better understand the lived experience of care receivers and givers beyond kinship care, Ethnomorality of Care will appeal to graduate students, researchers, policy makers and care practitioners interested in fields such as migration studies, transnational studies and social and cultural gerontology.

Thanks to advances in science and medicine, our parents are living longer than ever before. But our health-care system doesn't perform as well when decline eventually sets in. We want to do our best as our loved ones face new complications--more diseases and disabilities--demanding further need for support and careful judgment, but the choices we have to make can seem overwhelming.

Family doctor and geriatrician Dennis McCullough recommends a new approach: Slow Medicine. Shaped by common sense and kindness, it advocates for careful anticipatory "attending" to an elder's changing needs rather than waiting for crises that force acute medical interventions--thereby improving the quality of elders' extended late lives without bankrupting their families financially or emotionally. This is not a plan for preparing for death; it is a plan for understanding, for caring, and for helping those you love live well during their final years.

Resilience is an area of growing interest within critical gerontology and policy agendas. In this book, researchers from multiple disciplines critically reflect on ways in which cultural engagement can develop social connectivity and improve resilience for older people, and how the built environment, community living, cultural participation, lifelong learning, and artist-led interventions can all help people to thrive in older age.

The debate over national health insurance has renewed attention on the health and health care utilization of the elderly. Few questions have been more poignant than the health of the United States' elderly. As a broad-ranging critical look, "Health and Health Care Utilization in Later Life" brings the central questions facing the elderly into bold relief. It spans the range of health concerns the elderly face daily. The debates over health care rage, often without having the relevant facts. "Health and Health Care Utilization in Later Life" brings the facts to the fore but just as importantly, it brings a sensitive feeling for the realities of health as a driving force in the daily lives of old people.

While life in a nursing home is rarely considered a first choice, at times it's the best choice. Still, the decision to put a loved one in a home is incredibly difficult. This book concentrates on the positive aspects of nursing homes and offers strategies for identifying the best facilities. Among the topics covered are how to recognize signs that a family member needs extra support, determining whether in-home care is a viable option, the different types of long-term care, working and communicating with the staff, and preparing for the end of life.

The ageing of the population is a demographic phenomenon, a social problem and a policy issue. The increase in the numbers of aged and in the costs of supporting and caring for them have also brought increases in family care, in deinstitutionalisation of aged care services and in issues of quality and outcomes of care and consumer rights. The growing recognition of the feminisation of ageing also has significant social and policy consequences. In this 1998 book, Diane Gibson synthesises a wide range of material to provide an overview of these issues and policy responses worldwide. The book then looks in-depth at Australia, a country typical in the problems it faces, and a world leader in many of its solutions. Gibson also offers a more conceptual examination of theoretical implications and practical consequences. She elucidates debates in ways which will set new standards for aged care policy and practice worldwide.

Are the elderly posing a threat to America's political system with their enormous clout? Are they stretching resources to the breaking point with their growing demands for care? Economist and legal scholar Richard A. Posner explodes the myth that the United States could be on the brink of gerontological disaster. This text seeks to offer fresh insight into a wide range of social and political issues relating to the elderly, such as health care, crime, social security, and discrimination. From the dread of death to the inordinate law-abidingness of the old, from their loquacity to their penny-pinching, Posner paints a surprisingly rich, revealing, and unsentimental portrait of the millions of elderly people in the United States. He explores issues such as age discrimination in employment, creativity and leadership as functions of age, and the changing social status of the elderly. Why are old people, presumably with less to lose, more unwilling to take risks than young people? Why don't the elderly in the United States command the respect and affection they once did and still do in other countries? How does aging affect driving and criminal records? And how does aging relate to creativity across different careers?

A comprehensive and practical guide to dementia, this book is essential reading for anyone who has a friend or relative with the condition. This updated edition reflects new guidance on approaches to supporting people with dementia, focussing especially on the UK, and includes quotes from people with dementia as well as from family carers. The book explores each stage of the journey people with dementia face and explains how it affects the person, as well as those around them both at home and in residential settings. It shows how best to offer support and where to get professional and informal assistance. Focussing on the progressive nature of dementia and the issues that can arise as a result, it gives practical advice that can help to ensure the best possible quality of life both for the person with dementia and the people around them.

This book explores the intersecting issues relating the phenomenon of ageing to gender and family law. The latter has tended to focus mainly on family life in young and middle age; and, indeed, the issues of childhood and parenting are key in many family law texts. Family life for older members has, then, been largely neglected; addressing this neglect, the current volume explores how the issues which might be important for younger people are not necessarily the same as those for older people. The significance of family, the nature of family life, and the understanding of self in terms of one's relationships, tend to change over the life course. For example, the state may play an increasing role in the lives of older people - as access to services, involvement in work and the community, the ability to live independently, and to form or maintain caring relationships, are all impacted by law and policy. This collection therefore challenges the standard models of family life and family law that have been developed within a child/parent-centred paradigm, and which may require rethinking in the turn to family life in old age. Interdisciplinary in its scope and orientation, this book will appeal not just to academic family lawyers and students interested in issues around family law, ageing, gender, and care; but also to sociologists and ethicists working in these areas.

This thoughtful and compassionate account addresses some of the difficult ethical and medical issues raised in the provision of health care for the dependent elderly patient. Care of the dependent elderly is subject to conflicting priorities arising from the demands of patients, their relatives, the fair allocation of medical and financial resources, and the medical ethos to prolong life. A distinguished team of contributors, selected from the fields of medicine, philosophy, ethics, and law, discuss and critically evaluate these issues. This volume will provide a focus for further debate and interest in this important subject.

The time has come to further challenge biomedical and clinical thinking about dementia, which has for so long underpinned policy and practice. Framing dementia as a disability, this book takes a rights-based approach to expand the debate. Applying a social constructionist lens, it builds on earlier critical perspectives by bringing together concepts including disability, social inclusion, personhood, equality, participation, dignity, empowerment, autonomy and solidarity. Launching the debate into new and exciting territory, the book argues that people living with dementia come within the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and therefore have full entitlement to all the rights the Convention enshrines. A human rights-based approach has not to date been fully applied to interrogate the lived experience and policy response to dementia. With the fresh analytical tools provided in this book, policy makers and practitioners will will gain new insights into how this broader perspective can be used to further promote the quality of life and quality of care for all those affected by dementia.

The second edition of PROTOCOLS IN PRIMARY CARE GERIATRICS continues its mission of improving practical, clinical knowledge among physicians and others caring for elderly people, while providing updated information on several major areas in the field. Reflecting current practice trends, a new chapter on home care has been added as well as one on comprehensive geriatric assessment. Revised guidelines for falls, incontinence, and drug treatment are also featured. Designed to provide both quick reference to clinical problem-solving schemes and lists, as well as a lucid, readable discussion of basic topics in geriatrics, the book's value lies in its combination of brief, readable chapters, a section of notes in outline form, staightforward clinical approaches, didactic exercises, and new updated case studies. Family physicians, primary care internists, and other primary specialists caring for elderly people will find this book of great value. It is also not to be missed by residents, as well as nursing homes, hospitals, and indiviual health care professionals, other than physicians, who will benefit from its use as a clinical reference guide.

Services to older people with mental health problems have gone through radical change in recent years. Legislation has had a profound effect by dictating how care to older people is delivered both within hospital and within the community. The recent government agenda emphasizes cost effectiveness, value for money and accountability. This, too, is an important driving force in re-evaluat ing the service, although not everyone would agree with many of the proposed strategies and there are clearly different views as to the appropriateness of many of the services. One thing is certain, however - the move towards interdiscipli nary working is here to stay. Not all change has been led by legislation, and many innovations have been founded in the day-to-day practices in the care of older people with mental health problems. A service, of course, does not become integrated merely by imposing joint working on a number of professionally based disciplines, and in many ways this may not be desirable. At its worst it produces duplication, where people from different background are all doing the same job. This is not the intention of joint-working, instead it should attempt to improve the quality of service by a rich mix of skills and experience from a number of related disciplines.

Old age is part of the life cycle about which there are numberous myths and stereotypes. The appropriateness or otherwise of these myths is evaluated by Christina Victor using detailed statistical material from a biographical and anthropological perspective.;This edition of this review of the present and future needs of the elderly provides an up-to-date overview of the position of older people in late-20th century Britain. It examines their social and economic circumstances and the main policy issues including pensions, housing, health and social care. Data from Britain and other countries completes the revision of this standard work for social and health workers, sociologists and social policy analysts at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.;This book should serve as a useful introduction to the characteristics of older people in a modern industrial society. It should be of interest to Project 2000 (adult branch) and MSc students of social gerontology and social policy.

This book examines a central element of social welfare, old age security, exploring the history of policies in both developed and underdeveloped countries to assess their structure, ideology and effectiveness. The authors test five theoretical perspectives on old-age security policy in four industrial nations (the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Germany) and three developing countries (India, Nigeria, Brazil), challenging the view that old age policy is the outcome of class conflict between capital and labour. Instead, the authors adopt a neo-pluralist perspective which emphasizes the influence of ethnic religious and regional groups, as well as "the grey lobby", over that of class-based groups. The authors attempt to test ideas derived in part from these historical case studies by analysing quantitative data from a broader sample of countries (18 industrial nationa and 32 developing nations), and they use these results to anticipate future policy developments in the U.S.

There's Nobody There is a study of family members who care for, and those suffering confusion caused by Alzheimer's disease or a related dementia. The authors describe the experience of caregivers, often the caregivers' own words, and assess the impact of community care policies on their lives.

The issue of elderly care is becoming increasingly important in both "developed" and "developing" countries alike as population structures change, and the trend towards ageing populations gathers momentum. This text presents a diverse range of progressive programmes from all parts of the world for the care of elderly people, ranging from community care schemes to fitness and income generation.;This book should be of interest to students of gerontology, as well as government planners and international agencies/charities concerned with ageing, and health care providers and planners.

Rarely heard about in our society are caregivers' thoughts and feelings about life, death, and dying and how they act on those feelings. "For the Living: Coping, Caring and Communicating with the Terminally Ill" provides an in-depth, qualitative look at the experiences of oncology healthcare professionals as they work with terminally ill patients. Through a series of recorded and edited interviews, the author explores the social and cultural dynamics that affect physicians, nurses, and social workers routinely encountering mortality and loss. What death and the prospect of dying mean to these individuals should not be taken lightly.

Understand and assess the sensory needs of people with dementia, and learn how to implement sensory modulation-based approaches for enriched care. Drawing on the author's Sensory Modulation Program, this approach aids with self-organization and meaningful participation in life activities. Explaining sensory-processing issues specific to older populations, this book provides a downloadable assessment tool to help review individual sensory-processing patterns. It includes a range of sensory-based activities which can be carried out with people at all stages of dementia, both with individuals and in groups. The book also provides recommendations for modifying physical environments to make care settings sensory-enriched.

'A beautiful and moving book that vividly brings home the challenges faced by those with dementia and their carers' Sir Tony Robinson A moving and beautifully illustrated book that captures the real life tales of people living with dementia, as told by their loved ones caring for them. This humorous, heartwarming and often heartbreaking collection will be relatable and supportive for anyone touched by dementia in their lives, and provides insight and information for anyone wanting to know more. The stories reflect on: the impact of receiving a diagnosis, the importance of person-centred care and social inclusion; the power of meaningful engagement, partnerships, peer support and much, much more.

Nursing homes are where some of the most vulnerable live and work. In too many homes, the conditions of work make it difficult to make care as good as it can be. For the last eight years an international team from Germany, Sweden, Norway, the UK, the US and Canada have been searching for promising practices that treat residents, families and staff with dignity and respect in ways that can also bring joy. While we did find ideas worth sharing, we also saw a disturbing trend toward privatization. Privatization is the process of moving away not only from public delivery and public payment for health services but also from a commitment to shared responsibility, democratic decision-making, and the idea that the public sector operates according to a logic of service to all. This book documents moves toward privatization in the six countries and their consequences for families, staff, residents, and, eventually, us all. None of the countries has escaped pressure from powerful forces in and outside government pushing for privatization in all its forms. However, the wide variations in the extent and nature of privatization indicate privatization is not inevitable and our research shows there are alternatives.