In this book, leading authors in the field discuss developments of Ambient Assisted Living. The contributions have been chosen and invited at the 8th AAL Congress, Frankfurt/M. The meeting presents new technological developments which support the autonomy and independence of individuals with special needs. The 8th AAL Congress focusses its attention on technical assistance systems and their applications in homecare, health and care.

A moving ethnographic account of the transnational caregiving experiences and practices of migrants and refugees who live in Australia, with their parents in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and New Zealand. This timely work contributes rich detailed knowledge of how people respond to a world characterised by unprecedented mobility (both voluntary and forced), globalised job markets and an ageing population, as increasing numbers of families find themselves spread across the globe and caring for their elderly parents from a distance.

This in-depth description of life in a nursing/care home for 70 residents and 40 staff highlights the daily care of frail or ill residents between 80 and 100 years of age, including people suffering with dementia. How residents interact with care assistants is emphasised, as are the different behaviours of men and women observed during a year of daily conversations between the author, patients and staff, who share their stories of the pressures of the work. Living Before Dying shows a world where, in extreme old age, people have to learn how to cope with living communally.

With the longest life expectancy for men and the second longest for women, Hong Kong typifies our planet s aging population. The daily lives of its older adults closely match the advantages and disadvantages experienced by urban elders in other developed countries. For these reasons, Hong Kong s elderly serve as a salient guide to older people s social, psychological, and healthcare needs concerns of increasing importance as the world grows older.

"Aging in Hong Kong" examines this emblematic population as a case study specifically in comparison with their counterparts in the West, shedding light on diverse, interrelated currents in the aging experience. Referencing numerous international studies, the book contrasts different health service arrangements and social factors and relates them to a variety of health outcomes. Its wide-ranging coverage documents health and illness trends, reviews age-friendly policy initiatives, relates health literacy to patients active role in their own care, and discusses elders as an underserved group in the division of limited health funding and resources. This multiple focus draws readers attention to policies that need revisiting or retooling as chapters analyze major life areas including:

Living environment.Retirement and post-retirement employment issues.Financial asset management.Health literacy regarding aging issues.Elder-positive service delivery models.Ageism in the prioritization of healthcare.End-of-life issues.

By assembling such a wealth of data on its subject, "Aging in Hong Kong" puts ongoing challenges into clear focus for gerontologists, sociologists, health and cross-cultural psychologists, public health policymakers, and others involved in improving the quality of elders lives."

It 's a core issue at the heart of elder care: while best-practice data exist for long-term care, quality of life as a concept, measure and standard for care outcomes remains elusive. The result of an ambitious European research initiative, the Care Keys Project addresses quality of life issues among frail, care-dependent seniors, taking their social as well as health needs into account. This resulting volume explains the theory behind Care Keys, its methodology, empirical findings, and practical considerations in promoting effective, efficient elder care aimed at social and emotional well-being and including disabled and cognitively impaired patients.

This book presents the result of the MART study, an action funded under the TIDE (Technology Initiative for Disabled and Elderly People) programme of the EU. TIDE supports research and development in assistive technology with the aim of contributing to the quality of life of older people and people with disabilities and encouraging European industry and markets. The book provides the first complete assessment of the opportunities presented by the Information Society for Older People and people with disabilities in Europe, and of the factors in European telecommunications and in social developments that are facilitating or inhibiting access to these. It is being published at a time when these issues are becoming increasingly considered in EU and national policy, in the strategies of the telecommunications industry and in the concerns of representative user organisations. As the MART study finished in early 1996 and the European situation is changing rapidly, a chapter has been added by the authors to take account of more recent developments.

Romanticism on the Road challenges critical orthodoxy by arguing that Wordsworth rejected the political dogmas of his age. Refusing to ally with either radicals or conservatives after the French Revolution, the poet seizes on vagrants to attack the binary thinking dominating public affairs and to question the value of the Georgian domestic ideal. Drawing on current and historical discussions of homelessness, the study offers a cultural history of vagrancy and explains why Wordsworth chose the homeless to bear his message.

This book offers an interdisciplinary analysis of the experience of economic vulnerability among older adults. Drawing on various fields ranging from happiness, economics to stress research, it integrates assessments from objective and subjective measurement perspectives. The book offers nuanced insights into prevalent experiences of low economic quality of life in wealthy countries, using empirical data from Switzerland. A sample of some 1500 adults aged 65-84 is taken as the basis for a systematic comparison of the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of three - overlapping - groups of potentially vulnerable pensioners: those who are income-poor (objective measure), those who report difficulties making ends meet (subjectively self-assessed measure) and those who worry about not having enough money for current expenses (subjectively perceived measure). Theoretical and empirical evidence is offered for the distinctiveness of the two subjective indicators, one of which assesses the experience of economic strain while the other captures the individual's response in terms of stress. The conceptual contribution of this research includes a typology of economic vulnerability: eight distinct profiles emerge at the intersection of the objective, self-assessed and perceived measures. These profiles correspond to specific risk constellations, and they reflect varying degrees of human agency in dealing with economic vulnerability.

The growing number of homeless people over age 50 has reached epidemic proportions. It is important to recognize that this group has special needs and demands from health factors to safety. This book is a resource for professionals training and working with this homeless contingent.

Population ageing is an important trend which will be experienced in industrialized countries in the early years of the next century. This significant book examines aspects of population ageing and pensions, with an emphasis on the design and use of simple economic models to focus on particular aspects of a very broad problem. The analysis of pensions presents many complex problems. A major aim of this book is to demonstrate how reasonably simple economic models can be designed and used to shed some light on the issues involved in population growth and pension provision. The basic analytics of population growth and pension structure are first explored. Projections for Australia are examined and used to model ageing and social expenditure and to estimate the 'burden' of aged care on future workers. The author goes on to investigate pensions and pension finance, and examines several types of economic model before turning to the analysis of alternative pension arrangements using a lifetime simulation model. The results of the study suggest that both lower contribution rates and a universal pension encourage a later retirement age. This book will prove invaluable to students and scholars of public sector economics, welfare economics, social economics and public finance.

The two phenomena are occurring side by side: a rapidly growing elder population and a burgeoning tech sector. Where a few years ago these worlds would not have met, a new generation of older adults has grown comfortable with technology and open to its possibilities for improving their lives as they age.

"Technologies for Active Aging" offers novel answers to a range of aging issues, from safety and mobility to cognition and continence. Written for the non-technical reader, the book examines the potential of information and communicative technologies such as pervasive computing, smart environments, and robotics to enhance seniors' quality of life and encourage independent living, better care and self-care, and social participation.

Diversity is emphasized here, in terms of the life areas addressed, the perspectives of elders and caregivers, and the global reach of those working toward solutions. This state-of-the-field volume looks ahead to future research and the next wave of innovations to help all seniors, regardless of health or ability. Among the topics featured: Promoting technology use by people with dementia.Wheelchair mobility in older adults.Intelligent systems for assessing age-related changes using home-based technology.Measuring the effectiveness of assistive technologies in community and home settings.Technology for the prevention of fall-related injuries.Tele-health in chronic disease management.

A comprehensive mix of theoretical developments and emerging realities, "Technologies for Active Aging" serves a variety of professionals, including gerontologists, sociologists, health and cross-cultural psychologists, and public health policymakers.

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This book examines the many economic and budgetary aspects of aging, and of an aging population, exploring the welfare state and incentives to retire, the macroeconomic and fiscal implications of aging and the long-run effects of government spending on the elderly. There is also an examination of the changing patterns of retirement behaviour, economic well-being and gender disparities among the elderly, the interaction between private and public provisioning, and aspects of retirement security.

This collection on researching later life and ageing critically reflects upon the qualitative methods used in gaining knowledge of under-researched groups of older people and sets out future research agendas.

The transition from central planning in Central and Eastern Europe has resulted in a decline in social security. Transformation of Pension Systems in Central and Eastern Europe provides an in-depth examination of systems of social protection for the elderly. The authors begin by analysing the urgent measures required to respond to a changing economic system. They also consider the fundamental questions of redesigning old-age financial security which is embedded in an international debate on pension reform, taking into account the political and economic factors from a comparative perspective. Covering the Baltic states, Poland, the Czech and Slovak Republics and Hungary, the development of pension security is traced from the late 1980s to the end of the 1990s. Using local pension experts with academic and administrative backgrounds, the country studies are characterized by a detailed and interdisciplinary perspective, and provide an economic, political, legal and institutional approach to pension systems development.

Between longer life expectancies and declining birth rates, Europe's elder population is growing into a sizable minority with considerable impact on nations, health systems, and economies-in other words, global implications as well as local and regional ones. Those investing in the health of older adults need a double perspective: the social and clinical complexity of aging and the larger forces shaping these experiences.

"Aging in European Societies" examines aging trends across the continent, analyzing individual and collective variables that affect the lives of older adults, and drawing salient comparisons with other parts of the world. An interdisciplinary panel of experts provides theory, research, and empirical findings (with examples from the UK, Cyprus, Sweden, and others) in key areas such as family and social supports, physical and cognitive changes, dependence and autonomy issues, and living arrangements. The book's wide-net approach offers insights into not only aging, but aging well. And of particular importance, it details approaches to defining and measuring the elusive but crucial concept, quality of life. Included in the coverage:

The potential for technology to improve elders' quality of life.Dementia and quality of life issues.Changes in functional ability with aging and over time.Family networks and supports in older age.Factors influencing inequalities in quality of life.Late-life learning in the E.U.

Gerontologists, sociologists, health and cross-cultural psychologists, and public health policymakers will welcome "Aging in European Societies "as a springboard toward continued discussion, new directions for research, and improvements in policy and practice."

This reference book defines the work of major organizations in the United States concerned with public policies that affect 30 million elderly Americans today. In-depth analyses of the strategies, programs, and publications of eighty-three national non-profit and non-partisan groups give an overview of citizen work on behalf of the aging and the aged. A brief history of organizational development and a listing of pertinent national legislation provides important background information. Directories of other important organizations, a selected bibliography, a full index, and cross-references make this volume easy for students, professionals, and citizen activists to use.

Entries are arranged alphabetically--each entry contains sections on the origin and development of the group, its organization and funding, policy concerns and tactics, electoral activity, and publications and sources for further information. This volume joins a series of references that deal with the formation of public policy among different interest groups in the United States.

Older people are, like younger people, citizens in the communities of the nations in which they live. This book sees ageing as a life journey that incorporates a process of citizening, in which people build their identity as part of their family and community. But the social experience of illness, frailty, disability and reaching the end of life may de-citizen older people by devaluing the social identity that comes from continuing social engagement. We de-citizen older people by emphasizing dependence on services and their cost to public expenditure instead of valuing the interdependence of participation and mutual respect. This book argues that older people retain full citizenship for the whole of their lives, up to the moment of death; but what does this mean for health and social care? In this groundbreaking book, Malcolm Payne argues that social work with older people must build re-citizening practice strategies to value both the common and the special aspects of the citizenship of older people. Current models of social care and social work create dependency, rather than relying on values of participative interdependence. The failure to recognize the end of life as a crucial element in all social care and social work for older people means that the lessons learned in providing palliative and end-of-life care in healthcare have not been transferred to social care, and the priorities of end-of-life care have not been adequately encompassed in social work with older people.

This book offers the first full examination of the legal role of public guardianship in 25 years, comparing current conditions to those when the last study was published in 1981. Public Guardianship: In the Best Interests of Incapacitated People? is written to advance public understanding of what happens to disabled and elderly adults when no family member or friend is available to be a caregiver or guardian should it become necessary. It is the first major study on this critically important issue since 1981. Conducted by experts in gerontology, social work, public policy, and public health, it finds that, although progress has been made, guardianship programs around the country still are hampered by limited staff and resources. Public Guardianship analyzes the full range of state statutes governing guardianship, including guardian eligibility, investigation, due process, rights, powers, costs, and monitoring. The authors report their case studies of public guardianship programs, marshaling and comparing field data from their surveys of stakeholders in ten states. The book concludes with a variety of recommendations for improving guardianship programs, including the authors' Model Public Guardian Act. Includes case studies on public guardianship programs in ten different states Offers bibliographic listings of works cited in the text Presents tables and charts showing important data

Empowerment refers to the ability to make informed choices, exercise influence, make continuing contributions to society, and take advantage of services. These privileges are taken for granted by most working-age adults, but often are not available to older persons for a variety of reasons, including poverty, poor health, low educational levels, lack of transportation and access to services, negative stereotypes about aging, and overt or subtle age discrimination. Yet empowerment is vital to the quality of life of older persons and the health of society on the whole if seniors are engaged and involved members of it. This book takes an international approach by presenting the work of 17 experts in aging. Countries represented by the contributors include Denmark, the Dominican Republic, Ireland, India, Japan, Mexico, Pakistan, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States. While many works address the issue of empowerment, the aging perspective is relatively rare and the international perspective entirely lacking until now.

Empowering Older People presents views and research written by experts in aging from around the world. Contributions look at the need to ensure older people have control over their own lives and discuss any positive measures which are being taken to provide real opportunities and resources for the older populations. Empowerment is vital to older people's quality of life and to the health of any society, and an international perspective on the issue will inform all who work with older people. In this edited volume, the countries represented by contributors include Denmark, the Dominican Republic, Ireland, India, Japan, Mexico, Pakistan, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the U.S.

This international reference guide analyzes the role and structure of care of the elderly and describes available services in 32 representative countries around the world. Discussed is income maintenance and employment resources, health care, housing, support systems, leisure time resources, and advocacy and protective programs of different kinds. Chapters closely parallel each other in the information they provide, offering suggestions for methods that can be used to satisfy present and future needs of elderly populations. The guide is designed for students at undergraduate and graduate levels, teachers, scholars, and professionals (e.g. policymakers, programmers, or providers) in fields of gerontology, health, social work, or public policy.

Nowadays networks, microprocessors, memory chips, smart sensors and actuators are faster, cheaper and smaller than ever. They are becoming available anywhere, anytime. Current advances in such enabling technologies let foresee novel applications and services for improving the life of elderly and disabled people in their home and outside. These conference proceedings present the latest approaches and technical solutions in the area of smart homes, health telematics, and enabling technologies. The first chapter delves into the user perspective to ascertain real needs and design truly useful services. The following chapter explores the enabling technology. Distributed sensors, smart devices and networks appear as the nuts and bolts compulsory to build up smart homes. Chapter three looks at the realization of smart homes. Pervasive computing is emerging as one of the key approaches to organize computations within smart homes. The fourth chapter addresses the issue of using smart home features to design and deliver smart care services to persons with disabilities and elderly people. Finally Chapter five outlines standardization efforts and practical and industrial experiences.I COST aims at creating an active research community dedicated to explore how smart homes in particular and health telematics in general can foster independent living and an enhanced life style for elderly and disabled people. On the one hand, smart homes are augmented environments with embedded computers, information appliances and multi-modal sensors allowing people to perform tasks efficiently by offering unprecedented levels of access to information and assistance from computer. On the other hand, health telematics makes the most of networks and telecommunications to propose health services, expertise and information at distance.

This book assesses the diversity of policies and programs for older people in six contrasting European countries. Using a common descriptive and analytical framework, the book examines how the organization and delivery of care are shaped by the larger welfare system. Detailed case studies illustrate key features of social care in Britain, Italy, Greece, Ireland, Denmark, and Norway. The authors conclude by showing how the concept of social exclusion can inform service development.

This unique project explores one of the increasingly popular policies for long-term care: the provision to care users of cash, rather than services so that they can employ their own caring labour directly. The authors are scholars from Austria, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, the USA and the United Kingdom in the fields of social policy and gerontology. The book includes introductory and concluding chapters by the editors, which develop new theories of care commodification and present a comparative overview of these important policy trends.

'Incredible. One of those rare books that should be dispensed on prescription to every household.' - Lucy Easthope, author of When the Dust Settles 'Hilarious, bitter, poignant and profound . . . like an existential soap opera - only with more laughs.' - Philip Hoare, author of Leviathan It was the kind of phone call we all dread. Your elderly father has been admitted to hospital. Your even older mum is now at home alone. The answer? Simple. Drop everything, go back and help. The reality? Not so straightforward. Suddenly, you're a kid again, stranded in the overheated house you grew up in. Soon they need you 24/7. And you want to help, of course you do. But now your own life starts to unravel almost as quickly as their health. And then there is nowhere else to go. In between bouts of washing, feeding, cooking and fighting there are times that test you, days where everything goes wrong and moments when everyone, miraculously rises to the occasion. And amidst all of that, this strange second childhood offers up a shot at redemption - if you can just stop everyone from falling down. Irresistibly funny, unflinching and deeply moving, this is a love letter to family and friends, to carers and to anyone who has ever packed a small bag intent on staying for just a few days. This is a true story of what it really means to be a carer, and of the ties that bind even tighter when you least expect it. This is The Reluctant Carer.