We are now experiencing one of the most significant - but not yet fully understood - revolutions in human life: the dramatic rise in life expectancy. This revolution does not imply, as most people usually think, that we've simply got more years of old age. Rather, it implies the formation of a new period in human life: the Age of Wisdom. When Dr Zvi Lanir reached retirement age, he was ready to admit that he was no longer young, but he did not feel old at all. The Wisdom Years is the product of Lanir investigating this 'hidden age' and finding out how to make the most of it. People who are able to prepare themselves for this new age will be able to enjoy an active, wise and satisfying stage of life, which will enable them to delay their 'old age' to the very end of their life. The Wisdom Years provides a practical, thought-provoking and life-changing read for both people embarking on retirement and younger people who would like to mindfully prepare themselves in advance. Derived from Dr Lanir's lifetime of work experience in identifying mindsets that are no longer helpful, it reveals how to reframe our thought processes so that we can live life based on our 'functional age' rather than our 'chronological age'. The result is a book that carries a unique and inspiring message: life after retirement is to be enjoyed as a new, exciting and uplifting journey of personal evolution.

This book provides an in-depth analysis of the older-tourist market, and of the challenges and opportunities created by population ageing from a tourism marketing perspective, by combining a demand-side and a supply-side approach to older tourists. The book is divided into three parts, the first of which defines older tourists and presents a critical review of segmentation approaches. The second part then focuses on the behavior of older tourists in terms of the travel planning process, the use of information and communication technologies for travel purposes, and accommodation choices. The final part analyzes the marketing strategies and operative practices of three tourism companies that focus on the older-adult market. Practical implications for tourism suppliers willing to target older tourists are derived. The book is intended primarily for academics, researchers, and professionals in the tourism and hospitality industry. In addition, it will be useful for students attending advanced tourism and hospitality courses.

This edited volume is a compilation of 30 articles discussing what constitutes food for health and longevity. The aim is to provide up-to-date information, insights, and future tendencies in the ongoing scientific research about nutritional components, food habits and dietary patterns in different cultures. The health-sustaining and health-promoting effects of food are certainly founded in its overall composition of macronutrients and micronutrients. However, the consumption of these nutrients is normally in the form of raw or prepared food from the animal and plant sources. The book is divided into four parts and a conclusion, and successfully convenes the well-established information and knowledge, along with the personal views of a diversified group of researchers and academicians on the multifaceted aspects of nutrition, food and diet. The first part reviews the scientific information about proteins, carbohydrates, fats and oils, micronutrients, pro- and pre-biotics, and hormetins, along with a discussion of the evolutionary principles and constraints about what is optimal food, if any. The second part discusses various kinds of foods and food supplements with respect to their claimed benefits for general health and prevention of some diseases. The third part brings in the cultural aspects, such as what are the principles of healthy eating according to the traditional Chinese and Indian systems, what is the importance of mealing times and daily rhythms, and how different cultures have developed different folk wisdoms for eating for health, longevity and immortality. In the part four, various approaches which are either already in practice or are still in the testing and research phases are discussed and evaluated critically, for example intermittent fasting and calorie restriction, food-based short peptides, senolytics, Ayurvedic compounds, optimal food for old people, and food for the prevention of obesity and other metabolic disorders. The overreaching aim of this book is to inform, inspire and encourage students, researchers, educators and medical health professionals thinking about food and food habits in a holistic context of our habits, cultures and patterns. Food cannot be reduced to a pill of nutritional components. Eating food is a complex human behavior culturally evolved over thousands of years. Perhaps the old adage "we are what we eat" needs to be modified to "we eat what we are".

This exciting collection presents an in-depth, up-to-date analysis of the unprecedented phenomenon of increasing numbers of grandparents worldwide, co-existing and interacting for longer periods of time with their grandchildren. The book contains analyses of topics that have so far received relatively little attention, such as transnational grandparenting and gender differences in grandparenting practices. It is the only collection that brings together theory-driven research on grandparenting from a wide variety of cultural and welfare state contexts - including chapters on Europe, North America, Africa, Asia and Australia - drawing broad lines of debate rather than focusing at a country level. Building on the success of 'Contemporary grandparenting', edited by Virpi Timonen and Sarah Arber, this book further deepens our understanding of how social structures continue to shape grandparenting across a wide range of cultural and economic contexts. The book is essential reading and reference for researchers, students and policy-makers who want to understand the growing influence of grandparents in ageing families and societies across the world.

Ageing in Asia contains a selection of leading social systems and programs, with interesting case-studies offering innovative and useful lessons. The book covers ageing and related developments occurring in the most dynamic industrializing and urbanizing societies of emerging Asia. It includes topical issues such public policies and responses to current challenges from the growing needs of an ageing population due to rise of chronic non-communicable diseases, amidst rapidly changing social, cultural, economic and political changes in the region. The main purpose of the book is to provide useful comparisons of social care systems undergoing rapid transitions, and to offer some examples of best practices and lessons to respond to the changing needs due to population ageing.

This unique volume brings together 20 critical essays on aging within the context of the broad social, political, and economic factors that help shape and determine the realities of growing old. Rather than viewing aging in isolation, it explores the social creation of old age dependency and the profound influence of race, gender, and social class on what it means to grow old. It looks too at such topics as the "biomedicalization" of aging; the role of business and the media in changing societal images of the old; the fact and fiction behind "senior power"; the multibillion dollar nursing home industry; and the role of advanced capitalist nations in creating economic dependency among elders in the Third World.

Delivering the first comprehensive analysis of elder justice and its implications for policy and practice, this book offers a promising approach that ensures the rights, safety, and security of all older Americans. It explains the antecedents of elder justice in the fields of elder abuse, aging, and public health, and describes the opportunities for achieving more comprehensive, cohesive, and integrated public policy. The text examines the cumulative impact of ageism, racism, sexism, heterosexism, class, and other forms of disadvantage and isolation on the lives of older adults and how these contribute to poverty, disease, disability, abuse, and neglect. It draws from the fields of public health and health equity, and plans devised by international organizations that frame elder abuse as a human rights issue. Practical and achievable goals in the prevention of elder abuse aid policy makers, program developers, grant-makers, and service providers in the fields of gerontology, social work, public health, and nursing in their efforts towards elder abuse prevention. Key Features: Identifies institutionalized ageism in pubic policy and practice Proposes core principles of elder justice to guide policy and service development Introduces knowledge and techniques from the fields of elder abuse and public health Provides greater understanding of social determinants and how they are addressed in the public health arena Offers techniques for improving access to the legal system for people with physical, cognitive, and communication disabilities Offers practical and achievable goals; objectives and recommendations; and models for state, national, and international policy and programs.

This unique volume brings together 20 critical essays on aging within the context of the broad social, political, and economic factors that help shape and determine the realities of growing old. Rather than viewing aging in isolation, it explores the social creation of old age dependency and the profound influence of race, gender, and social class on what it means to grow old. It looks too at such topics as the "biomedicalization" of aging; the role of business and the media in changing societal images of the old; the fact and fiction behind "senior power"; the multibillion dollar nursing home industry; and the role of advanced capitalist nations in creating economic dependency among elders in the Third World.

This book explores the unique group of elders, age 55 and older, who practice some form of consensual non-monogamy. It covers both the joys and challenges of multiple relationships for elders. Poly elders have the complexities of juggling multiple relationships, as well as managing all the issues of aging: managing medical conditions and disabilities (their own and/or their partners'), caregiving responsibilities for aging relatives, grieving the deaths of parents, siblings, and partners, retiring from careers and starting new lives, and/or moving into some form of senior living. Elders appear to be the fastest-growing segment of the polyamorous community. About one-fifth of Americans have been in a polyamorous relationship at some point, and around 5% currently are practicing it. Many elders have practiced polyamory for over 40 years, and are currently in stable, very long-term relationships. The book provides anecdotes from poly elders' lives, including the constellation of relationships surrounding each individual, couple, or triad. It explores how their relationships develop and evolve. Many of the issues that face older poly folks are issues directly related to aging, but they usually have a uniquely poly "spin" to them that can make them more complex and challenging.

Investigating the emergence of a 'new ageing' and its realisation through the body, this work explores new forms of embodiment concerned with identity and care of the self, which have seen the body become a site for ageing differently - for ageing without becoming old.

The NEUROGES (R) analysis system is an objective and reliable interdisciplinary research tool for analysis of body movement and gesture. The system has been field-tested on more than 500 individuals from cultures of five continents, including healthy adults and children as well as individuals with mental illness or brain damage, and further, on non-human primates. Following up on the first book on theoretical background of the NEUROGES (R) system, which was published in 2013, this book contains the complete coding manual for the application of the system in research including an interactive video learning tool with video examples of all NEUROGES (R) hand movement and gesture types, training videos, and a template file for the Multimedia Annotator ELAN.

Rapid population aging, once associated with only a select group of modern industrialized nations, has now become a topic of increasing global concern. This volume reframes aging on a global scale by illustrating the multiple ways it is embedded within individual, social, and cultural life courses. The volume presents a broad range of ethnographic work, introducing a variety of conceptual and methodological approaches to studying life-course transitions in conjunction with broader sociocultural transformations. Through detailed accounts, in such diverse settings as nursing homes in Sri Lanka, a factory in Massachusetts, cemeteries in Japan and clinics in Mexico, the authors explore not simply our understandings of growing older, but the interweaving of individual maturity and intergenerational relationships, social and economic institutions, and intimate experiences of gender, identity, and the body.

This book suggests that the enduring problem of generations remains that of knowledge: how society conceptualises the relationship between past, present and future, and the ways in which this is transmitted by adults to the young. Reflecting on Mannheim's seminal essay 'The Problem of Generations', the author explores why generations have become a focus for academic interest and policy developments today. Bristow argues that developments in education, teaching and parenting culture seek to resolve tensions of our present-day risk society through imposing an artificial distance between the generations. Bristow's book will be of interest to students and scholars in the fields of Sociology, Social Policy, Education, Family studies, Gerontology and Youth studies.

This provocative, intellectually charged treatise serves as a concise introduction to emancipatory gerontology, examining multiple dimensions of persistent and hotly debated topics around aging, the life course, the roles of power, politics and partisanship, culture, economics, and communications. Critical perspectives are presented as definitions for reader understanding, with links to concepts of identity, knowledge construction, social networks, social movements, and inequalities. With today's intensifying concentration of wealth and corporatization, precarity is the fate for growing numbers of the world's population. Intersectionality as an analytic concept offers a new appreciation of how social advantage and disadvantage accumulate, and how constructions of race, ethnicity, class, ability, and gender influence aging. The book's entries offer a bibliographic compendium, crediting the salience of early pioneering theorists and locating these within the cutting-edge of research (social, behavioral, policy, and gene-environment sciences) that currently advances our understandings of human development, trauma, and resilience. Accompanying these foundations are theories of resistance for advancing human rights and the dignity of marginalized populations.

Research on sexual violence has been a growing area of academic study since the 1970s. However, the focus of these efforts has centred on younger women, leaving older women largely ignored in research. This book presents data from the first UK study to examine the extent, nature and impacts of sexual violence against people aged 60 and over. Drawing on both quantitative analysis of reported cases of sexual violence against people over 60 and qualitative interviews with practitioners in sexual violence and age-related organisations as well as survivors of sexual violence, this book situates the research findings in the context of feminist criminology and gerontology, and sets an agenda for future research, policy and practice. Sexual Violence against Older People is vital reading for practitioners and policymakers, and those engaged in studies of criminology, health and nursing, social work, elder abuse and violence against women.

This book adopts an interdisciplinary approach with a wide scope of perspectives on primary healthcare, describing related principles, care models, practices and social contexts. It combines aspects of development, research and education applied in primary health care, providing practitioners and scholars with a comprehensive overview of the current knowledge and delivery models of healthcare in community settings. It covers the practical, philosophical and scholarly issues pertinent to the delivery, financing, planning, ethics, health politics, professional and technological development, resources, and monitoring in primary health care. Contributors are from a diverse range of academic and professional backgrounds, bringing together collective expertise in mainstream medicine, nursing, allied health, Chinese medicine, health economics, administration, law, public policy, housing management, information technology and mass communications. As such, the book does not follow the common clinical practice or service-based approach found in most texts on primary care.The contents will serve as a useful reference work for policymakers, researchers, community health practitioners, health executives and higher education students.

Putting gender in a lifespan context, Hatch (sociology, U. of Kentucky) atypically accents the gains as well as losses of aging and sex differences in adaptation overall, to the death of a spouse, and to retirement. From the multifactored theoretical perspectives of symbolic interactionism and polit

"An important contribution to the history and ethnography of El Barrio. Particularly valuable is the way in which she humanizes her subjects who, as elderly and Latino, are often totally ignored or reduced to a mere statistic."
"--Arlene Davila, Syracuse University"

What is daily life like for an elderly person whose income barely covers basic needs? How is life constrained if that person is living within the same marginal enclave to which she first migrated decades ago? How does the implementation of national policies and programs affect the daily life of those growing old in Spanish Harlem?

In Growing Old in El Barrio, Judith Freidenberg addresses these questions by examining the life-course and daily experiences of the elderly residents of El Barrio. She interweaves the economy of immigrant neighborhoods with the personal experiences of Latinos aging in Harlem--such as DoAa Emiliana, who lived in Spanish Harlem from her migration in 1948 to her death in 1995. Freidenberg further links policy issues to social issues critical to the daily lives of this population.

Combining extensive fieldwork interviews with historical and demographic population data, Growing Old in El Barrio paints an ethnographic picture of aging in Spanish Harlem and illustrates the emergence of New York as a city divided by ethnicity and class.

This book helps in ...building a bridge between the networks...The topics of aging and disabilities are multifaceted and therefore may be approached in many ways. The editors have chosen to focus on four systems and areas of common ground (aging, developmental disabilities, independent living movement, and rehabilitation), to investigate the emerging "intersection" of the two fields.

The final volume in this significant series, this publication mirrors the broad scientific attention given to ideas and issues associated with the life-span perspective: constancy and change in human development; opportunities for and constraints on plasticity in structure and function across life; the potential for intervention across the entire life course (and thus for the creation of an applied developmental science); individual differences (diversity) in life paths, in contexts (or the ecology) of human development, and in changing relations between people and contexts; interconnections and discontinuities across age levels and developmental periods; and the importance of integrating biological, psychological, social, cultural, and historical levels of organization in order to understand human development.

First published in 1997. Considerable research has been done to identify neighbourhood influences on children's affective states, motivation, and behaviour. This population, along with the elderly, are the nation's largest dependent groups. In contrast, little research has been done to determine what impact living among poor neighbours has upon older Americans, specifically upon their psychological well-being and neighbourhood satisfaction. In this study the author has sought out to explore this deficit, using a sociological standpoint to examine quality-of-life issues relevant to elderly inner-city residents. This title will be of interest to students of sociology and urban studies.

This book examines narratives of dementia in contemporary literary texts, studying what is now a pressing issue with deep political, economic, and social implications for many ageing societies. As part of the increasing visibility of dementia in social and cultural life, these narratives pose ethical, aesthetic, and political questions about subjectivity, agency, and care that help us to interrogate the cultural discourse of dementia. Contemporary Narratives of Dementia is a seminal book that offers a sustained examination of a wide range of literary narratives, from auto/biographies and detective fiction, to children's books and comic books. With its wide-reaching theoretical and critical scope, its comparative dimension, and its inclusion of multiple genres, this book is important for scholars engaging with studies of dementia and ageing in diverse disciplines. Sarah Falcus is a Reader in Contemporary Literature at the University of Huddersfield, UK. She has research interests in contemporary women's writing, feminism and literary gerontology. She is the co-director of the Dementia and Cultural Narrative (DCN) network. Katsura Sako is an Associate Professor of English, at Keio University, Japan. Her main field of research is in post-war/contemporary British literature, and she has particular interests in gender, ageing and illness. She is a member of the steering committee of the DCN network.

The Aging Self and the Aging Society Ethical issues involving the elderly have recently come to the fore. This should come as no surprise: Since the turn of the century, there has been an eightfold in crease in the number of Americans over the age of sixty five, and almost a tripling of their proportion to the general population. Those over the age of eighty-five- the fastest growing group in the country-are twenty one more times as numerous as in 1900. Demographers expect this trend to accelerate into the twenty-first century. The aging of society casts into vivid relief a num ber of deep and troubling questions. On the one hand, as individuals, we grapple with the immediate experience of aging and mortality and seek to find in it philosophical or ethical significance. We also wonder what responsi bilities we bear toward aging family members and what expectations of others our plans for old age can reasona bly include. On the other hand, as a community, we must decide: What special role, if any, do older persons occupy in our society? What constitutes a just distribution of medical resources between generations? And, How can institutions that serve the old foster imperiled values, such as autonomy, self-respect, and dignity? Only recently have we begun to explore these themes, yet already a rich and fruitful literature has grown up around them."

Margaret Cruikshank's Learning to Be Old examines what it means to grow old in America today. The book questions social myths and fears about aging, sickness, and the other social roles of the elderly, the over-medicalization of many older people, and ageism. In this book, Cruikshank proposes alternatives to the ways aging is usually understood in both popular culture and mainstream gerontology. Learning to Be Old does not propose the ideas of "successful aging" or "productive aging," but more the idea of "learning" how to age. Featuring new research and analysis, the third edition of Learning to be Old demonstrates, more thoroughly than the previous editions, that aging is socially constructed. Among texts on aging the book is unique in its clear focus on the differences in aging for women and men, as well as for people in different socioeconomic groups. Cruikshank is able to put aging in a broad context that not only focuses on how aging affects women but men, as well. Key updates in the third edition include changes in the health care system, changes in how long older Americans are working especially given the impact of the recession, and new material on the brain and mind-body interconnections. Cruikshank impressively challenges conventional ideas about aging in this third edition of Learning to be Old. This will be a must-read for everyone interested in new ideas surrounding aging in America today.

The empirical and theoretical analysis of executive control processes, dormant for many years, has grown to become one of the most fertile areas of research in cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience. Because executive functions are thought to have a pervasive role in maintaining optimal information processing across many processing situations, issues related to executive control cut across many traditional research divides. Unique among many other areas of research in cognition, questions about the influence of ageing have figured prominently in executive control research. There is accumulating evidence of age-related changes in frontal/executive functions. The union of research on executive functioning with research on the cognitive effects of ageing could provide the theoretical framework for understanding the widespread influence of ageing on cognition. This special issue brings together well-known researchers in cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience who approach the question of executive control using a wide range of methods from traditional behavioural studies, quantitative and computational modelling, and functional neuroimaging. The emphasis of these contributions is on a concise overview and integration of relevant theoretical ideas and empirical findings. By bringing together a diverse group of contributors, this special issue can serve researchers and students both as a summary of current research and as a starting point toward further explorations on the relations between executive control and the cognitive influences of ageing.