This book provides a current perspective on alcohol and aging to better understand the trends, costs, benefits, and clinical and community evidenced-based strategies. This book embraces not only the physical, cognitive, psychological, and social health benefits of moderate drinking in the elderly, it also delves into the risks of excessive drinking, including physical and psychiatric morbidity, neurodegeneration, medication complications, and accidents and injuries, and loss of independence. Written by experts in the field, this book is the only current text that includes the most current scientific, research, empirical, and practice information alongside a comprehensive review of the status of the field that will help guide alcohol use management and stimulate future research. Alcohol and Aging is the ultimate resource for all researchers, educators, clinicians, and professionals working with older adults who drink.

This book on complementary alternative medicine (CAM) for the Elderly provides a critical and objective evaluation of alternative medical therapy for the elderly. The focus on practical aspects such as adverse effects and general risks of various therapeutic methods makes it a valuable reference book for the general practitioner, for geriatricians and professionals within the area of alternative medicine, but also for interested laypeople. In the three sections, Epidemiology, Types of CAM, and Common Medical Problems and CAM, a broad range of issues are covered. They range from drug compliance in elderly people to CAM in the treatment of specific conditions such as pulmonary diseases, arthritis or cancer. The above features and in particular the unbiased approach to discuss the pros and cons of CAM make this publication a must-have for everybody searching for detailed information on alternative medicine for the elderly.

An encouraging and compassionate guide for dementia caregivers. Caring for someone with dementia means devotedly and patiently doing a hundred little things each day. But few care providers are trained to meet the challenges of dementia-despite the fact that millions of people will struggle with it as they grow older. In A Loving Approach to Dementia Care, Laura Wayman, who is known professionally as the Dementia Whisperer, offers practical, compassionate advice on overcoming caregiving obstacles and maintaining meaningful relationships with loved ones who have dementia and memory loss. In this thoroughly revised third edition, Wayman includes * answers to common caregiver questions, such as "What is dementia?" * a detailed explanation of how to cope with and care for a spouse with dementia symptoms, including advice about communication * a new chapter on caring for someone who has dementia along with other health problems * recommendations about how to handle challenging situations and behaviors * dementia-aware activities that work for both family caregivers and professional care staff * fresh caregiving insights that emphasize the importance of taking time to care for oneself Each chapter contains two sections-"Lessons Learned" and "Perceptions and Approaches"-which provide details about how readers can apply lessons from the stories Wayman tells to their own caregiving practice. Providing support for the numerous difficulties and disruptions that all caregivers face along the way, A Loving Approach to Dementia Care is an empathetic guide filled with respect, calm, and creativity. It will leave readers feeling empowered and inspired.

The 1st World Congress on Geriatrics and Neurodegenerative Disease Research (GeNeDis 2014), will focus on recent advances in geriatrics and neurodegeneration, ranging from basic science to clinical and pharmaceutical developments and will provide an international forum for the latest scientific discoveries, medical practices and care initiatives. Advances information technologies will be discussed along with their implications for various research, implementation and policy concerns. In addition, the conference will address European and global issues in the funding of long-term care and medico-social policies regarding elderly people. GeNeDis 2014 takes place in Corfu, Greece, 10-13 April 2014. This volume focuses on the sessions that address geriatrics.

This book is the first one to examine the cause and effect of elderly people's healthy life expectancy, providing models that are easy to understand. The novel point is the success achieved in constructing a single structural model of cause and effect of healthy life expectancy. In the final models of the authors' studies, it was possible to clearly point out that it is not the case that lifestyle habits including an ideal diet directly provide for healthy life expectancy.This book is made up of published studies based on scientific evidence, using a vast amount of data based on about 8,000 in-home elderly people tracked longitudinally from 3 to 6 years, three times in all including baseline research, in a specific region of Japan. Therefore, health policy makers will be able to use this book as scientific evidence for creating area programs to promote good health that are focused on healthy longevity as the central issue. Academic researchers whose special fields are mainly public health will be able to learn both theory and practice to structurally analyze cause and effect of health factors.

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 book, Recent Advances in Geriatrics, is based on the proceedings of the 8th Course of the School of Gerontology and Geriatrics held in Erice (Trapani, Italy) at the In ternational Centre for Scientific Culture "Ettore Majorana" on March 20-25, 1997. This international effort was organized jointly by professors from the University of Palermo (It aly) and from Wayne State University (Michigan, USA) as a result of a cross-cultural col laboration of several years. _ The increasing average age of the populations in industrialized countries has re sulted in increased interest in the different biological, medical, psychological, and eco nomic aspects related to the health and social care of the elderly. Physicians and health care practitioners are realizing the need for a revised approach to geriatric care. Comprising contributions of clinicians and scientists from Italy and North America, the present volume provides a multidisciplinary approach to many gerontological and geriatric problems, examined from a scientific and a practical point of view. Several of the most important aspects of the aging process - the genetics of aging, body composition modification, immunological, endocrinological, and renal physiology changes - have been addressed. Data from a multi-center Italian study on centenarians is reported, to gether with an update on clinical and pharmacological approaches to dementia syndromes and economic and social aspects related to the care of the elderly."

Biological Basis of Geriatric Oncology highlights research issues that are specific to geriatric oncology in the field of carcinogenesis and cancer prevention and treatment, based on the biologic interactions of cancer and age. It illustrates the benefit of the principles of geriatrics in the management of cancer in the older individual.

This volume provides a frame of reference for practicioners of any specialties involved in the management of older patients and for oncologists involved in the management of cancer of older individuals. It is a source for basic and clinical scientists exploring the interactions and emerging information of cancer and aging.

As the population continues to age, gerontological research will become increasingly important and library holdings in gerontology and geriatrics will be in great demand. This valuable reference discusses the history of gerontology and geriatrics libraries in the United States and Canada and profiles their holdings. The study is based on a questionnaire distributed to public and private gerontology and geriatrics libraries. Data from the questionnaire are presented in brief but informative profiles. Each profile lists the type of library, its chief administrator, the date of its founding, the hours during which it is open, and its holdings, services, and facilities. The result is an illuminating overview of information centers available for the study of geriatrics and gerontology.

Joyce A. Post begins with an extensive discussion that traces the history of library collections in gerontology and geriatrics, including the impact and importance of federal assistance and the creation of geriatric education centers. The next section discusses the author's research methodology and offers an analytical summary of her findings. The directory that follows is arranged alphabetically by state and then by towns within each state. The appendixes present the questionnaire used to obtain the data and a listing of the library holdings of 18 major gerontology and geriatrics periodicals. The useful and varied indexes make this work an indispensable and easy to use reference for gerontologists, librarians, and all those interested in research on the elderly.

The decline of infections, starvation, heart attack, and stroke has allowed people to reach extreme old age--and ushered in disability, dementia, and degenerative disease, with profound consequences for the self and society. In chapters echoing Dante's nine circles of hell, Dr. Guy Brown explores these vital issues at various levels, from the cell, to the whole body, to society and how all this new medical technology affects the meaning of death. He tracks the seismic shifts in the causes and character of death that are rocking medicine and reveals how technological innovations, such as cloning and electronic interfaces, hint at new modes of "survival" after death.

Long-term care in the United States has taken the nursing home as its benchmark, but the monetary, social, and psychological costs of nursing home care are all too high. This book challenges the current dominance of nursing homes as the principal institution of long-term care. It offers a series of alternative models where both services and housing can be provided in a way that allows long-term consumers to enjoy dignified, "normal" lifestyles.

The authors start with the premise that long-term care is designed to assist people who lack the capacity to function fully independently. In addition, the authors argue, no disabled person of any age should be required to forsake his/her humanity in exchange for care. The book rejects the artificial dichotomy between social and medical care, asserting that both play important roles in the psychological and physical well-being of long-term care patients. The book considers the need for competent and compassionate medicine and discusses the methods for improving both its coordination of care and its effectiveness. The book redefines the meaning of safety and protection in long-term care, and how this goal can be accomplished without sacrificing quality of living.

As the new millennium and the aging of baby boomers approaches, more creative approaches to providing better long-term care are required. This volume outlines a useful framework for the provision of effective and humane community-based programs that are both feasible and affordable. The Heart of Long-Term Care is intended for geriatricians, public health professionals, family physicians, and nurses who care for elderly patients.

This volume reviews the new potential treatments and research in the area of Alzheimer's disease. Special attention is given to international developments in all fields relevant to new drug development. Topics discussed include: progress in the international harmonization of drug development guidelines for dementia drugs; bioethics and law; development of rating instruments; behavioural treatments; and the activities of the Reagan Foundation. The text integrates basic and clinical research findings, and provides evaluation of new approaches to therapy by world leaders in the field. The potential benefit for Alzheimer patients and families resulting from these research programmes, from molecular biology to clinical pharmacology, is reviewed and evaluated.

Newly revised and updated, this book provides geriatricians and orthopedic surgeons with the most vital tools to treat elderly patients who sustain a variety of fractures. The text uniquely encompass the etiologies of fracture in the elderly, perioperative management, the surgical treatment of common fractures in the elderly, as well as rehabilitation and prevention in the older patient. It focuses on the most current data and opinions regarding assessment and management of geriatric conditions that predispose the elderly to fracture, perioperative complications and subsequent functional decline. Unlike any other text, experts in both orthopedics and geriatrics review the content of each chapter for readability and appeal to his/her respective discipline, making this the physician's ultimate guide to treating elderly patients with injuries. Fractures in the Elderly, Second Edition is a valuable resource for geriatricians, orthopedic surgeons, physiologists, and rehabilitation specialists.

Focusing on the most prevalent conditions affecting seniors - including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, arthritis, and fibromyalgia - Morewitz and Goldstein analyze the impact of chronic disease on aging. Separate chapters are devoted to cognitive changes, psychological problems, and trends in health care utilization, and all chapters are amplified by current research findings.

With people living longer, often with chronic illnesses and disabilities, it is becoming increasingly important to understand how depression, disability, and physical illnesses are interrelated, the mechanisms underlying these interrelationships, and their implications for diagnosis and treatment. This volume synthesizes a carefully selected portion of the knowledge about physical illness and depression that has emerged during the past twenty years.

The aim of this book is to present current views about physical activity and the benefits of physical activity in preventing and ameliorating various health conditions that are of worldwide concern. This book was developed as a compilation of the accomplishments of the five-year Global COE (Center of Excellence) "Sport Sciences for the Promotion of Active Life" Program at the Faculty of Sport Sciences of Waseda University, Saitama, Japan. The first part establishes the research methodology and discusses the current status of physical activity. Topics covered include the prevalence of physical inactivity and highly sedentary behavior in different populations as well as strategies that can be adopted to promote physical activity. The second part focuses on the physiological effects of physical activity. Topics covered include physiological responses to exercise by the autonomic nervous system, the endocrine system, vascular functioning, postprandial blood glucose control, and inflammatory processes. The relationship between exercise and appetite is discussed, as is the influence of exercise on food intake and weight regulation. Additionally, the influence of exercise on protein regulation and posttranslational modifications is introduced. The final part discusses the role of physical activity in preventing lifestyle-related health issues and improving the quality of life, especially for the elderly. The contents should be of interest to anyone who is concerned with the human physiologic response to exercise and the promotion of healthy lifestyles, including sports and exercise science researchers as well as those involved with medicine, public health, physiology, nutrition, and elder care.

It is with great pride that the Psychologists in Long Term Care (PLTC) have sponsored The Professional Educational Long-Term Care Training Manual, and now its second iteration, Geropsychology and Long Term Care: A Practitioner's Guide. Education of psychologists working in long-term care settings is consistent with PLTC's mission to assure the provision of high-quality psychological services for a neglected sector of the population, i.e., residents in nursing homes and assisted-living communities. To this end, direct training of generalist psychologists in the nuances of psychological care delivery in long-term care settings has been a major priority. It is a tribute to the accelerating nature of research in long-term care settings that a revision is now necessary. After all, the Professional Educational Training Manual's initial publication date was only in 2001. However, in the intervening years, much progress has been made in addressing assessment and intervention strategies tailored to the needs of this frail but quite diverse population. It is so gratifying to be able to say that there is now a corpus of scientific knowledge to guide long-term care service delivery in long-term care settings.

Drug-related problems in the elderly is intended to serve as a source of information and clinical support in geriatric pharmacotherapy for students as well as all health care professionals, e.g. physicians, nurses and pharmacists. Pharmacotherapy is of great importance to all mankind. Drugs are however powerful and must be handled appropriately. This is especially important for elderly patients. Drug-related problem is not a major subject in most university programmes in medicine or pharmacy. When there is no speci c course, there is often no book covering the topic. In our view, as teachers at various university courses, there has been a shortage of literature that re ects the most important aspects of drug-related problems in the elderly. Medical practitioners, nurses and pharmacists, need to have this knowledge to be able to serve their patients in the best way. This book covers most aspects of drug-related problems in the elderly. With b- ter knowledge of drug-related dif culties and risks we hope that elderly will have fewer drug-related problems and bene t more from their pharmacotherapy.

Cardiovascular drug therapy has markedly progressed in the recent decades. Not only have new drugs been introduced to clinical practice, but new classes of drugs have been developed. While in 1960 the practicing cardiolo gist had a selection of about only ten drugs, in 1987 about 150 drugs are routinely used in cardiovascular diseases. Elderly patients, however, usually do not enjoy the full benefit of this progress. This might be due to lack of knowledge, a conservative approach, or the worldwide tendency not to try new drugs in the elderly. It is now clear that the majority of patients that will be treated in car diovascular clinics will be, in the near future, elderly patients. Even now, elderly patients form about one-third of the patients with cardiovascular diseases. These patients are approached, however, according to criteria devel oped for younger populations. This is despite the fact that elderly patients differ from younger ones in most aspects, including pathology, epidemiol ogy, pathophysiology, diagnostic approach, management, pharmacology, pharmacokinetics, rehabilitation, and supportive treatment. It is the purpose of this book to present to the clinician all drugs with which there is clinical experience in the elderly or which might be potentially useful for the elderly with cardiovascular diseases. The data are presented without the authors taking a position. This should allow the clinicians to make their own selection and individualize treatment, vii viii Preface based on a wide data base. Comparative data are presented only when specific comparative studies were performed."

This book focuses on the three most important aspects of ageing research: nutrition, physical exercise and epigenetics. The contributors discuss ways that age-related epigenetic imprints such as DNA methylation and histone acetylation are modified by these two interventions. The emphasis on epigenetics helps to illuminate the underlying mechanisms of anti-ageing interventions, as ageing and disease are predominately epigenetic phenomena. Among the highlights are chapter-length discussion of such topics as: how anti-inflammatory action of calorie restriction underlies the retardation of ageing and age-related diseases (Chapter 3); epigenetic modification of gene expression by exercise (Chapter 5); the role of functional foods and their bioactive components in bone health (Chapter 8); and an account of the first decade of a study of calorie restriction in nonhuman primates, conducted by the National Institute on Ageing.

Assisting someone with Alzheimer s disease or another illness that causes dementia is incredibly demanding and stressful for the family. Like many disabling conditions, Alzheimer s disease leads to difficulty or inability to carry out common activities of daily life, and so family members take over a variety of tasks ranging from managing the person s finances to helping with intimate activities such as bathing and dressing.

Key coverage in "Caregiving for Alzheimer s Disease and Related Disorders" includes:

Early diagnosis and family dynamics
Emotional needs of caregivers
Developmentally appropriate long-term care for people with Alzheimer s
Family caregivers as members of the Alzheimer s treatment Team
Legal and ethical issues for caregivers
Faith and spirituality
The economics of caring for individuals with Alzheimer s disease
Cultural, racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic issues of minority caregivers
Advances in Alzheimer s disease research

"Caregiving for Alzheimer s Disease and Related Disorders" offers a wealth of insights and ideas for researchers, practitioners, and graduate students across the caregiving fields, including psychology, social work, public health, geriatrics and gerontology, and medicine as well as public and education policy makers."

There is a near-universal folk saying that everyone wishes to live a good long life, but no one wishes for old age. More contemporarily, the rock and roll band, Little Feat, sang, "You know that you're over the hill when your mind's making promises your body can't fill. " This book is about the good long life. It is a book about primary prevention strategies in the aging process; it is not about preventing that process. It is not about being old. Instead, it is about the things that individuals - and the helping professionals who provide them with counsel and assistance - can do to prevent the preventable problems of advancing age, and to better manage those changes in functioning that cannot be prevented. In short, it is about extending all our capacities to the fullest so that we can better keep all those promises that we make to ourselves and others. Aging is a life-long process. We focus here on the changes that are taking place in our selves and in our society as we age. In particular, we focus on what we can do to affect these changes by the choices we make and how we live. This book offers primary prevention strategies for mature and older adults, with the recognition that mature adulthood starts as soon as we are old enough to truly appreciate our active role in our own aging processes.

Gerontology is a multidisciplinary field, and this bibliography provides a multidisciplinary perspective on research on aging. The volume begins with an introductory chapter that desribes the range of interests to be found in gerontology, discusses the core concepts, and directs the reader to appropriate journals and handbooks. The bibliographic chapters that follow provide information on the most important works related to particular areas of gerontological research. Included are bibliographies on caregiving and health care, rituals related to death and dying, sleep disorders, Alzheimer's Disease, coronary disease, and the use of growth hormone in aging research. The chapters reflect social, anthropological, biological, ethical, and medical views. Each chapter begins with a brief essay on the latest trends in the field, and each entry includes a citation and a descriptive and evaluative annotation. Detailed indexes add to the usefulness of the volume.