Through five editions, The 36-Hour Day has been an essential resource for families who love and care for people with Alzheimer disease. Whether a person has Alzheimer disease or another form of dementia, he or she will face a host of problems. The 36-Hour Day will help family members and caregivers address these challenges and simultaneously cope with their own emotions and needs. Featuring useful takeaway messages and informed by recent research into the causes of and the search for therapies to prevent or cure dementia, this edition includes new information on * devices to make life simpler and safer for people who have dementia* strategies for delaying behavioral and neuropsychiatric symptoms* changes in Medicare and other health care insurance laws* palliative care, hospice care, durable power of attorney, and guardianship* dementia due to traumatic brain injury* choosing a residential care facility* support groups for caregivers, friends, and family members The central idea underlying the book-that much can be done to improve the lives of people with dementia and of those caring for them-remains the same. The 36-Hour Day is the definitive dementia care guide.

A practical and clarifying approach to aging and aging-related diseases Providing a thorough and extensive theoretical framework, The Biostatistics of Aging: From Gompertzian Mortality to an Index of Aging-Relatedness addresses the surprisingly subtlenotion with consequential biomedical and public health relevance of what it means for acondition to be related to aging. In this pursuit, the book presents a new quantitative methodto examine the relative contributions of genetic and environmental factors to mortality anddisease incidence in a population. With input from evolutionary biology, population genetics, demography, and epidemiology, this medically motivated book describes an index of aging-relatedness and also features: * Original results on the asymptotic behavior of the minimum of time-to-event random variables, which extends those of the classical statistical theory of extreme values * A comprehensive and satisfactory explanation based on biological principles of the Gompertz pattern of mortality in human populations * The development of an evolution-based model of causation relevant to mortality and aging-related diseases of complex etiology * An explanation of how and why the description of human mortality by the Gompertz distribution can be improved upon from first principles * The amply illustrated analysis of real-world data, including a program for conducting the analysis written in the freely available R statistical software * Technical appendices including mathematical material as well as an extensive and multidisciplinary bibliography on aging and aging-related diseases The Biostatistics of Aging: From Gompertzian Mortality to an Index of Aging-Relatedness is an excellent resource for practitioners and researchers with an interest in aging and aging-related diseases from the fields of medicine, biology, gerontology, biostatistics, epidemiology, demography, and public health.

The scientific study of aging is a relatively nascent field of inquiry. Although philosophic and literary reflections on what it means to grow older appear in the earliest historical records, the systematic study of aging began in earnest about a century ago. Scholarly interest in the topic has accelerated in recent decades, due in part to rapid population aging in developed nations. As a result, the study of aging has been incorporated into many disciplines, emphasizing concepts, theories, and methods to elucidate the antecedents and consequences of growing older. Although each discipline has key concepts and empirical generalizations about aging, there is little agreement across disciplines about the intellectual core of gerontology. Each discipline brings its own intellectual heritage and perspective to the study of aging, but the question posed by author Ken Ferraro is whether there is an emergent perspective or way of thinking about aging that transcends the disciplines. Biologists, psychologists, and sociologists may claim an interest in gerontology, but do they have a common image of aging or a set of principles to guide their research? Do they share a paradigm-a fundamental image of aging-that incorporates concepts and empirical generalizations from multiple disciplines? And when disciplinary approaches to gerontology clash, which approach or conceptualization of aging is likely to emerge as part of the paradigm? Although biologists, psychologists, and social scientists share an interest in the study of aging, they are distinctive in how they conduct their research. The Gerontological Imagination provides an integrative paradigm of aging that makes it the first book to identify intellectual common ground among scholars studying aging. Ferraro identifies an underlying set of principles that constitute a paradigm for the study of aging: causality, life course analysis, multifaceted change, heterogeneity, accumulation processes, and ageism. The proposed paradigm provides an efficient way to identify and interpret essential ideas, findings, models, and theories across multiple disciplines that study aging.

The Handbook of Mental Health and Aging, Third Edition provides a foundational background for practitioners and researchers to understand mental health care in older adults as presented by leading experts in the field. Wherever possible, chapters integrate research into clinical practice. The book opens with conceptual factors, such as the epidemiology of mental health disorders in aging and cultural factors that impact mental health. The book transitions into neurobiological-based topics such as biomarkers, age-related structural changes in the brain, and current models of accelerated aging in mental health. Clinical topics include dementia, neuropsychology, psychotherapy, psychopharmacology, mood disorders, anxiety, schizophrenia, sleep disorders, and substance abuse. The book closes with current and future trends in geriatric mental health, including the brain functional connectome, repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), technology-based interventions, and treatment innovations.

Dementia is an illness that raises important questions about our own attitudes to illness and aging. It also raises very important issues beyond the bounds of dementia to do with how we think of ourselves as people - fundamental questions about personal identity. Is the person with dementia the same person he or she was before? Is the individual with dementia a person at all? In a striking way, dementia seems to threaten the very existence of the self. This book brings together philosophers and practitioners to explore the conceptual issues that arise in connection with this increasingly common illness. Drawing on a variety of philosophers such as Descartes, Locke, Hume, Wittgenstein, the authors explore the nature of personal identity in dementia. They also show how the lives and selfhood of people with dementia can be enhanced by attention to their psychosocial and spiritual environment. Throughout, the book conveys a strong ethical message, arguing in favour of treating people with dementia with all the dignity they deserve as human beings. The book covers a range of topics, stretching from talk of basic biology to talk of a spiritual understanding of people with dementia. Accessibly written by leading figures in psychiatry and philosophy, the book presents a unique and long overdue examination of an illness that features in so many of our lives.

It is increasingly important for physicians who treat older persons, and for researchers on aging, to understand how molecular biology informs clinical expressions of aging and age-related conditions such as osteoporosis, diabetes, osteoarthritis, frailty, cancer, and dementia. Dr. David Hamerman translates basic scientific concepts into precepts of clinical practice and sheds light on the links among biology, natural aging, longevity, and disease.

Exploring the connections between disease and the science behind it, Geriatric Bioscience addresses how mechanisms of inflammation, cytokine expression, and stress responses influence disease and how preventive gerontology in the practice of medicine could compress morbidity. Hamerman also discusses cutting-edge therapies such as cyclo-oxygenases, bisphosphonates, statins, cytokine inhibitors, and hormone therapies.

Examining the science of geriatrics and converting its concepts into clinical applications, this groundbreaking work provides clinicians and researchers with a solid foundation for a greater understanding of the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of age-related diseases as well as recommendations for promoting healthy aging.

This guide is structured to assist physicians in the management of those hypertensive patients who present with specific comorbidities, such as diabetes, systolic dysfunction, obesity, renal disease, or previous cardiac events, often associated with hypertension. The clinical cases contained in this book have been selected to provide a paradigmatic set of scenarios frequently encountered in daily clinical practice, and will serve as an easy-to-access tool in applying general guidelines to individual patients, particularly in the choice of the most appropriate antihypertensive therapy. Treatment of hypertension with associated clinical conditions require specific therapies and combinations of drugs, which are necessarily different from one comorbidity to another. By discussing exemplary cases that may better represent clinical practice in a "real world" setting, and analyzing step by step the diagnostic and therapeutic process, this book will assist cardiologists and physicians in selecting the diagnostic tools and forms of treatment best suited to the individual patient and the particular cardiovascular risk profile.

Anthroposophical medicine recognizes the individuality of each human being. This philosophy is central to care for the elderly where it is important to see beyond the outer ageing body, and to ensure dignity for all. This book describes particular approaches for professional nurses and carers, as well as offering practical care plans. While care cannot itself heal, it can provide the basis for the healing process to work. This book will help those who work with the elderly with invaluable guidance and advice.

Older adults increasingly rely on family members or friends (i.e., informal caregivers) for needed care and support as they age. Family caregivers typically assume their caregiving role willingly and reap personal fulfilment from helping a loved one, developing new skills, and strengthening family relationships. For these benefits, however, caregivers often sacrifice their own health and well-being. Depression, anxiety, poor physical health, and compromised immune function are more common among family caregivers than in adults not providing such care. The REACH OUT Caregiver Support Program offers a multi-component, tailored, and flexible intervention for caregivers of people with dementia that is focused on the evidence-based therapeutic strategy of problem solving. This practical volume is designed to guide clinicians through the process of implementing REACH OUT (Resources for Enhancing Alzheimer's Caregiver Health: Offering Useful Treatments) and to provide them with necessary tools to share with caregivers, with the goal of enhancing caregiver physical and mental health. Five common risk areas (home safety, caregiver health, social support, challenging behaviors, and emotional well-being) are described in the manual, and interventions are outlined that respect the nuances of each risk area. By beginning with an individualized risk assessment and being flexible to the needs and issues of the caregiver, the REACH OUT intervention helps clinicians identify risk areas and provides caregivers with tailored action plans to reduce risk and promote well-being.

Most of the DNA in the human genome does not encode proteins but is involved in regulatory functions. In addition, the human genome is characterized by an extensive array of structural DNA variants arising from de novo mutations plus accumulated structural variants transmitted through an individual's lineage. The result is that each person has a unique genome which is expressed as that person's unique phenotype. Ageing can be understood on both the species and individual level. Each species has a programmed ageing and mortality pattern, but within those broad species-specific boundaries there is considerable individual variation. At the individual level, ageing reflects the integrated effects of that individual's unique mix of DNA structural variants, unique experience-specific epigenetic marks and imperfectly repaired genomic and cellular damage. This book examines human "chronic degenerative" diseases which are not diseases, but rather variations of the ageing process across individuals.

With the book Borderline Personality Disorder in Older Adults: Emphasis on Care in Institutional Settings, Drs. Hategan, Bourgeois, and Xiong address an often underappreciated clinical problem that is likely increasing with the aging of the population. Geriatric patients with borderline personality disorder, like their younger counterparts, experience social and relationship challenges, comorbid psychiatric illness (including but not limited to substance use disorders), comorbid systemic illness, and are high utilizers of medical and social services. With the aging of the population worldwide, more older patients with chronic/progressive illnesses are to be found in various institutional settings such as skilled nursing facilities, rehabilitation units, and residential care, as well as in the general hospital. However, these patients' habitual patterns of behavior (including affective dyscontrol, externalizing of blame, "splitting" the external world into groups who are "all good" and "all bad") make the compromises and need for collectivity in institutional settings more challenging than for any other easily defined and demarcated patient group. The Editors have assembled a large team of authors and co-authors to produce a clinical handbook that addresses the clinical, social, and administrative needs of this particular group of patients. They include an overview of the development of the diagnosis of borderline personality disorder over several issues of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders classification system; the epidemiology and comorbidity, personality and aging, clinical diagnosis and productive use of psychometrics; clinical interventions including psychotherapy, psychopharmacology and advanced somatic treatments; and chapters devoted to medical-legal matters, systems of care, therapeutic alliance, and palliative care approaches. In all chapters, the authors have endeavored to focus specifically on the challenges posed for the patient, the clinician, and the larger system for geriatric patients with borderline personality disorder. The authors and the editors hope that this volume summarizes the current clinical literature pertinent to the care of this population, with a focus on clinical encounters, clinical decision making, and techniques for interventions with patients and clinical systems of care to enhance the opportunities for favorable clinical outcomes for these patients, who typically have difficulty coping with the major existential challenges of old age, infirmity, and mortality. Greater awareness of borderline personality disorder in this population and greater clinician attunement to its understanding and management may serve the patient and the care system in this regard.

This Second Edition of the Handbook addresses the evolving interdisciplinary health care context and the broader social work practice environment, as well as advances in the knowledge base which guides social work service delivery in health and aging. This includes recent enhancements in the theories of gerontology, innovations in clinical interventions, and major developments in the social policies that structure and finance health care and senior services. In addition, the policy reforms of the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act set in motion a host of changes in the United States healthcare system with potentially profound implications for the programs and services which provide care to older adults and their families. In this volume, the most experienced and prominent gerontological health care scholars address a variety of populations that social workers serve, and the arenas in which they practice, followed by detailed recommendations of best practices for an array of physical and mental health conditions. The volume's unprecedented attention to diversity, health care trends, and implications for practice, research, policy make the publication a major event in the field of gerontological social work. This is a Must-Read for all social work social work educators, practitioners, and students interested in older adults and their families.

The interaction between mind and skin diseases is the focus in psychodermatology. This important subspecialty is the result of the merging of two major medical specialties: psychiatry and dermatology. Research and existing publications in this field are mainly focused on the general population. The increase in life expectation and the increasing number of elderly individuals worldwide is making the geriatrics specialty more and more important. "Geriatric psychodermatology" is a combination of three medical specialties: Geriatrics, Psychiatry and Dermatology. The natural aging changes that occur in the skin can be a psychological challenge for many individuals, as well as various psychodermatological disorders pertaining to the elderly population, causing significant psychological and physical distress and impacting quality of life. This is the first book ever published about this unexplored and eminent topic. This book presents a new perspective of known psychodermatological diseases in elderly populations. Psychological implications, impact on quality of life and holistic and integrated management of psychocutaneous diseases are the main focus of this book. The authors invite you to explore the geriatric psychodermatology field.

In recent decades, the North American public has pursued an inspirational vision of successful aging-striving through medical technique and individual effort to eradicate the declines, vulnerabilities, and dependencies previously commonly associated with old age. On the face of it, this bold new vision of successful, healthy, and active aging is highly appealing. But it also rests on a deep cultural discomfort with aging and being old. The contributors to Successful Aging as a Contemporary Obsession explore how the successful aging movement is playing out across five continents. Their chapters investigate a variety of people, including Catholic nuns in the United States; Hindu ashram dwellers; older American women seeking plastic surgery; aging African-American lesbians and gay men in the District of Columbia; Chicago home health care workers and their aging clients; Mexican men foregoing Viagra; dementia and Alzheimer sufferers in the United States and Brazil; and aging policies in Denmark, Poland, India, China, Japan, and Uganda. This book offers a fresh look at a major cultural and public health movement of our time, questioning what has become for many a taken-for-granted goal-aging in a way that almost denies aging itself.

With life expectancy increasing globally, older adults around the world want to live active lifestyles with improved health and higher quality of life. Physiology of Exercise and Healthy Aging, Second Edition, examines the effects of the aging process on the major physiological systems and identifies the positive impacts of physical activity and regular exercise for older adults, including delaying specific diseases and increasing quality of life. Students will be presented with foundational concepts of physiology to understand the structural and functional changes on the major physiological systems throughout the aging process. Physiological responses to acute and chronic exercise are examined, with comprehensive coverage of studies on age-related diseases and other common issues for older adults, including cardiovascular disease, cardiorespiratory fitness, type 2 diabetes, muscle metabolism and strength, osteoporosis, neurophysiology, and arthritis, plus content new to this edition that addresses mental health, pelvic floor issues and incontinence, and sexual activity. Programming recommendations in each chapter translate exercise science into practice, examining the benefits of exercise, contraindicated exercises, and other forms of physical activity beneficial to the aging population. Exercise considerations address the training needs of older adults in three unique groups: average aging adults, frail elderly with special needs, and masters athletes, with expanded content more reflective of today's active seniors. With an emphasis on screening and assessment, coupled with basic principles of exercise and training programs, students will learn to safely administer exercise programs that meet the needs of older adults-in any stage of aging and at various levels of physical activity-to contribute to increased health and quality of life for all. Chapter-opening quotes bring content to life with insights from scientists, fitness professionals, and other experts. Chapter objectives, new to this edition, help readers to understand and apply key concepts. Questions to Consider at the end of each chapter provide tools for reflection, while references direct students to additional reading and opportunities for further learning. An appendix offers easy access to assessments and forms, including a Three-Day Nutritional Assessment form and a Client Report form, preparing readers for professional use in their careers with older adult clients. Physiology of Exercise and Healthy Aging, Second Edition, delivers a thorough discussion of the physiological effects of aging and illustrates the power of exercise as a tool to reduce or offset the effects of aging in order to improve the quality of life enjoyed by our aging population.

Productive Aging: An Occupational Perspective is a concise and practical text that takes a fresh look at our rapidly expanding and diverse older population. Recognizing the unique identity of each older person, this text provides client-centered guidelines for maximizing function, independence, and wellness. Productive Aging also outlines self-management strategies for promoting participation and engagement in productive occupations for the older persons own continuing development, health, and well-being. Productive Aging not only summarizes current evidence, but it looks into the lives of forty productive agers who shared their personal perspective with the authors as part of an original qualitative study. These participant stories, often told in the participants own words, describe how current theories of aging are applied in the lives of older adults who are currently living the experience. Older adults ages 60 to 98 describe the effective strategies they used to manage their own aging process, to structure healthy lifestyles and social connections, and to intentionally direct their own productive occupations in satisfying and meaningful ways. The results of this qualitative research study have led to a grounded theory of Conditional Independence, which guides occupational therapy approaches to productive aging in practice. Authors Marilyn B. Cole and Dr. Karen C. Macdonald explore the six productive occupations that researchers have identified as typical of older adults today: self-management, home management, volunteering, paid work, care giving, and lifelong learning. In addition to summarizing current research and theories within each occupation, concrete strategies and techniques relative to these roles are detailed, with multiple examples, case studies, and learning activities. Throughout Productive Aging, interviews with experienced practitioners, administrators, and educators reveal some of the implications of various trends and techniques. For occupational therapists, descriptions of settings and types of intervention are consistent with the latest version of AOTA's Occupational Therapy Practice Framework, Third Edition. In addition to promoting productive occupations within traditional institutional and medical-based practice, occupational therapy roles include that of consultant, educator, and advocate when treating individuals, groups, and populations in home care, organizational, and community settings. Special attention is given to developing the ability to become an effective self-manager, facilitating social participation, and maximizing clients applied functional abilities. Productive Aging: An Occupational Perspective is the perfect addition to the bookshelf of occupational therapy students, faculty, and clinicians, as well as any health care practitioner who would like to update his or her knowledge of the aging individual within his or her current practice settings.

The healthy human brain contains tens of billions of neurons, specialized cells that process and transmit information via electrical and chemical signals. While the brain may shrink to some degree in healthy aging, it does not lose neurons in large numbers. In Alzheimer's disease, however, damage is widespread as many neurons stop functioning, lose connections with other neurons, and die. Alzheimer's disrupts processes vital to neurons and their networks, including communication, metabolism, and repair. At first, the disease typically destroys neurons and their connections in parts of the brain involved in memory, including the entorhinal cortex and the hippocampus. It later affects areas in the cerebral cortex responsible for language, reasoning, and social behavior. Eventually, many other areas of the brain are damaged, and a person with Alzheimer's becomes helpless and unresponsive to the outside world. This book provides a comparison of international approached to dealing with Alzheimer's disease and dementia, as well as discusses the effect this disease has on the brain and its function.

For millions of Americans, the heartbreak of watching a loved one struggle with Alzheimer's disease is a pain they know all too well. Alzheimer's disease burdens an increasing number of our Nation's elders and their families, and it is essential that we confront the challenge it poses to our public health. In 2011, President Barack Obama signed into law the National Alzheimer's Project Act (NAPA), requiring the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to establish the National Alzheimer's Project to create and maintain an integrated national plan to overcome Alzheimer's disease; co-ordinate Alzheimer's disease research and services across all federal agencies; accelerate the development of treatments that would prevent, halt, or reverse the course of Alzheimer's disease; improve early diagnosis and co-ordination of care and treatment of Alzheimer's disease; improve outcomes for ethnic and racial minority populations that are at higher risk for Alzheimer's disease; co-ordinate with international bodies to fight Alzheimer's globally. This book addresses each of these points and provides further insight on the national plan to address this disease.

Studies find that effective physician-patient communication has specific benefits such as, patients are more likely to adhere to treatment and have better outcomes, they express greater satisfaction with their treatment, and they are less likely to bring malpractice suits. Communicating with older patients involves special issues. The aim of this book is to introduce and/or reinforce communication skills essential in caring for older patients and their families. The book offers practical techniques and approaches to help with diagnosis, promote treatment adherence, make more efficient use of clinicians' time, and increase patient and provider satisfaction. It then continues by discussing ways in which older people should talk to their doctors. A good patient-doctor relationship is more of a partnership. The Book gives a guide on how to ask the right questions to a doctor, along with nurses, physician assistants, pharmacists, and other health care providers, to solve medical problems and keep a patient healthy.

The Evergreen Programme is a group-based therapeutic programme for older adults with acute mental illness which has been in place since 2003 at St. Patrick's University Hospital, Dublin. The Evergreen Guide is compiled by members of the multidisciplinary team, from a diverse range of disciplines, who deliver this programme in an inpatient unit of the largest mental health facility in Ireland. This publication reflects the broad range of topics and material which form the basis of the 6-week rotational programme. The Evergreen Programme was designed to be an interactive group programme for older people with a range of psychological conditions that could bridge the gap between diversional activities and psychotherapy. We believe that this book will be of particular interest to health professionals who deliver group-based therapy to older people and will also be a resource for long-term care facilities, as well as community-based active retirement groups and day hospitals, and other acute inpatient facilities. The book reflects a holistic approach to the treatment and rehabilitation of older people recovering from acute mental illness. The chapters are presented in a format that prompts discussion and participation through the use of reflective questions at the start of each chapter, followed by six, discrete weekly modules' reflecting the present organisation and operation of the Evergreen Programme. Clinicians can pick up this guide and begin to use it immediately, as a manual or road map in a group setting, for imparting the practical principles and strategies needed by older people to maximise their physical, mental and creative abilities. The breadth of topics covered is diverse ranging from successful aging, to spirituality, to the safe use of medication. All of the material is written by the team of clinicians who have considerable individual skill and knowledge, not only in relation to the theoretical material, but also in respect of the optimal methods and manner for imparting this information to groups of older people. Mental health professionals will appreciate this practical and detailed guide which will increase their effectiveness, relevance and competence in working with older people.

The Fourth Edition of this bestselling, highly regarded book has been fully revised to incorporate changes in law and clinical guidance making a vital impact on patient management, encompassing: . The Equality Act 2010 which provides the right of older people to treatment without discrimination . Case law on withdrawing nutrition and hydration . Updated guidance on resuscitation from the Resuscitation Council (UK), the British Medical Association and the Royal College of Nursing . The redefining of good medical practice by the General Medical Council . The abolition of the Liverpool Care Pathway with updated guidance on end-of-life care and advance care planning. Expanded throughout, this new edition also integrates two entirely new chapters covering testamentary capacity and the role of the physician, and religious beliefs and end-of-life issues. Its practical, reflective and informative approach continues to make it essential reading for all health professionals, particularly trainees, involved in making difficult decisions in the care of older persons. It is also highly recommended for undergraduate medical students. ' This book combines a primer for the novice with advanced reasoning for the expert, both readerships being led through a range of very authentic case studies. The novice can look up the basic elements of current law, or acquire some rules of thumb about assessment of capacity or quality of life. The expert can think about clinical scenarios where there are no right answers, and all is contingent, or work out how the loss of the privilege of driving might be reframed to maximise mobility. Every practitioner should have this book, and it should be well-thumbed.' From the Foreword by Professor Steve Iliffe

Most of the DNA in the human genome does not encode proteins but is involved in regulatory functions. In addition, the human genome is characterized by an extensive array of structural DNA variants arising from de novo mutations plus accumulated structural variants transmitted through an individual's lineage. The result is that each person has a unique genome which is expressed as that person's unique phenotype. Ageing can be understood on both the species and individual level. Each species has a programmed ageing and mortality pattern, but within those broad species-specific boundaries there is considerable individual variation. At the individual level, ageing reflects the integrated effects of that individual's unique mix of DNA structural variants, unique experience-specific epigenetic marks and imperfectly repaired genomic and cellular damage. This book examines human "chronic degenerative" diseases which are not diseases, but rather variations of the ageing process across individuals.