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Psychosocial Approaches to Health and Wellbeing in Adulthood
By Jennifer M. Waite-Jones, Alison M. Rodriguez. 2025
This textbook provides an up-to-date guide to theories within psychology and sociology relevant to understanding the major life transitions within…
adulthood and older age and demonstrates how they can be applied in practice. In doing so, it offers a psychosocial approach that will equip readers to meet the combined physical, psychological and social needs of those in their care. In this book the impact of biological factors on adult experience is acknowledged alongside a careful exploration of the socially constructed nature of different stages of adulthood across the lifespan. In its analysis of developmental stages, the book covers key issues of current concern including emerging and early adulthood, &‘the sandwich generation&’ (those caring for both their children and their parents), later life, medicalisation, neurodiversity, long term and degenerative conditions, bereavement, and grief. Both vulnerabilities and ways to enhance resilience encouraging healthy ageing are examined. Utilising practice-oriented case studies and reflective questions it illustrates how psychosocial perspectives may be applied within family, workplace, health, and social care contexts. It offers under graduate and graduate students of social work, nursing, mental health, education, psychology, human development, gerontology and ageing, the tools needed to evaluate the interlocking psychosocial factors influencing the lives of adults at different stages of life.
Health Promotion in Long-Term Care Facilities: The Present Scenario and Future Demands
By Kallol Kumar Bhattacharyya. 2025
This book discusses biopsychosocial barriers and facilitators of long-term care services, focusing on health promotional activities targeted to maximize quality…
of life. This knowledge of meaningful activities helps to identify and improve strategies for supporting people living in long-term care facilities with various chronic disorders at a deeper level. Although no all-encompassing theory of caregiving has yet been developed, this book explores various theoretical formulations as central aspects of promoting health in long-term care practices. The current culture change in long-term care controls the well-being of the concerned person physically, psychologically, socially, and economically. In later life, these issues profoundly impact individuals' morbidity and lifespan. Further, it has been evidenced that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' five-star rating system that provides long-term care facilities&’ quality information to the public does not fully represent what matters to the residents from their perspectives. Resident satisfaction is an integral part of the quality of care; instead of clinical quality measures only, it is influenced by residents, their family members, staff, and administration. Person-centered care not only requires a 'culture change' in how residents and caregivers work together, but it also requires facilities to ensure staff deliver care with the highest possible level of empathy and adopt meaningful care practices. Among the topics covered in this contributed volume: Are Quality of Care and Quality of Life Synonymous in Long-Term Care? Aging-in-Place or Long-Term Care? Changing the Narrative to Promote Aging in Place in Long-Term Care Person-Centered Care and Culture Change Movement in Long-Term Care
A new way to think about ageing - for ourselves and the people we love. With warmth and wisdom, geriatrician…
Dr Lucy Pollock shows us how'The Golden Rule is part manifesto for better integration and appreciation between generations, and part reflection on a career spent looking after our elders, [. . .] with good humour, sanity, wisdom and quite a few jokes' The Times__Plan A: stay young foreverPlan B: read this bookToday, we are living longer lives and have choices now as never before about how we will age.What will make us happy?What frightens us, and what might allay our fears?What changes, made right now, will help us to flourish?In The Golden Rule, Dr Lucy Pollock shares lessons she has learned in the thirty years of working with older people and their family and friends.She explores problems that can be fixed with tests and tablets, and problems that require a different sort of medicine.These engrossing stories explain what she has been taught about impossible families, important decisions, becoming older without children, sexuality, race, love, and living with uncertainty.--'From the first pages, the impression you have is how much you’d want Pollock as your medical practitioner. . . this warm and compassionate book is part reflection, part rallying cry to set in place a better society for older people' Daily Mail'Beautiful and wise, filled with characters I know living through situations I recognise, filtered through the kindness of thoughtful storytelling' Kathryn Mannix, author of With the End in Mind
Cultural Representations of Queer Aging in Spain (Routledge Studies in Health Humanities)
By Raquel Medina. 2025
This collection examines representations of Spanish queer aging through investigations of literary and cinematic representations of this demographic, offering a…
showcase for research on communities often made invisible due to age and sexual identity in Spanish culture with wider implications for queer aging studies research.The volume builds on theoretical foundations established by queer aging studies scholars and the ways in which queer aging differs from heterosexual aging, examining negative topics that arise in literature and film (such as the AIDS crisis, the silencing of queer aging individuals, and social stigmas against this group), in addition to positive topics (like the creation of communities and spaces for queer aging characters). Chapters are structured in conversation with one another about key themes in depictions of queer aging in Spanish culture. Several chapters examine such topics as the aging body, stereotypes and discrimination, old age tropes, and queer invisibility, while others highlight positive representations in exploring the importance of the connection to home, family, and community spaces for queer communities. The collection represents a critical step in future work on queer aging to take future research beyond the Spanish context to extend to new geographic and disciplinary borders.This book will be of interest to scholars in aging studies, gerontology studies, queer theory, health humanities, and Spanish literature and culture.
Civic Engagement in Later Life (Ageing in a Global Context)
By Rodrigo Serrat. 2025
Available open access digitally under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. Older adults’ civic engagement has become a key concern in academic and policy…
debates in recent years. However, existing studies on this topic remain fragmented across various conceptual and methodological approaches. This book provides a comprehensive, interdisciplinary and multidimensional perspective on older adults' civic engagement. It proposes a conceptual framework which understands civic engagement as a multidimensional concept encompassing a diversity of activities through which older adults contribute to their communities and wider society. Contributors explore the factors shaping older adults’ participation in various civic activities across the life course, considering their diversity in terms of social locations such as gender, health status, migrant background, socioeconomic background and residential arrangements. By analysing past and current research, policy and practice, the book offers recommendations for future efforts to advance the field.
Timebomb: When Ageing Explodes
By Giles Merritt. 2025
Ageing is a timebomb. We celebrate our greater longevity, yet few of us consider its consequences. This book is an…
important warning that unless Europeans defuse its explosive force, within two decades our societies will be devastated by it. The hard fact is that because our political economies have been built around shorter lifespans, they risk being blown apart by ageing. The pressures exerted by the over-60s, who are increasing from today's quarter of the population to a third, will upend our politics and impoverish our young. Millennials and Gen-Zers are already saddled with their elders' runaway pension and healthcare costs, but are themselves poorer and less privileged. Merritt, a veteran analyst of the European scene, traces the demographic projections that politicians of all persuasions have long ignored, and shines a harsh light on policy shortcomings that must be urgently addressed. For anyone wants a stake in our future, this book is essential reading which clarifies the political choices to be made if comparatively prosperous Europe isn't to die of old age.
A History of Aging in Qing China: Self-Representations in Personal Narratives of the Elderly (Chinese Culture #9)
By Clara Wing-chung Ho. 2025
This book examines the history of aging and old age during the Qing dynasty, a pivotal period marked by rapid…
population growth that resulted in the largest elderly population in imperial China. Drawing on previously overlooked first-person accounts from the extensive collections authored by Qing men and women, it offers an overview of the self-curated collective aging journeys of several hundreds of elders. By centering the voices of individuals reflecting on their aging experiences, this book delves into the personal narratives from both genders, rediscovering their aging journeys, revealing their subjectively constructed emotional landscapes, and giving a voice to the elderly individuals of the past. The chapters closely analyze how the elderly in Qing China articulated their aging process, channeling their joys, challenges, and frustrations in later life. History is not the monopoly of a single gender, class, race, or age group; without representations of the elderly, history remains incomplete. This book seeks to restore the elderly to the historical narrative and invites further discussion on Chinese historical gerontology as an emerging subfield. In addition to appealing to general readers interested in contemporary demographic issues from a historical perspective, this book will engage students and researchers of history, historical gerontology, aging studies, gender studies, cultural studies, sociology, psychology, and Asian studies.
Mind Matters: A Sociological Study of Dementia Diagnosis
By Alexandra Hillman. 2025
As population aging spreads to more parts of the world, dementia is fast becoming one of the most common and…
feared conditions of our time. Diagnosis has been identified as a key point of intervention for both biomedical and policy agendas. Drawing on ethnographic research spanning more than a decade, this book reflects on observations and recordings of UK memory clinic consultations, interview accounts with clinical staff involved in assessment and diagnosis, internationally recognised dementia researchers, and people living with dementia and their families both at the point of diagnosis and as their condition progresses. In dialogue with accounts and observations from the field, this book makes the case for the development of a sociology of dementia diagnosis. In doing so, the book progresses a dialectic approach to the study of dementia&’s construction and experience and contextualises dementia diagnosis within wider networks of meaning and systems of value related to aging, health, and personhood.
Care Poverty and Unmet Needs: Inequalities in Theory and Practice (Transforming Care)
By Teppo Kröger, Nicola Brimblecombe, Ricardo Rodrigues and Kirstein Rummery. 2025
Available open access digitally under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. As populations age around the world, there is an urgent need to address…
the inadequate and unequal provision of care and support to older and disabled people. This book represents the first collective effort to use the concept of care poverty to analyse unmet needs and inequalities in care at an international level and from a social policy perspective. It presents pioneering empirical studies and novel theoretical and methodological approaches to unmet needs and care poverty. This volume points the way forward for international care research and, in particular, for the growing field of research on inadequate care and support.
Baudrillard and Aging seeks to delve into the intricate relationship between age and society, drawing on the influential theories of…
French philosopher Jean Baudrillard. This book will explore how aging and the aging process are shaped by the hyperreal world we inhabit, emphasizing the paradoxical amplification of youth and the loss of authenticity in contemporary society. By analyzing Baudrillard's theories in the context of aging, this book aims to provide a fresh perspective on the challenges and paradoxes faced by individuals as they grow older. In our modern society, aging is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon that is often met with anxiety and resistance. Jean Baudrillard's original theories on simulation, hyperreality, and the collapse of meaning offer unique insights into how the aging process has been transformed and mediated within a culture that relentlessly fetishizes youthfulness. This book will examine how the hyperreal simulacra of aging are constructed, perpetuated, and imposed upon individuals as they age. It will also explore the consequences of this simulated lifecourse, including the erasure of authentic experiences of aging and the subsequent alienation and dissatisfaction experienced by older individuals.
Long-Term Care around the World (National Bureau of Economic Research Conference Report)
By Jonathan Gruber and Kathleen McGarry. 2025
A comparative analysis of both formal and informal long-term care in ten of the world’s wealthiest countries. Nations throughout the…
world are in the midst of an enormous demographic transition, with life expectancy increasing and fertility falling, leading to a rapidly aging population and critical implications for long-term care around the world. This volume documents and compares long-term care programs in ten wealthy countries. Analyses of survey data and government statistics show that the costs of long-term care are beyond the financial means of a large fraction of the elderly population in most countries, particularly the oldest and most disabled. As a result, public systems bear most of the cost of formal long-term care, such as care in an institution or paid home care. Most countries spend more on nursing homes than on home care, but this relationship varies widely as does the mix of care needs and resources used to define eligibility for public funding. At the same time, most care is provided informally through family or unpaid caregivers. The costs of informal care, including the foregone earnings of caregivers, are estimated to account for at least one-third of all long-term care spending in every country. Thus, any estimate of the social costs of long-term care must account for the implicit costs of informal care.
'So great I am struggling to find the words to do it justice' Marian KeyesA Book of the Year for…
The Times, Observer, Independent and Good Housekeeping'A rare pleasure' Sunday Times'Riveting' Elizabeth Day'A perfect, funny, insightful, novel about women, friendship, and ageing' Nina Stibbe'A lovely, lively, intelligent, funny book' Tessa Hadley'Glorious . . . Charlotte Wood joins the ranks of writers such as Nora Ephron, Penelope Lively and Elizabeth Strout' GuardianSylvie, Jude, Wendy and Adele have been friends for decades, but when Sylvie dies, the ground shifts dangerously for the remaining three.These women couldn't be more different: Jude, a once-famous restaurateur with a long-standing affair with a married man; Wendy, an acclaimed feminist intellectual; Adele, a former star of the stage, now practically homeless. Struggling to recall exactly why they've remained close all these years, the grieving women gather for one last weekend at Sylvie's old beach house. But fraying tempers, an elderly dog, unwelcome guests and too much wine collide in a storm that threatens to sweep away their friendship for good.
New Frontiers for Inclusion: CWUAAT 2025
By Joy Goodman-Deane, Emilene Zitkus, Anke Brock, John Clarkson, Hua Dong, Ann Heylighen, Jonathan Lazar. 2025
This book presents papers from the 12th Cambridge Workshop on Universal Access and Assistive Technology (CWUAAT 2025), to be held…
in April 2025. This workshop series has hosted the multifaceted dialogue on design for inclusion since 2002, involving disciplines including design, computer science, engineering, architecture, ergonomics and human factors, policy and gerontology. The conference theme for 2025 is New frontiers for inclusion. The major themes dealt with in this collection include: Understanding people Designing for an ageing population Designing for particular needs Designing inclusive environments New challenges and opportunities the possibilities and challenges for inclusive design offered by AI and other emerging technologies. With its thematic wealth, this proceedings provides a unique insight into the current national and international research in the fields of inclusive design, universal access, and assistive and rehabilitative technology.
Shadows of Time: Unveiling the Intersection of Crime, Victims, and Aging is a comprehensive exploration of the complex relationship between…
crime, victims, and the aging population. Whilst older people are visible as an aging population, they are invisible as a victim population or even more controversially, as an offending population. This book delves into the challenges, vulnerabilities, and unique obstacles faced by older adults who become victims of crime and offenders of crime across cultures. It is one of a tiny handful of books that explores the relationship of aging, victimization and criminality. To make sense of such issues, there will be a critical exploration of the links between theory, policy and practice. The primary purpose of this book is to shed light on the often-overlooked issue of elderly victimization and offending and to raise awareness about its impact.
Generation Care: The New Culture of Caregiving
By Jennifer N. Levin. 2025
From a writer and founder of national online support group Caregiver Collective and a caregiver herself, Jennifer N. Levin offers…
a comprehensive look at our current culture of care, with an emphasis on Millennial caregivers—providing a roadmap to solutions and an immediate call for policy change. More than 10 million Millennials are caring for aging parents before they've been able to fully launch their own careers and consider starting their own families, and that's not including the incalculable numbers of people affected by long COVID. Yet no one is naming this problem, talking about how it feels, or offering resources to ease the pressure of Millennial caregiver burnout. Jennifer N. Levin was 32 when her father was diagnosed with a rare degenerative illness. As she struggled with few resources and little support, she created Caregiver Collective, a national online support group for Millennial caregivers. Now Levin brings the wisdom from her own experience and that of her support group to Generation Care, a comprehensive look at this generation's culture of care. Filled with the voices of caregivers, expert commentary and research, and a roadmap to the solutions that can begin helping people now as well as build the policies of the future, Generation Care addresses the financial costs, the ambiguous sense of loss for millennials grieving the lives they thought they'd have, the impact of COVID and Long Covid, and strategies for getting help on the individual level and in relation to policy. Caregiving is an increasingly urgent crisis, with more than 10 million millennials caring for their aging parents before they're prepared for it. Generation Care brings this crisis to the fore, illuminates the real stories and people who are most affected, underscores the need for shifts in policy and giving support where it is most needed, and sounds a clarion call for change.
What If I'm Wrong?: Navigating the Waves of Fear and Failure
By Heather Thompson Day. 2025
Are you tired of living life scared or following the status quo? Heather Thompson Day challenges readers to remember what…
it felt like to believe in themselves before the world told them who they should be and what they should do.What If I&’m Wrong? explores the chasm between our dreams we once had and the reality in which we are now living. Writing from personal experience, Heather Thompson Day dives deep into what makes us feel overwhelmed or defeated by the hopes we once had, the disappointments we should have overcome, the goals we expected to accomplish, and the person we wanted to be. Somehow and somewhere along the way, we stopped following our heart and started listening to the lies in our head: It&’s time you gave up on that childish dream. What makes you think you could accomplish that? Others see who you really are, so stop trying to be someone else. So we decided to play it safe and just accept our lot in life. And instead of feeling alive every day, we walk through our days numb and uninspired. But this book will help readers see how: Pursuing a painless passion means you have an insignificant dreamLiving a &“normal&” life is scarier than taking risks and embracing the unknownBeing vulnerable and admitting mistakes can lead to success quickerEmbracing failure might be the best thing that ever happens to youStaying motivated and confident when things go wrong gets easier with practiceThe person God made you to be is waiting to live life to the fullest Have you ever considered that the hardest things in life might be our greatest areas of passion, through which we find fulfillment in everything we do, from work to play to relationships to our faith? Fears and failures come upon us like relentless waves, pulling us to deeper water. Panicked, we believe we are going to drown. But what if we&’re wrong? Maybe God is teaching us how to swim stronger, to pursue greater adventures, to learn how to really live!
From Legacies to Futures: The Lifeworlds of Older Adults in Europe (Life Course, Culture and Aging: Global Transformations)
By Katja Seidel, David Prendergast, A. Jamie Saris. 2025
Older adults want to exercise a sense of control over their relationships, structures and surroundings as they navigate the later…
life course. Through detailed ethnographic case studies, this book examines the dynamic lifeworlds of a hundred and seven community-dwelling older adults in Europe before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. It explores the importance of agency, the frictions between self-perceptions of age and outside impositions and the need to deconstruct old age as a homogenising category. These insights challenge simple narratives of older persons as social burdens by highlighting the complex roles they fill in family, neighbourhood and communities.
The Essential Revolution of Evolutionary Medicine: Interpreting Diseases and Population Aging (Advances in Studies of Aging and Health #4)
By Giacinto Libertini, Graziamaria Corbi, Olga Shubernetskaya, Klara Komici, Nicola Ferrara. 2024
This book proposes a way to radically renew medicine by extending to medicine the concepts of evolutionary biology. The book…
considers diseases not as unpredictable harmful events but as logical consequences of evolutionary mechanisms. In particular, a large part of the most widespread diseases that afflict modern populations are interpreted as the consequence of discordances (mismatches) between new living conditions and the adaptation of our species. It discusses the basic concepts, as well as diseases deriving from alterations of the genotype and general concepts about diseases deriving from alterations of the ecological niche. It also describes diseases deriving from relations with other living beings especially when the ecological niche is altered, diseases deriving from conditions beyond the adaptation range, and physiological phenomena that cause troubles and suffering or even death. A particular study is dedicated to the interpretation of aging and its consequences in normal or altered conditions of the ecological niche. The final part of the book describes the implementation of evolutionary medicine. This book, complementing the "Evolutionary Gerontology and Geriatrics" book, which is also published in this series, provides a valuable read for scholars and students in the fields of medicine, evolutionary biology, preventive medicine, and gerontology.
Lockdown Life: The Pandemic Experience for Older Diarists
By Null Nicola Madge. 2025
The COVID-19 pandemic took many by surprise when it arrived in Britain in early 2020. Daily lives changed dramatically from…
March with the introduction of unprecedented restrictions and lockdowns. How did people react? This book draws on the diaries of 68 men and women aged 70 and above, capturing their thoughts and experiences over the following months. Although these older diarists considered themselves among the more fortunate at the time, their entries reveal both highs and lows. There were anxieties and frustrations but also much positivity and, often, a reluctance for an over-hasty return to pre-pandemic times. Through these personal and contemporaneous accounts, the book offers a unique contribution to our understanding of the pandemic and its significance in modern social history.
If You Were My Daughter: A Memoir of Healing an Unmothered Heart
By Marianne Richmond. 2025
From bestselling children's author Marianne Richmond comes a powerful memoir about overcoming a mother's emotional neglect and finding the courage…
to reclaim the story of your life."In her beautiful memoir, Richmond bravely finds her way through a legacy of emotional trauma, pulling us into her courageous, tender heart while bringing us closer to our own…a stunning story." -- Kelly McDaniel, LPC, author of Mother HungerAt nine years old, Marianne Richmond's life is upended when she collapses on her kitchen floor with full-body convulsions. "Pinched nerve," says the ER doctor, a baffling explanation. But when one episode becomes many, it's clear something is wrong. Afraid to be at school, in her body and in her life, Marianne desperately hopes for help and healing. But her emotionally unavailable mother — still reeling from her own past trauma— refuses medication on Marianne's behalf, preferring to try prayer and homeopathy. At age 18, a full-body seizure in Marianne's dorm room leads her to a diagnosis, medication, and—at long last—neurological intervention. Physically, Marianne feels "fixed," but emotional healing proves more elusive. In the years to come, Marianne becomes a parent herself, and writes a new story for her life. She authors children's books that touch millions of lives, each of them celebrating a mother's unconditional love for her children. A love her own heart still longs to know. When her mother becomes ill, Marianne has a choice to make: will she be present for the mother who rarely felt present to her?If You Were My Daughter is a story of learning to hear your own voice, of one daughter's return to wholeness, and ultimately, a story of accepting that, despite all hope and longing, a mother's "best I could" can still fall far too short. Most of all, Marianne Richmond illuminates how the stories we're born into shape the ones we tell about ourselves—and reminds us that we have the powerful permission to develop a new relationship with what is difficult in our lives, to fully choose and embody who we are meant to be.