This report examines the relationships between aging and exposure to environmental agents (including natural and man-made agents, as well as life-style factors). Several relationships must be considered--the impact of intermittent or lifelong exposure to environmental agents on the rate of aging, the impact of lifelong exposure on health status when one reaches more advanced age, and the special response of the aged compared with that of the young when exposed to environmental agents.
The WHO World report on ageing and health is not for the book shelf it is a living breathing testament to all older people who have fought for their voice to be heard at all levels of government across disciplines and sectors. - Mr Bjarne Hastrup President International Federation on Ageing and CEO DaneAge This report outlines a framework for action to foster Healthy Ageing built around the new concept of functional ability. This will require a transformation of health systems away from disease based curative models and towards the provision of older-person-centred and integrated care. It will require the development sometimes from nothing of comprehensive systems of long term care. It will require a coordinated response from many other sectors and multiple levels of government. And it will need to draw on better ways of measuring and monitoring the health and functioning of older populations. These actions are likely to be a sound investment in society's future. A future that gives older people the freedom to live lives that previous generations might never have imagined. The World report on ageing and health responds to these challenges by recommending equally profound changes in the way health policies for ageing populations are formulated and services are provided. As the foundation for its recommendations the report looks at what the latest evidence has to say about the ageing process noting that many common perceptions and assumptions about older people are based on outdated stereotypes. The report's recommendations are anchored in the evidence comprehensive and forward-looking yet eminently practical. Throughout examples of experiences from different countries are used to illustrate how specific problems can be addressed through innovation solutions. Topics explored range from strategies to deliver comprehensive and person-centred services to older populations to policies that enable older people to live in comfort and safety to ways to correct the problems and injustices inherent in current systems for long-term care.
The present volume in our series follows the format of the immediately in dealing with a topical theme of considerable impor preceding ones tance in the environment and behavior field. In view of current and projected demographic trends, it is a certainty that a broad-ranging set of issues concerned with the elderly and the physical environment will continue to be of focal pertinence-if not of increasing importance--in the remaining decades of this century. The present volume also follows in the tradition of earlier volumes in the series in being eclectic with respect to content, theory, and meth odology and in including contributions from a variety of disciplines, such as anthropology, economics, psychology, geography, and urban and regional planning. To have encompassed the whole array of disci plines and topics in this emerging field in a single volume would have been impossible. We trust that the sample of contributions that we have selected is provocative and that it will illustrate the range of problems and topics and point to promising areas of study and analysis. We are pleased to have M. Powell Lawton as a guest co-editor for this volume. His broad-ranging expertise, perceptive judgment, and fine editorial talents have contributed enormously to the volume.
This book was nurtured by the belief that the new dynamics of today's and tomorrow's aging has not yet been treated well in the gerontology literature. Several questions drove the choice of substance for the book: What kind of new dynamics of aging deserves consideration? What kinds of theories and fields are at the core of treating such a new dynamics? And what kind of empirical evidence should be considered? The master hypothesis on which the book is based maintains that the new dynamics of old age is best observed in a range of everyday aging contexts that have been undergoing major change since the second half of the 20th century. In particular, five areas of new and persistent dynamics are treated in depth: the social environment, with a focus on cohort effects in social relations and the consideration of family relations and elders as care redelivers; the home environment, with emphasis on housing and quality of life, relocation and urban aging issues; the outdoor environment, with consideration of out-of-home activity patterns, car-driving behaviour and the leisure world of aging; the technological environment, with treatments of the role of the Internet and the potential of technology for aging outcomes and; and the societal environment with a focus on global aging, the new politics of old age and older persons as market consumers. The book's main purpose is to provide the scholarly gerontology community with a comprehensive and critical discussion of these new trends related to old age. The book will be of interest for the scholarly community of gerontology in a variety of disciplines; sociology, psychology, demography, epidemiology, humanities, social policy and geriatrics; students in gerontology education and in the disciplines named above who have an interest in aging issues (graduate level); professionals in practical and applied fields related to aging such as community and urban planners, health and care providers and policymakers; people involved in senior citizens' organizations and those in industry who wish to serve older people with new products.
As the United States and the rest of the world face the unprecedented challenge of aging populations, this volume draws together for the first time state-of-the-art work from the emerging field of the demography of aging. The nine chapters, written by experts from a variety of disciplines, highlight data sources and research approaches, results, and proposed strategies on a topic with major policy implications for labor forces, economic well-being, health care, and the need for social and family supports.
Providing the first UK assessment of environmental gerontology, this book enriches current understanding of the spatiality of ageing. Sheila Peace considers how places and spaces contextualise personal experience in varied environments, from urban and rural to general and specialised housing. Situating extensive research within multidisciplinary thinking, and incorporating policy and practice, this book assesses how personal health and wellbeing affect different experiences of environment. It also considers the value of intergenerational and age-related living, the meaning of home and global to local concerns for population ageing. Drawing on international comparisons, this book offers a valuable resource for new research and important lessons for the future.
Aging, Health and Technology takes a problem-centered approach to examine how older adults use technology for health. It examines the many ways in which technology is being used by older adults, focusing on challenges, solutions and perspectives of the older user. Using aging-health technology as a lens, the book examines issues of technology adoption, basic human factors, cognitive aging, mental health, aging and usability, privacy, trust and automation. Each chapter takes a case study approach to summarize lessons learned from unique examples that can be applied to similar projects, while also providing general information about older adults and technology. - Discusses human factors design challenges specific to older adults - Covers the wide range of health-related uses for technology—from fitness to leading a more engaged life - Utilizes a case study approach for practical application - Envisions what the future will hold for technology and older adults - Employs a roster of interdisciplinary contributors
Provide a comfortable living environment for the aging! Aging in Place: Designing, Adapting, and Enhancing the Home Environment gives you a complete examination of current trends in adaptive home designs for older adults. As a therapist, designer, architect, builder, home planner, social worker, community organizer, or gerontologist, Aging in Place will show you innovative home designs and studies for creating environments that offer optimal living for aging adults. Complete with diagrams, floor plans, and tables, Aging in Place helps you to improve the quality of life for the elderly by offering them state-of-the-art designs that encourage independence and dignity. This unique and exciting book covers topics such as universal design which strives to create everyday environments and products like door handles and light switches that are usable by all people to the greatest extent possible, regardless of age or ability. Aging in Place will also show you how to: use follow-up visits by occupational therapists to ensure successful use of home modifications create environments that are helpful for vision rehabilitation by using controlled lighting and color schemes evaluate the quality of life for elderly people living in personal dwellings, specialized housing, and nursing homes explore architectural barriers and the uses of helping devices for elderly people examine research critiques of adaptive toilet equipment investigate modifications that have been made in homes for the elderly in India analyze ways in which elderly people have changed their homes to make the telephone more accessible Aging in Place is a complete guide to understanding the needs and latest trends in optimizing the living space of elderly persons. The book gives you access to several studies on elderly people's environmental needs and preferences in regard to modifications in personal and public dwellings. This information will assist you with better serving the elderly by helping them live more independently.
Family caregiving affects millions of Americans every day, in all walks of life. At least 17.7 million individuals in the United States are caregivers of an older adult with a health or functional limitation. The nation's family caregivers provide the lion's share of long-term care for our older adult population. They are also central to older adults' access to and receipt of health care and community-based social services. Yet the need to recognize and support caregivers is among the least appreciated challenges facing the aging U.S. population. Families Caring for an Aging America examines the prevalence and nature of family caregiving of older adults and the available evidence on the effectiveness of programs, supports, and other interventions designed to support family caregivers. This report also assesses and recommends policies to address the needs of family caregivers and to minimize the barriers that they encounter in trying to meet the needs of older adults.
Emerging and currently available technologies offer great promise for helping older adults, even those without serious disabilities, to live healthy, comfortable, and productive lives. What technologies offer the most potential benefit? What challenges must be overcome, what problems must be solved, for this promise to be fulfilled? How can federal agencies like the National Institute on Aging best use their resources to support the translation from laboratory findings to useful, marketable products and services? Technology for Adaptive Aging is the product of a workshop that brought together distinguished experts in aging research and in technology to discuss applications of technology to communication, education and learning, employment, health, living environments, and transportation for older adults. It includes all of the workshop papers and the report of the committee that organized the workshop. The committee report synthesizes and evaluates the points made in the workshop papers and recommends priorities for federal support of translational research in technology for older adults.
