International experts offer insights into rehabilitative work with the depressed elderly, including examples of successful treatment models, assessment and prevention techniques, as well as other helpful methods of alleviating depression in the institutionalized elderly.
Social isolation and loneliness are serious yet underappreciated public health risks that affect a significant portion of the older adult population. Approximately one-quarter of community-dwelling Americans aged 65 and older are considered to be socially isolated, and a significant proportion of adults in the United States report feeling lonely. People who are 50 years of age or older are more likely to experience many of the risk factors that can cause or exacerbate social isolation or loneliness, such as living alone, the loss of family or friends, chronic illness, and sensory impairments. Over a life course, social isolation and loneliness may be episodic or chronic, depending upon an individual's circumstances and perceptions. A substantial body of evidence demonstrates that social isolation presents a major risk for premature mortality, comparable to other risk factors such as high blood pressure, smoking, or obesity. As older adults are particularly high-volume and high-frequency users of the health care system, there is an opportunity for health care professionals to identify, prevent, and mitigate the adverse health impacts of social isolation and loneliness in older adults. Social Isolation and Loneliness in Older Adults summarizes the evidence base and explores how social isolation and loneliness affect health and quality of life in adults aged 50 and older, particularly among low income, underserved, and vulnerable populations. This report makes recommendations specifically for clinical settings of health care to identify those who suffer the resultant negative health impacts of social isolation and loneliness and target interventions to improve their social conditions. Social Isolation and Loneliness in Older Adults considers clinical tools and methodologies, better education and training for the health care workforce, and dissemination and implementation that will be important for translating research into practice, especially as the evidence base for effective interventions continues to flourish.
At least 5.6 million to 8 million-nearly one in five-older adults in America have one or more mental health and substance use conditions, which present unique challenges for their care. With the number of adults age 65 and older projected to soar from 40.3 million in 2010 to 72.1 million by 2030, the aging of America holds profound consequences for the nation. For decades, policymakers have been warned that the nation's health care workforce is ill-equipped to care for a rapidly growing and increasingly diverse population. In the specific disciplines of mental health and substance use, there have been similar warnings about serious workforce shortages, insufficient workforce diversity, and lack of basic competence and core knowledge in key areas. Following its 2008 report highlighting the urgency of expanding and strengthening the geriatric health care workforce, the IOM was asked by the Department of Health and Human Services to undertake a complementary study on the geriatric mental health and substance use workforce. The Mental Health and Substance Use Workforce for Older Adults: In Whose Hands? assesses the needs of this population and the workforce that serves it. The breadth and magnitude of inadequate workforce training and personnel shortages have grown to such proportions, says the committee, that no single approach, nor a few isolated changes in disparate federal agencies or programs, can adequately address the issue. Overcoming these challenges will require focused and coordinated action by all.
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.
For older adults, having affordable, easy-to-use, and flexible transportation options is vital to their quality of life. Community Mobility provides physical and occupational therapists with recent research findings on older driver assessment, remediation/rehabilitation, and the use of alternatives to the car in the event that older adults need to "retire" from driving. This unique book addresses changes in driving patterns over time, the impact of climate conditions on driving, mental and physical health issues, self-regulation by drivers, and driver safety.
Teach your students essential skills in conducting research, building collaborative partnerships, and working with clients and caregivers! This important book provides health care educators with information, examples, and suggestions to help teach students appropriate research techniques amidst a growing demand for evidence-based practices. Offering two effective and efficient methods, the apprenticeship model and the partnership model, Teaching Students Geriatric Research will show you how to incorporate these research fundamentals in an already heavy courseload. By providing conceptual rationales and guidelines for these models and directions on how to use them, this thorough guide will assist you in enhancing research training for your students and preparing them for a career in the health professional field. Through this unique book, you will find clear descriptions and illustrations of the apprenticeship and partnership models of research to help you provide your students with a hands-on learning experience. Teaching Students Geriatric Research provides you with guidelines and suggestions on how to successfully use both models of training described in this book, such as: exploring guidelines for training students and incorporating them into ongoing research discussing students' reflections on the relevance of research training for professional development based on their own experiences as research apprentices discovering the various skills that students can develop as a result of their involvement in research training apprenticeships finding that the skills students learn through the research process will benefit their future clinical practice and client intervention realizing how students' research apprenticeship can sensitize them to family caregiving issues and problems alerting students to the potential role of occupational therapists in enhancing occupational performance by maximizing fit between the caregiver, environment, and roles or occupation by matching the personality of the caregiver with their occupation examining useful and concrete suggestions on developing fruitful partnerships between faculty, students, and service providers, as well as discussing the factors involved in the successes of collaboration from an already existing collaboration between rehabilitation hospital and a major university With Teaching Students Geriatric Research, you will discover the potential in each approach for improving the research training among students in your academic situation. You will gain valuable insight from student perspectives on what they learned as well as proven suggestions from faculty researchers' perspective to provide you with a complete overview of how to enhance and enrich the academic experiences of your students.
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 accessibleAging 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.