Although older adults may face significant health challenges, they tend to have better emotion regulation skills than younger or middle-age adults. Why is this and how might we use this knowledge to promote better health and well-being in adulthood and later life? Emotion, Aging, and Health explores the reciprocal relations between aging and emotion as well as how best to promote mental and physical health across the lifespan. The authors discuss the neural and cognitive mechanisms behind age-related shifts in affective experience and processing. In addition to presenting emotion-regulation strategies for offsetting age-related declines in mental and physical functioning, they examines the role of culture and motivation in shaping emotional experience across the lifespan along with the factors that determine human illness and human flourishing in old age. By highlighting these major advances in interdisciplinary research, the authors suggest promising avenues for intervention. Book jacket.
The field of emotions research has recently seen an unexpected period of growth and expansion, both in traditional psychological literature and in gerontology. The Handbook of Emotion, Adult Development, and Aging provides a broad overview and summary of where this field stands today, specifically with reference to life course issues and aging. Written by a distinguished group of contributing authors, the text is grounded in a life span developmental framework, while advancing a multidimensional view of emotion and its development and incorporating quantitative and qualitative research findings.The book is divided into five parts. Part One discusses five major theoretical perspectives including biological, discrete emotions, ethological, humanistic, and psychosocial. Part Two on affect and cognition discusses the role of emotion in memory, problem solving, and internal perceptions of self and gender. Part Three on emotion and relationships expands on the role of emotion in sibling and parent/child relationships, as well as relationships between friends and romantic partners, and the emotional reaction to interpersonal loss across the life span. Part Four on stress, health, and psychological well-being treats issues of stress and coping, religion, personality, and quality of life. The final part on continuity and change in emotion patterns and personality discusses emotion and emotionality throughout the life span.An ideal reference source for professionals across a wide range of disciplines, the text summarizes recent important developments in this fast growing area of psychology and proposes many new directions for future research. - Provides a biopsychological view on emotion in adulthood from a life span context - Presents the new perspective on emotion in older adults actively engaged in emotion self-regulation - Describes the intimate connection between emotion and the structure of personality - Demonstrates a new perspective on what emotion is, its importance across the life span, its connections with cognition, its role in interpersonal relation, and the way it influences both stability and change in adulthood - Illustrates the interpersonal nature of emotion - Provides theoretically based, leading edge research from international authors - Five areas of coverage include: - Theoretical perspectives - Affect and cognition - Emotion and relationships - Stress, health, and psychological well-being - Continuity and change in emotion patterns and personality Coverage includes: - Five major theoretical perspectives, including biological, discrete emotions, ethological, humanistic, and psychosocial - The role of emotion in memory, problem-solving, and internal perceptions of self and gender - The role of emotion in sibling and parent/child relationships, relationships between friends and romantic partners, and the emotional reaction to interpersonal loss across the lifespan - Issues of stress and coping, religion, personality, and quality of life - Emotion and emotionality throughout the lifespan
The psychology of aging usually focuses upon cognitive changes, with a particular focus on dementia and other forms of cognitive decline. But getting older is about more than simply changes to the brain and related health issues. Changes to our social and emotional lives are also hugely significant as we adapt across our lifespan. The second edition of Aging and Development is the only textbook available that responds to the growing interest in social, personal and emotional development in older age. Ideally suited to complement texts on cognitive change, the book provides a holistic developmental perspective on aging. It highlights a range of issues, including the development of personal meaning and spirituality, improvements in emotional control, uses of reminiscence and life review, the importance of healthy attitudes to aging, as well as the maintenance of close personal relationships. It does not avoid the difficult issues of late life decline, but illustrates how even in circumstances of physical and mental frailty a positive sense of self can be created and enhanced. Fully updated to provide the most cutting-edge overview on this burgeoning topic of interest, Aging and Development includes a glossary and list of useful websites both on the study of gerontology and the psychology of aging. It will be essential reading for all students of developmental psychology, as well as anyone either training to work or already working with older people.
Fully updated and revised, this new edition of a highly successful text provides students, clinicians, and academics with a thorough introduction to aging and mental health. The third edition of Aging and Mental Health is filled with new updates and features, including the impact of the DSM-5 on diagnosis and treatment of older adults. Like its predecessors, it uses case examples to introduce readers to the field of aging and mental health. It also provides both a synopsis of basic gerontology needed for clinical work with older adults and an analysis of several facets of aging well. Introductory chapters are followed by a series of chapters that describe the major theoretical models used to understand mental health and mental disorders among older adults. Following entries are devoted to the major forms of mental disorders in later life, with a focus on diagnosis, assessment, and treatment issues. Finally, the book focuses on the settings and contexts of professional mental health practice and on emerging policy issues that affect research and practice. This combination of theory and practice helps readers conceptualize mental health problems in later life and negotiate the complex decisions involved with the assessment and treatment of those problems. Features new material on important topics including positive mental health, hoarding disorder, chronic pain, housing, caregiving, and ethical and legal concerns Substantially revised and updated throughout, including reference to the DSM-5 Offers chapter-end recommendations of websites for further information Includes discussion questions and critical thinking questions at the end of each chapter Aging and Mental Health, Third Edition is an ideal text for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in psychology, for service providers in psychology, psychiatry, social work, and counseling, and for clinicians who are experienced mental health service providers but who have not had much experience working specifically with older adults and their families.
Despite the backlash against hormone replacement therapy, the depletion of natural hormones in the female body continues to be a problem for women at middle age and beyond. Remedying the problem has proved difficult for women and doctors who are unaware of, or reluctant to prescribe, bioidential hormones—those that match identically the hormones made naturally in the human body. Moods, Emotions, and Aging: Hormones and the Mind Body Connection explains the vital link for women between hormones, mood, and wellness. It outlines the dramatic hormonal shifts that women undergo in the years before menopause, and presents an approach to combining bioidentical hormone therapy with nutrients to achieve mood balance during midlife and beyond. Phyllis Bronson explains the differences between synthetic and bioidentical hormones, and offers vignettes of women who have used bioidentical hormones to help them deal with the changes that accompany natural hormone loss. This is a groundbreaking book for general readers written by a scientist who is able to take the mystery and the hype out of the hormone controversy. It is intended to empower women, along with their doctors, to make better and more informed choices about their health and well-being as they approach a time in their lives when things can seem like they are spinning out of control. The link between hormones, mood, emotions, and overall wellbeing is a powerful one, and when women are aware of it, they can take steps to bring themselves into better balance physically and emotionally. Here, Bronson shows them how.
By 2030 there will be about 70 million people in the United States who are older than 64. Approximately 26 percent of these will be racial and ethnic minorities. Overall, the older population will be more diverse and better educated than their earlier cohorts. The range of late-life outcomes is very dramatic with old age being a significantly different experience for financially secure and well-educated people than for poor and uneducated people. The early mission of behavioral science research focused on identifying problems of older adults, such as isolation, caregiving, and dementia. Today, the field of gerontology is more interdisciplinary. When I'm 64 examines how individual and social behavior play a role in understanding diverse outcomes in old age. It also explores the implications of an aging workforce on the economy. The book recommends that the National Institute on Aging focus its research support in social, personality, and life-span psychology in four areas: motivation and behavioral change; socioemotional influences on decision-making; the influence of social engagement on cognition; and the effects of stereotypes on self and others. When I'm 64 is a useful resource for policymakers, researchers and medical professionals.
Health literacy in practice requires the development of techniques that ensure that the patient can better access information, understand its content, know how to use this information, and make better health decisions. If the patient makes better health decisions, there are immediate reflexes in health outcomes. The aim is to develop an approach based on the commitment and creation of an atmosphere of trust that reduces uncertainty, anxiety, and embarrassment based on a process of assertive, clear, and positive communication (ACP model). The Handbook of Research on Assertiveness, Clarity, and Positivity in Health Literacy brings the consolidation of knowledge, strategies, and techniques to improve health literacy. This book discusses the importance of making sound health decisions: decisions that can save lives, prevent premature deaths, avoid hospitalizations and abusive resources to medical emergencies, and improve overall health outcomes for the individual, family, community, and society. Covering topics such as dietary guidance, health behavior change models, and medication reconciliation, this resource has theoretical and practical aspects essential to health information libraries, hospitals, clinics, health centers, health schools, patient associations, health professionals, medical students, researchers, professors, and academicians.
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. - Identifies factors influencing mental health in older adults - Includes biological, sociological, and psychological factors - Reviews epidemiology of different mental health disorders - Supplies separate chapters on grief, schizophrenia, mood, anxiety, and sleep disorders - Discusses biomarkers and genetics of mental health and aging - Provides assessment and treatment approaches
This book describes the changes in the brain and in cognitive functions that occur with aging in the absence of a neurological, psychiatric, or medical disease. It discusses aging-related changes in many brain functions, including memory, language, sensory perception, motor function, creativity, attention, executive functions, emotions and mood. The neural mechanisms that may account for specific aging-related changes in cognition, perception and behavior are explored, as well as the means by which aging-related cognitive decrements can be managed and possibly ameliorated. Consequently, this book will be of value to clinicians, including neurologists, psychiatrists, geriatricians, primary care physicians, psychologists and speech-language pathologists. In addition, researchers and graduate students who want to learn about the aging brain will find this an indispensable guide.
Ageing is an activity we are familiar with from an early age. In our younger years upcoming birthdays are anticipated with an excitement that somewhat diminishes as the years progress. As we grow older we are bombarded with advice on ways to overcome, thwart, resist, and, on the rare occasion, embrace, one's ageing. Have all human beings from the various historical epochs and cultures viewed aging with this same ambivalence? In this Very Short Introduction Nancy A. Pachana discusses the lifelong dynamic changes in biological, psychological, and social functioning involved in ageing. Increased lifespans in the developed and the developing world have created an urgent need to find ways to enhance our functioning and well-being in the later decades of life, and this need is reflected in policies and action plans addressing our ageing populations from the World Health Organization and the United Nations. Looking to the future, Pachana considers advancements in the provision for our ageing populations, including revolutionary models of nursing home care such as Green House nursing homes in the USA and Small Group Living homes in the Netherlands. She shows that understanding the process of ageing is not only important for individuals, but also for societies and nations, if the full potential of those entering later life is to be realised. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
