With advances in medicine and preventive health-care measures, more and more people are living to advanced old age while remaining productive and experiencing relatively good health and vitality. Unfortunately, a significant number of the elderly still succumb to various serious maladies, many of them preventable and treatable, whether physical or psychological. This excellent interdisciplinary collection of articles on ageing, by a wide range of experts, is designed to make available to the general reader the best recent research on the many facets of successful ageing. Divided into four parts, the contributors discuss the psychological, sociological, and biomedical aspects of ageing and conclude with a focus on how to provide effective service to the elderly. Among the specific issues discussed are the role of negative life events in adapting to growing old, spiritual needs of those near the end of life, emotional health and maturity, ethical issues in family relations and care-giving, the planning and consequences of retirement, elder abuse, over-medication, drug and alcohol abuse, nutritional recommendations, increasing physical activity, improving physician-patient communication, valuable services in the community, and the role of volunteers. Through the varying perspectives, this inviting collection develops an overall picture of the needs of ageing individuals and offers successful approaches to the diverse challenges of later years.
