Aging in Good Health

With advances in medicine and preventive healthcare measures, more and more Americans 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 or treatable, whether physical or psychological. This excellent interdisciplinary collection of articles on aging, by a wide range of experts, is designed to make available to the general public the best recent research on the many facets of successful aging. Divided into four main parts, the contributors discuss the psychological, sociological, and biomedical aspects of aging and conclude with a focus on service provisions for the elderly. Among the specific issues discussed are the role of negative life events in late-life adaptation, spiritual needs of those near the end of life, emotional health and maturity, family relational ethics and caregiving, planning and consequences of retirement, elder abuse, overmedication, alcohol abuse, nutritional recommendations, physical activity, physician-patient communication, exemplary services in the community, and volunteerism. By combining multiple perspectives this accessible collection develops an overall picture of the needs of the aging individual and offers successful approaches to treating the diverse problems of later years.