Critical Gerontology for Social Workers


Book Description

This original collection explores how critical gerontology can make sense of old age inequalities to inform social work research, policy and practice. Engaging with key debates on age-related human rights, the conceptual focus addresses the current challenges and opportunities facing those who work with older people.




Critical Gerontology


Book Description

This refreshing book uses broad political and moral economy perspectives to explore the intersections of race, class, gender and aging and how these help determine the experience of aging and growing old. The twenty chapter volume includes new contributions by many of the top names in critical gerontology. Both political and economic factors, and those shared norms about fairness and obligation that help shape our aging policies, are examined in relation to a wide range of contemporary issues in gerontology.




Critical Gerontology Comes of Age


Book Description

Critical Gerontology Comes of Age reflects on how baby boomers, caretakers, and health professionals are perceiving and adapting to historical, social, political, and cultural changes that call into question prior assumptions about aging and life progression. Through an exploration of earlier and later-life stages and the dynamic changes in intergenerational relations, chapter authors reexamine the research, methods, and scope of critical gerontology, a multidisciplinary field that speaks to the experiences of life in the 21st century. Topics include Medicare, privatization of home care, incarceration, outreach to LGTBQ elders, migration, and chronic illness. Grounded in innovative research and case studies, this volume reflects multiple perspectives and is accessible to lay readers, advanced undergraduates and graduate students, and professionals in many fields.




Aging, Globalization and Inequality


Book Description

This book is a major reassessment of work in the field of critical gerontology, providing a comprehensive survey of issues by a team of contributors drawn from Europe and North America. The book focuses on the variety of ways in which age and ageing are socially constructed, and the extent to which growing old is being transformed through processes associated with globalisation. The collection offers a range of alternative views and visions about the nature of social ageing, making a major contribution to theory-building within the discipline of gerontology. The different sections of the book give an overview of the key issues and concerns underlying the development of critical gerontology. These include: first, the impact of globalisation and of multinational organizations and agencies on the lives of older people; second, the factors contributing to the "social construction" of later life; and third, issues associated with diversity and inequality in old age, arising through the effects of cumulative advantage and disadvantage over the life course. These different themes are analysed using a variety of theoretical perspectives drawn from sociology, social policy, political science, and social anthropology. "Aging, Globalization and Inequality" brings together key contributors to critical perspectives on aging and is unique in the range of themes and concerns covered in a single volume. The study moves forward an important area of debate in studies of aging, and thus provides the basis for a new type of critical gerontology relevant to the twenty-first century.




Rural Gerontology


Book Description

This book provides the first foundation of knowledge about the intellectual traditions, contemporary scope and future prospects for the interdisciplinary field of rural gerontology. With a focus on rural regions, small towns and villages, which have the highest rates of population ageing worldwide, Rural Gerontology is aimed at understanding what it means for rural people, communities and institutions to be at the forefront of twenty-first-century demographic change. The book offers important insights from rural ageing studies into today’s most pressing gerontological problems. With chapters from more than 65 established and emerging rural ageing researchers, it is the first synthesis of knowledge about rural gerontology, harnessing a burgeoning interdisciplinary scholarship on the rural dimensions of ageing, old age and older populations. With a view to advancing a critical understanding of rural ageing populations, this book will have an overreaching impact across the social sciences by drawing on advancements in understandings of rural ageing from social, environmental, geographical and critical gerontology to facilitate a comprehensive exploration of the diversity, complexity and implications of the ageing process in rural settings. Bringing together valuable international perspectives, this book makes a timely contribution to gerontology, rural studies and the social sciences, and will appeal to scholars and researchers across USA and Canada, UK and Ireland, Australia and New Zealand, Europe, China and countries in Africa, South America and South-East Asia.




Women in Late Life


Book Description

Contemporary old age is fraught with contradiction and complexity—women portrayed either as incompetent and cuddly grandmothers or as young women trapped in old bodies, images that rarely reflect how women actually see themselves. Women in Late Life explores the thorny issues related to gender and aging, including prevailing but problematic cultural expectations, body image, ageism, the experience of chronic illness, threats to Social Security and the very possibility of a secure retirement while challenging a long-term care system that disadvantages women. Author Martha Holstein writes from a critical feminist perspective, drawing on her many years of experience in gerontology, as well as interviews and personal experience as a woman now in her seventies. The book highlights how women’s experience of late life is shaped by the effects of lifelong gender norms, by contemporary culture—from gender stereotypes to ageism—and by the political context. The book blends critique with proposals aimed at resisting damaging inequities resulting from being simultaneously old and a woman. She focuses on changes needed on multiple levels—societal, cultural, political, and individual. This interdisciplinary look at key questions around gender and aging is nuanced and beautifully written.




Successful Aging


Book Description

Presents the results of the MacArthur Foundation Study of Aging in America, which show how to maintain optimum physical and mental strength throughout later life.




Understanding Old Age


Book Description

Providing a comprehensive overview of issues of ageing from a global perspective this ambitious text introduces the reader to a wide range of issues and policies on ageing. Topics examined include: theoretical perspectives on ageing in society; demographic trends; roles played by older people as political actors; migration; health; pensions; family and institutional care; and elder abuse. This will be an essential text for students of social gerontology, as well as an invaluable resource for students of nursing, social work, social policy and development studies.




Critical Perspectives on Ageing Societies


Book Description

This important new book brings together some of the best known international scholars working within a critical gerontology perspective. Together, they review and update our understanding of how the field has developed over the last twenty-five years and, through the lens of 'passionate scholarship', provide a challenging assessment of the complex practical and ethical issues facing older people, and those who conduct research on ageing, in the 21st century. The contributions extend the critical gerontological approach conceptually, methodologically and practically. They offer close and scholarly analysis of policies affecting the lives of older people and provide insights into why research is done in particular ways. Special attention is paid to feminist contributions and new approaches to working in partnership with older people; age discrimination and ageism; the impact of neo-liberal policies and the passage of various human rights instruments; the re-medicalisation of later life; the participation of older people in research; and justice between generations. The editors and contributors offer suggestions for promoting change, and an exciting set of visions and perspectives for the renewal and development of critical gerontology in the years ahead."Critical Perspectives on Ageing Societies" will be a valuable resource for all students, academics and practitioners interested in ageing and the life course.




Critical Care Nursing of Older Adults


Book Description

2010 AJN Book of the Year Award Winner in Critical Care--Emergency Nursing! Designated a Doody's Core Title! "This evidence-based book is an excellent reference for ensuring high-quality management of the elderly and of their particular needs in the critical care setting." --AJN "[This] book's contents run the gamut of elder problems and care: physiology, pharmacology, nutrition, restraints, substance abuse....it is a compendium that can be used as a text or a resource." --Claire M. Fagin, PhD, RN, FAAN (From the Foreword) This book is an evidence-based, best-practices guide that directs the bedside care of critically ill elders. The book serves as a reference on major clinical issues for nurses working at the forefront of care-from nurses in critical care and step-down units to those in trauma and emergency departments. Nurse educators at all degree levels will also find this book to be useful as a textbook and resource for students. The authors provide evidence-based, practical guidelines for both the complex clinical and management aspects of care. The book offers comprehensive coverage of all the issues caregivers need to be up to date on, including the standards of practice for geriatric care, new technologies, pharmacotherapy, pain management issues, ethical issues, and much more. Key topics discussed: Strategies for patient safety for older patients in the intensive care setting Family responses to critical care of the older adult Infection, sepsis, and immune function Understanding and managing sleep disorders in older patients in the ICU Heart failure in the critically ill older patient Substance abuse and withdrawal in elderly patients