Download or read book Medical Sociology and Old Age written by Paul Higgs and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-01-13 with total page 157 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The nature of health in later life has conventionally been studied from two perspectives. Medical sociologists have focused on the failing body, chronic illness, infirmity and mortality, while social gerontologists on the other hand have focused on the epidemiology of old age and health and social policy. By examining these perspectives, Higgs and Jones show how both standpoints have a restricted sense of contemporary ageing which has prevented an understanding of the way in which health in later life has changed. In the book, the authors point out that the current debates on longevity and disability are being transformed by the emergence of a fitter and healthier older population. This third age - where fitness and participation are valorised – leads to the increasing salience of issues such as bodily control, age-denial and anti-ageing medicine. By discussing the key issue of old age versus ageing, the authors examine the prospect of a new sociology – a sociology of health in later life. Medical Sociology and Old Age is essential reading for all students and researchers of medical sociology and gerontology and for anyone concerned with the challenge of ageing populations in the twenty-first century. This book is essential reading for all students and researchers of medical sociology and gerontology.
Download or read book Dying in Old Age written by Sara M. Moorman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-09-14 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Three-quarters of deaths in the U.S. today occur to people over the age of 65, following chronic illness. This new experience of "predictable death" has important consequences for the ways in which societies structure their health care systems, laws, and labor markets. Dying in Old Age: U.S. Practice and Policy applies a sociological lens to the end of life, exploring how macrosocial systems and social inequalities interact to affect individual experiences of death in the United States. Using data from the National Health and Aging Trends Study and Pew Research Center Survey of Aging and Longevity, this book argues that predictable death influences the entire life course and works to generate greater social disparities. The volume is divided into sections exploring demography, the circumstances of dying people, and public policy affecting dying people and their families. In exploring these interconnected factors, the author also proposes means of making "bad death" an avoidable event. As one of the first books to explore the social consequences of end of life practice, Dying in Old Age will be of great interest to graduate and advanced undergraduate students in sociology, social work, and public health, as well as scholars and policymakers in these areas.
Download or read book Planning Later Life written by Mark Schweda and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2017-07-06 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the relevance of modern medicine and healthcare in shaping the lives of elderly persons and the practices and institutions of ageing societies. Combining individual and social dimensions, Planning Later Life discusses the ethical, social, and political consequences of increasing life expectancies and demographic change in the context of biomedicine and public health. By focusing on the field of biomedicine and healthcare, the authors engage readers in a dialogue on the ethical and social implications of recent trends in dementia research and care, advance healthcare planning, or the rise of anti-ageing medicine and prevention. Bringing together the largely separated debates of individualist bioethics on the one hand, and public health ethics on the other, the volume deliberately considers the entanglements of envisioning, evaluating, and controlling individual and societal futures. So far, the process of devising and exploring the various positive and negative visions and strategies related to later life has rarely been reflected systematically from a philosophical, sociological, and ethical point of view. As such, this book will be crucial to those working and studying in the life sciences, the humanities, and the social sciences, particularly in the areas of bioethics, social work, gerontology and aging studies, healthcare and social service, sociology, social policy, and geography and population studies.
Download or read book Framing Age written by Iris Loffeier and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-05-12 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ageing populations have gradually become a major concern in many industrialised countries over the past fifty years, drawing the attention of both politics and science. The target of a raft of health and social policies, older people are often identified as a specific, and vulnerable, population. At the same time, ageing has become a specialisation in many disciplines - medicine, sociology, psychology, to name but three – and a discipline of its own: gerontology. This book questions the framing of old age by focusing on the relationships between policy making and the production of knowledge. The first part explores how the meeting of scientific expertise and the politics of old age anchors the construction of both individual and collective relationships to the future. Part II brings to light the many ways in which issues relating to ageing can be instrumentalised and ideologised in several public debate arenas. Part III argues that scientific knowledge itself composes with objectivity, bringing ideologies of its own to the table, and looks at how this impacts discourse about ageing. In the final part, the contributors discuss how the frames can themselves be experienced at different levels of the division of labour, whether it is by people who work on them (legislators or scientists), by people working with them (professional carers) or by older people themselves. Unpacking the political and moral dimensions of scientific research on ageing, this cutting-edge volume brings together a range of multidisciplinary, European perspectives, and will be of use to all those interested in old age and the social sciences.
Download or read book Ageing Dementia and the Social Mind written by Paul Higgs and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2017-06-28 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A groundbreaking exploration of the sociology of dementia — with contributions from distinguished international scholars and practitioners. Organised around the four themes of personhood, care, social representations and social differentiation Provides a critical look at dementia and demonstrates how sociology and other disciplines can help us understand its social context as well as the challenges it poses Contributing authors explore the social terrain, responding in part, to Paul Higgs’ and Chris Gilleard’s highly influential work on ageing Breaks new ground in giving specific attention to the social and cultural dimensions of responses to dementia
Download or read book New Directions in the Sociology of Aging written by Panel on New Directions in Social Demography, Social Epidemiology, and the Sociology of Aging and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2014-01-09 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The aging of the population of the United States is occurring at a time of major economic and social changes. These economic changes include consideration of increases in the age of eligibility for Social Security and Medicare and possible changes in benefit levels. Furthermore, changes in the social context in which older individuals and families function may well affect the nature of key social relationships and institutions that define the environment for older persons. Sociology offers a knowledge base, a number of useful analytic approaches and tools, and unique theoretical perspectives that can facilitate understanding of these demographic, economic, and social changes and, to the extent possible, their causes, consequences and implications. The Future of the Sociology of Aging: An Agenda for Action evaluates the recent contributions of social demography, social epidemiology and sociology to the study of aging and identifies promising new research directions in these sub-fields. Included in this study are nine papers prepared by experts in sociology, demography, social genomics, public health, and other fields, that highlight the broad array of tools and perspectives that can provide the basis for further advancing the understanding of aging processes in ways that can inform policy. This report discusses the role of sociology in what is a wide-ranging and diverse field of study; a proposed three-dimensional conceptual model for studying social processes in aging over the life cycle; a review of existing databases, data needs and opportunities, primarily in the area of measurement of interhousehold and intergenerational transmission of resources, biomarkers and biosocial interactions; and a summary of roadblocks and bridges to transdisciplinary research that will affect the future directions of the field of sociology of aging.
Download or read book Medical Sociology written by William C. Cockerham and published by Prentice Hall. This book was released on 1982 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This introductory text provides clear coverage of the ideas, concepts, themes, and research findings in the field of medical sociology. This edition (last, 1995) includes updated treatment of the dramatic decline in the professional power of physicians, the aftermath of the Clinton Administration's
Download or read book The Social Context of Ageing written by Christina Victor and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004-12-20 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This comprehensive text focuses on the social contexts of ageing, looking at the diversity of ageing and older people, and at different factors that are important to experiences of old age and ageing. It includes key chapters on: theoretical and methodological bases for the study of ageing demographic context of the 'ageing' population health and illness family and social networks formal and informal care and other services for older people. Providing an invaluable introduction to the major issues involved in the study of ageing, this book is essential reading for students of sociology, gerontology, social policy, health and social care, and professionals working with older people.
Download or read book Old Age in Modern Society written by Christina R. Victor and published by Singular Publishing Group. This book was released on 1994 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Aims to provide the student with a grounding in all issues related to a better understanding of older people in their social environment. The text includes chapters on methodological aspects of the study of ageing; historical and cultural perspectives on ageing; and the demography of ageing.
Download or read book Elderhood written by Louise Aronson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2019-06-11 with total page 467 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction A New York Times Bestseller Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction Winner of the WSU AOS Bonner Book Award Winner of the 2022 At Home With Growing Older Impact Award As revelatory as Atul Gawande's Being Mortal, physician and award-winning author Louise Aronson's Elderhood is an essential, empathetic look at a vital but often disparaged stage of life. For more than 5,000 years, "old" has been defined as beginning between the ages of 60 and 70. That means most people alive today will spend more years in elderhood than in childhood, and many will be elders for 40 years or more. Yet at the very moment that humans are living longer than ever before, we've made old age into a disease, a condition to be dreaded, denigrated, neglected, and denied. Reminiscent of Oliver Sacks, noted Harvard-trained geriatrician Louise Aronson uses stories from her quarter century of caring for patients, and draws from history, science, literature, popular culture, and her own life to weave a vision of old age that's neither nightmare nor utopian fantasy--a vision full of joy, wonder, frustration, outrage, and hope about aging, medicine, and humanity itself. Elderhood is for anyone who is, in the author's own words, "an aging, i.e., still-breathing human being."
Download or read book Quality of Life in Old Age written by Heidrun Mollenkopf and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2007-06-13 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together leading researchers on quality of life in old age to focus on one of the most important issues in both gerontology and quality of life studies. There are very few texts available on this topic and none of an international and multi-disciplinary nature. For these reasons and the high quality of the authors we have assembled, this will be a seminal text for both gerontology and quality of life researchers.
Download or read book Gerotranscendence written by Lars Tornstam, PhD and published by Springer Publishing Company. This book was released on 2005-06-20 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Given the 2006 GREAT GERONTOLOGY AWARD for outstanding contribution to gerontological research by the Swedish Gerontological Society Received a VALUE GROUND AWARD from the journal Aldreomsorg (Old Age Care) Expanding upon his earlier writings, Dr. Tornstam's latest book explores the need for new theories in gerontology and sets the stage for the development of his theory of gerotranscendence. This theory was developed to address what the author sees as a perpetual mismatch between present theories in social gerontology and existing empirical data. The development towards gerotranscendence can involve some overlooked developmental changes that are related to increased life satisfaction, as self-described by individuals. The gerotranscendent individual typically experiences a redefinition of the Self and of relationships to others and a new understanding of fundamental existential questions: The individual becomes less self-occupied and at the same time more selective in the choice of social and other activities. There is an increased feeling of affinity with past generations and a decreased interest in superfluous social interaction. The individual might also experience a decrease in interest in material things and a greater need for solitary "meditation.î Positive solitude becomes more important. There is also often a feeling of cosmic communion with the spirit of the universe, and a redefinition of time, space, life and death. Gerotranscendence does NOT imply any state of withdrawal or disengagement, as sometimes erroneously believed. It is not the old disengagement theory in new disguise. Rather, it is a theory that describes a developmental pattern beyond the old dualism of activity and disengagement. The author supports his theory with insightful qualitative in-depth interviews with older persons and quantitative studies. In addition, Tornstam illustrates the practical implications of the theory of gerotranscendence for professionals working with older adults in care settings. A useful Appendix contains suggestions of how to facilitate personal development toward gerotranscendence. For Further Information, Please Click Here!
Download or read book Ageing the Body and the Gender Regime written by Susan Pickard and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-07-16 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The current (postfeminist) gender order comprises a highly complex coexistence of old and new norms and expectations, freedom and constraints, within a neoliberal social order underpinned by individualism and involving a shift in gender performance by men and women. Health, illness and disease at different points in the life course can be used as a vehicle to illuminate structural and cultural inequalities that persist despite several decades of progressive reform in western countries. This collection brings together a number of key researchers, both established and new to the field, and based across North America, Australia, the UK and Europe, and comprises both empirical and theoretical work. Drawing on a wide range of disciplinary fields, including medical sociology, medical anthropology, nursing, gender studies, sociology of risk and age studies, all authors use heath, well-being, illness and disease as a lens through which to explore the complexities and inequalities associated with late modernity. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of age studies, medical sociology and anthropology, gender studies, healthcare and nursing.
Download or read book Aging and the Elderly written by Lawrence O. Randal and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ageing process involves many problems associated with decline whether it be in health, psychology or lifestyle or all three. This book brings together new research on each these aspects.
Download or read book Handbook of Medical Sociology Sixth Edition written by Chloe E. Bird and published by Vanderbilt University Press. This book was released on 2010-11-29 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The latest version of an important academic resource published about once a decade since 1963
Download or read book Old Age In Europe written by Kathrin Komp and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-01-24 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Europe currently is the oldest continent in the world and its population is still ageing. This demographic shift affects society, economy, and welfare states. Scholars from various disciplines and the public noted this development and wonder what effects it may have, but lack adequate information. They call for explanations that are concise and easily accessible. The book at hand fills this lacuna. It introduces readers to the most important developments, theories, concepts, and discussions in ageing studies – always keeping an eye on the current situation in Europe. Each chapter adopts the perspective of a different discipline, e.g. public health, sociology, economics, or technology. To make the explanations easy to understand, the book includes learning tools such as learning objectives, multiple choice questions, and a glossary.
Download or read book Medical Sociology on the Move written by William C. Cockerham and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-04-03 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides readers with a single source reviewing and updating sociological theory in medical or health sociology. The book not only addresses the major theoretical approaches in the field today, it also identifies the future directions these theories are likely to take in explaining the social processes affecting health and disease. Many of the chapters are written by leading medical sociologists who feature the use of theory in their everyday work, including contributions from the original theorists of fundamental causes, health lifestyles, and medicalization. Theories focusing on both agency and structure are included to provide a comprehensive account of this important area in medical sociology.
