Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Aging

In this multidisciplinary text, noted leaders from a variety of fields provide students and professionals with a big picture approach to the best possible care for today's growing aging population. Addressing the extensive concerns that have arisen out of an increased life expectancy and the "elder-boom" of aging baby boomers, the contributors point to changing care and housing needs; health, mental health, and wellness concerns; and financial, ethical, and legal issues in elder care.

Contributors include Eileen Chichin, Catherine DeLorey, Marshall Kapp, Gary Kennedy, William Smith, Patricia Miller, and Thomas Campbell Jackson.

Twelve academics, clinicians, administrators, planners, and consultants contribute 16 chapters to a textbook offering a multidisciplinary approach for providing services to older people in the U.S. Coverage includes housing, finances, legal concerns, environmental needs, physical health, mental health, changing family relationships, abuse and neglect, ethical considerations, and end-of- life care needs. For students and practitioners in social services, health care, public health, mental health, health services administration, and planning and design, and for advocates for the elderly. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Doody Review Services

Reviewer:David O. Staats, MD(University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center)
Description:This multiauthored book presents contemporary knowledge about caring for older persons in the United States.
Purpose:The purpose is to provide a view of the aging population of the United States for trainees in a broad variety of disciplines. This book succeeds well at doing so.
Audience:The audience for this book are practitioners and students in a wide variety of health and health-related professions. The authors are all experts in their fields.
Features:The topics of the chapters are inspired. They are written so that a background in the particular discipline is not necessary to understand the chapter -- thus students from a broad variety of backgrounds can pick up this book and understand it without difficulty. Particularly well-conceived is the chapter on environmental design.
Assessment:This book makes for a nice overview of contemporary gerontology that could be used as a textbook in gerontology. Students of design and architecture could get a useful crash course on gerontology through this book in particular. Were I to suggest additions to this book, they would be chapters on podiatry (complementing the chapter on oral health), changes in vision and hearing (complementing mental changes in old age), and rehabilitation (complementing the chapter on health promotion). The integration of ideas in the chapter on environmental design is quite splendid.