Successful Aging

There is a near-universal folk saying that everyone wishes to live a good long life, but no one wishes for old age. More contemporarily, the rock and roll band, Little Feat, sang, "You know that you're over the hill when your mind's making promises your body can't fill. " This book is about the good long life. It is a book about primary prevention strategies in the aging process; it is not about preventing that process. It is not about being old. Instead, it is about the things that individuals - and the helping professionals who provide them with counsel and assistance - can do to prevent the preventable problems of advancing age, and to better manage those changes in functioning that cannot be prevented. In short, it is about extending all our capacities to the fullest so that we can better keep all those promises that we make to ourselves and others. Aging is a life-long process. We focus here on the changes that are taking place in our selves and in our society as we age. In particular, we focus on what we can do to affect these changes by the choices we make and how we live. This book offers primary prevention strategies for mature and older adults, with the recognition that mature adulthood starts as soon as we are old enough to truly appreciate our active role in our own aging processes.

Texte du rabat

This unique and user-friendly guide addresses both professionals and their clients, detailing health maintenance procedures that clients can perform for themselves. In a clear and lively style, the book describes over 40 preventive and promotive strategies for good health in older people, focusing on natural strengths the elderly possess and can develop, without ignoring inevitable limitations. All aspects of health are addressed, from the physical, through the psychosocial, to the spiritual. Each of the strategies is presented as a series of achievable steps and includes cautions where necessary. `Boxes' are interspersed throughout the text to highlight lists of useful information.

Résumé
Instead, it is about the things that individuals - and the helping professionals who provide them with counsel and assistance - can do to prevent the preventable problems of advancing age, and to better manage those changes in functioning that cannot be prevented.

Contenu

1. Primary Prevention for Helping Professionals Working with the New Senior Population.- 2. Promoting and Protecting Individual Strengths: Part 1.- 3. Promoting and Protecting Individual Strengths: Part 2.- 4. Preventing Individual Limitations/Problems.- 5. Using Small Groups, Institutions, and Sociocultural Units.- 6. Primary Prevention Scanning for Older Persons: Integrating Individual and Group Factors for Healthy Living.- References.- Name Index.