Health, Illness, and Optimal Aging, 3rd Edition

This book shows the continuity and advancements in our understanding of human life-span development. It helps understand the many reasons people are aging more successfully. The book provides the vocabulary to understand the aging process and how it affects our physiological systems. It also describes effects on quality of life, memory, mental health, and personality. Successful aging depends not only on medical care, but is also influenced by successful coping with stress, social support, and adherence to a healthy lifestyle. The book helps to interpret contemporary research and offers a solid foundation for exploring the art and science of successful aging. The book also presents an instructor’s manual. This supplement includes basic constructs and definitions, problems for additional classroom discussion, PowerPoints for use by the instructor, and examination questions. The book’s purpose is to provide an interdisciplinary understanding of the factors that affect aging. It proposes that many theories and studies of aging can be understood under the rubric of aging accelerators and decelerators-factors that increase and those that decrease the rate at which we age. The book is organized into four sections. Section I provides a general overview of demographic, theoretical, and methodological issues such as demography and theories of aging, and understanding change in aging research. Section II examines the aging of the skin and musculoskeletal system, cardiovascular system, respiratory system, gastrointestinal system, renal/urinary system, sensory system, nervous system, endocrine system, and immune system. Section III, centers on the psychosocial factors that affect physical health such as mental health, stress, coping, social support, morbidity, mortality, and caregiving. The final Section examines the sociostructural contexts that influence aging, and reviews theories of optimal aging. The book serves as a bridge between the biological and psychosocial gerontology communities and promotes a more holistic understanding of the aging process.