Health, Illness, and Optimal Aging
Biological and Psychosocial Perspectives
- Carolyn M. Aldwin - Oregon State University, USA
- Diane F. Gilmer - University of California, Davis, USA
Adulthood & Aging | Aging and Gerontology (Behavioral Science) (General) | Gerontology
Features:
- a comprehensive approach, with coverage of psychosocial factors that affect physical health in addition to biological aspects of aging, thus providing integrated coverage of information from the fields of biology, psychology, and the social sciences
- coverage of issues in healthcare systems
- case studies in each chapter to augment student understanding with real-life examples
- discussions of methodological issues in some of the research presented to help students become more critical consumers of research and data.
"Gaining understanding of aging is one of the most complex issues facing twenty-first century science. This book addresses the complexity of the factors that interact and influence the course of our longer life expectancy….How we humans grow old is a product of our genetic background as members of a species and our families. But the genome expresses itself in physical and social environments that modulate the appearance of heredity traits. In a sense aging is an ecological problem in which the dynamics are often difficult to explain….This book brings information from the sciences together in a way that is rarely done…..It provides an integration of knowledge about the dynamics of aging and can promote wisdom about how we can modify the life course to our advantage."
