Recent studies show that more people than ever before are reaching old age in better health and enjoying that health for a longer time. This Handbook outlines the latest discoveries in the study of aging from bio-medicine, psychology, and socio-demography. It treats the study of aging as a multidisciplinary scientific subject, since it requires the interplay of broad disciplines, while offering high motivation, positive attitudes, and behaviors for aging well, and lifestyle changes that will help people to stay healthier across life span and in old age. Written by leading scholars from various academic disciplines, the chapters delve into the most topical aspects of aging today - including biological mechanisms of aging, aging with health, active and productive aging, aging with satisfaction, aging with respect, and aging with dignity. Aimed at health professionals as well as general readers, this Cambridge Handbook offers a new, positive approach to later life.

"A celebration of the distinguished career of one of the major figures in gerontology. I highly recommend and encourage its adoption in advanced undergraduate and graduate gerontology courses." -- Contemporary Gerontology

Finalist in the 2020 PROSE Awards This multidisciplinary volume examines the neural mechanisms underlying changes in the aging brain, changes in learning and memory, risk and protective factors, and the assessment and prevention of cognitive decline.

Although books exist on the evolution of aging, this is the first book written from the perspective of again as an adaptive program. It offers an insight into the implications of research on aging genetics, The author proposes the Demographic Theory of Senescence, whereby aging has been affirmatively selected because it levels the death rate over time helping stabilize population dynamics and prevent extinctions.

Possible new breakthroughs in understanding the aging mind that can be used to benefit older people are now emerging from research. This volume identifies the key scientific advances and the opportunities they bring. For example, science has learned that among older adults who do not suffer from Alzheimer's disease or other dementias, cognitive decline may depend less on loss of brain cells than on changes in the health of neurons and neural networks. Research on the processes that maintain neural health shows promise of revealing new ways to promote cognitive functioning in older people. Research is also showing how cognitive functioning depends on the conjunction of biology and culture. The ways older people adapt to changes in their nervous systems, and perhaps the changes themselves, are shaped by past life experiences, present living situations, changing motives, cultural expectations, and emerging technology, as well as by their physical health status and sensory-motor capabilities. Improved understanding of how physical and contextual factors interact can help explain why some cognitive functions are impaired in aging while others are spared and why cognitive capability is impaired in some older adults and spared in others. On the basis of these exciting findings, the report makes specific recommends that the U.S. government support three major new initiatives as the next steps for research.

The central aim of this book is to challenge to questions like 'Which gender copes better when a spouse dies? and Are women or men more independent on others as they grow older? Putting gender in a lifespan context, Hatch (Sociology, U. of Kentucky) atypically accents the gains as well as losses of aging and sex differences in adaptation overall, to the death of a spouse, and to retirement. A number of controversies surrounding gender and aging are addressed.

Presents the results of the MacArthur Foundation Study of Aging in America, which show how to maintain optimum physical and mental strength throughout later life.