This publication is a collection of selected papers from the 3rd International Symposium on Work Ability Promotion of Work Ability Towards a Productive Aging.It addresses the Work Ability Index (WAI) as an index for evaluating work ability, developed by the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health as a tool for evaluating work ability of workers. T

Facing the Challenges of a Multi-Age Workforce examines the shifting economic, cultural, and technological trends in the modern workplace that are taking place as a result of the aging global workforce. Taking an international perspective, contributors address workforce aging issues around the world, allowing for productive cross-cultural comparisons. Chapters adopt a use-inspired approach, with contributors proposing solutions to real problems faced by organizations, including global teamwork, unemployed youth, job obsolescence and over-qualification, heavy emotional labor and physically demanding jobs, and cross-age perceptions and communication. Additional commentaries from sociologists, gerontologists, economists, and scholars of labor and government round out the volume and demonstrate the interdisciplinary nature of this important topic.

Improvements in health care and quality of life in recent years have led to a marked aging of the world's population, especially in well-developed regions, in the near future, this problem will spread to developing countries. The growing need to promote the health and function of aging workers not only presents new challenges, but also provides exciting, new opportunities. The chapters in this book examine methods for diagnosing and evaluating work ability/employability in response to the changing capacity of employment. They set out the issues addressed by occupational health professionals to improve the work ability of elderly employees, and discuss measures to promote their employment. The book derives from a Conference on Aging and Work, held in Japan in September 2001. It will be of particular interest to professionals and students in the fields of occupational health, ergonomics, mechanical engineering, work physiology and industrial psychology. Book jacket.

Prolonging working lives is high on the agenda of policy makers in most of the world�s major industrialized nations. This book explains how they are keen to tackle issues associated with the ageing of populations, namely the funding of pension systems

The many significant technological and medical advances of the 21st century cannot overcome the escalating risk posed to older adults by such stressors as pain, weakness, fatigue, depression, anxiety, memory and other cognitive deficits, hearing loss, visual impairment, isolation, marginalization, and physical and mental illness. In order to overcome these and other challenges, and to maintain as high a quality of life as possible, older adults and the professionals who treat them need to promote and develop the capacity for resilience, which is innate in all of us to some degree. The purpose of this book is to provide the current scientific theory, clinical guidelines, and real-world interventions with regard to resilience as a clinical tool. To that end, the book addresses such issues as concepts and operationalization of resilience; relevance of resilience to successful aging; impact of personality and genetics on resilience; relationship between resilience and motivation; relationship between resilience and survival; promoting resilience in long-term care; and the lifespan approach to resilience. By addressing ways in which the hypothetical and theoretical concepts of resilience can be applied in geriatric practice, Resilience in Aging provides inroads to the current knowledge and practice of resilience from the perspectives of physiology, psychology, culture, creativity, and economics. In addition, the book considers the impact of resilience on critical aspects of life for older adults such as policy issues (e.g., nursing home policies, Medicare guidelines), health and wellness, motivation, spirituality, and survival. Following these discussions, the book focuses on interventions that increase resilience. The intervention chapters include case studies and are intended to be useful at the clinical level. The book concludes with a discussion of future directions in optimizing resilience in the elderly and the importance of a lifespan approach to aging.

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.

This book explores the effects of shift work and non standard working hours on family and social life. It features analysis and case studies from an international body of researchers from Europe, the Americas and Australia. It includes contributions from Germany, the United States, the Netherlands, Croatia, Italy, Poland, Australia, and Brazil, that fully examine this increasingly prevalent, and global, issue. The book starts by introducing the problems of work-family linkages, shift work and non-standard work hours. Next, it details the consequences of specific features of shift schedules, such as decreased opportunities for social participation, family problems and negative effects on partners and children as well as the impact of working time arrangements on work-family conflict over time. The book then looks at the consequences of shift work and non-standard work hours on family members and the workers themselves, including the sleep and daytime functioning of adolescent family members and the ways that non-standard work schedules intersect with the particular challenges and stresses of family responsibilities and strategies that workers use to manage these challenges in sectors where non-standard schedules are the norm. Last, the book considers the role of individual differences in understanding problems of work-family relationships, including a consideration of safety and health at work from the perspective of gender and an examination of the moderating role of chronotype and circadian type characteristics on work-family conflict and work-family facilitation among male shift workers.