The Encyclopedia of Aging / Edition 4

by Linda S. Noelker PhD, Kenneth Rockwood MD, FRCPC, Richard Sprott PhD

Overview

Since its inception in 1987, Encyclopedia of Aging has proven to be the definitive resource for scholars and students across the burgeoning and increasingly interdisciplinary fields of gerontology and geriatrics. Like its three esteemed predecessors, the fourth edition contains concise, readable explorations of hundreds of terms, concepts, and issues related to the lives of older adults, as well as timely coverage of the many new programs and services for the elderly. Updated, under the distinguished stewardship of editor-in-chief Richard Schulz to reflect the infusion of new information across the scientific disciplines, this new edition brings readers up-to-the-moment significant advances in biology, physiology, genetics, medicine, psychology, nursing, social services, sociology, economics, technology, and political science. While retaining the format and standard of excellence that marked the first three editions, the fourth edition encompasses a wealth of new information from the social and health sciences. It contains the most current bibliography of an expanding literature, an exhaustive index, and extensive cross references. This much anticipated update of the field's most authoritative resource will take its place as an indispensable reference for specialists and non-specialists across a broad range of disciplines that now comprise the field of aging.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780826148438
Publisher:	Springer Publishing Company
Publication date:	03/17/2006
Edition description:	Fourth Edition
Pages:	720
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 10.00(h) x 3.24(d)

About the Author

Richard Schulz, PhD, is Professor of Psychiatry, Psychology, Epidemiology, Sociology, and Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, and Director of the University Center for Social and Urban Research, at the University of Pittsburgh. He is also Associate Director of the Institute on Aging at the University of Pittsburgh.

Linda S. Noelker, PhD, joined the Benjain Rose Institute in 1974 as an applied aging researcher and is currently the Senior Vice President for Planning and and Organizational Resources. In that capacity, she oversees the Research Institute and the Institutional Advancement and the Advocacy and Public Policy Departments.

Kenneth Rockwood, MD, FRCPC, is Professor of Medicine (Geriatric Medicine & Neurology), Kathryn Allen Weldon Professor of Alzheimer Disease Research, and the Director of the Geriatric Medicine Research Unit at Dalhousie University. He is a Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR) Investigator and a member of the CIHR Institute of Aging Advisory Board.

Richard L. Sprott, PhD, is Executive Director of the Ellison Medical Foundation.

Table of Contents

View the complete list of Entries

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"The great fields of gerontology and geriatrics need a great and imaginative encyclopedia - and this is it!"
-Robert N. Butler, MD, President and CEO, International Longevity Center

" For two decades The Encyclopedia of Aging has provided current, authoritative accounts of what is known about the multiple dimensions of human aging. In a timely 4th edition of this pioneering work, hundreds of scientists and scholars update the rapidly evolving knowledge of how and why adults age and the factors that affect their aging well."
-George Maddox, PhD, Duke University Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development

"It is indeed a privilege to give this hearty endorsement to this latest edition of The Encyclopedia of Aging – a resource for anyone who wants up-to-date, dependable information about any aspect of our ever-increasing knowledge about aging."
-T. Franklin Williams, MD, Professor of Medicine Emeritus, University of Rochester, and Former Director, National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health

"This is a mighty book...a treasure-house of knowledge...a must for every medical library."

-The Lancet

Editorial Reviews

Reviewer: David O. Staats, MD (University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center)
Description: This is the fourth edition of an encyclopedia of aging, edited by four persons, with hundreds of contributing authors. The last edition was published in 2001.
Purpose: It aims to present the cutting edge of geriatrics and gerontology over a wide swath of topics. This is a worthy objective and, indeed, a large number of topics are addressed.
Audience: This encyclopedia aims at a wide audience, ranging from lay persons to policy makers, scientists, social scientists, and healthcare providers.
Features: Some of the entries give an introduction to the topic in general and then conclude with a discussion of how aging affects the situation. Some entries are more bibliographic essays, whose references, measured by column inches, are on a par with the text itself. There is an excellent index which makes finding specific information a snap.
Assessment: There is an uneven quality to the entries. Some launch into topics of molecular biology assuming an understanding of reactions that methylate. Some serve as very good introductions to an area. The social sciences regarding aging are particularly well covered. This book reveals the enormous breadth of contemporary views of gerontology, going, as one colleague put it, "from cells to Congress."

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