Geropsychology: The Psychology of the Ageing Person

In the future an increasing number of people in the Western world can expect to live a long life, and the proportion of elderly people in the population will increase significantly as well. But until now development psychology has focused primarily on the changes occurring in childhood and early adulthood; while psychological changes in late adulthood have attracted less attention. The major demographic changes that lie ahead mean that modern psychologists now need to gain thorough knowledge of psychological development in late adulthood - including both normal and pathological development. This book deals with the psychology of ageing - better known as geropsychology among professionals in the field. So what are the psychological changes we should expect during late adulthood -and when will they occur? Will our intellectual abilities, personality, life satisfaction and social relations change as we grow older? What kind of psycho-pathological changes do we risk in late adulthood? How common are they, and how can they be diagnosed? What are the symptoms of dementia, and what are the psychological changes associated with it? Is dementia a psychiatric disorder? Are elderly people more depressed than younger people, and do they display different symptoms of depression? What is paraphrenia? This anthology, written by experts in geropsychology, seeks to answer these and many other questions.