Book Review: Geriatric Psychiatry: The Cambridge Handbook of Age and Ageing

Abstract

Geriatric Psychiatry Cambridge Handbook of Age and Malcolm L Johnson, editor; Vem L Bengtson, Peter G Coleman, Thomas BL Kirkwood, associate editors. New York (NY): Cambridge University Press; 2005. 744 p. US$55.00. Reviewer rating: Good Review by Alexander S Macpherson, MD, MHSc, FRCPC Toronto, Ontario This weighty volume is edited by Malcolm Johnston, a distinguished British social scientist with extensive international connections, described his task as a daunting project. To assist, he recruited 3 associate editors: Vern Bengtson (sociology, United States), Peter Coleman (psychology, United Kingdom), and Thomas Kirkwood (biological gerontology, United Kingdom). book provides an international perspective of gerontology, unlike its principal US competitor, which focuses on gerontological scholarship in the United States. Johnston states what the reader will find here is a very substantial representation of what is known about age and the process of ageing across the lifespan ... focus is on the social and behavioral sciences with a series of expert and accessible distillations of key developments in biomedicine (p xxi). volume's 72 chapters are divided into the following sections, which vary in length: The Body, The Mind, The Self, The of Relationships, The of Societies, and Policies and Provisions for Older People. This review does not reproduce the table of contents but, rather, singles out chapters of specific interest. Clearly, this comprehensive handbook offers a grand tour of gerontology; along the way, we meet an international who's who of gerontology specialists. We find, among others, German, Dutch, and Scandinavian contributors, along with the usual contingent of British and US scholars. A respectable number of current and former Canadians are also included, and several chapters that focus on a multicultural context will be of interest to Canadian Psychiatric Association members. One focus of this volume is an approach to ageing from a lifecourse perspective. Several chapters focus on the positive determinants of successful aging, while others concentrate on the barriers to it. From the Max Planck Institute, Baltes and his colleagues conceptualize ageing not as a decline but as a dynamic of gains and losses; older persons gain in wisdom and experience while losing in perception and reaction time. They postulate that older persons cope in 3 main ways: selection of strategies and activities, optimization of their abilities, and compensation for liabilities. Section 2, The Body, includes a useful chapter on mobility and falls, and Staehelin's review of health promotion in ageing is welcome. A short chapter titled Psychodynamic Approaches to the Lifecourse and Ageing briefly describes the views of Freud, Jung, Erikson, and McAdams in just over 5 pages. section titled The Mind continues to examine the balance between development and decline, with chapters that include Intelligence and Wisdom and Everyday Competence in Older Adults, as well as more traditional chapters on depression and dementia. For professionals and nonprofessionals alike, an understanding of the interplay of adaptation and reduced function-and an exposure to the research methods that are resulting in ever more detailed knowledge of this dynamic-can reduce stereotypes and provide a useful complement to a basic disease orientation. Section 4, The Self, contains 2 chapters that consider reminiscence, as well as chapters on Stress and Coping and The Self in Dementia. …