Health and Cognition in Old Age: From Biomedical and Life Course Factors to Policy and Practice

In recent years, the aim of research on aging has shifted from prolonging life to fostering healthy and cognitively robust old age. In order to improve the quality of life of older people, we need to better understand cognitive aging as well as bodily aging.

Health and Cognition in Old Age assembles the cream of research across varied medical, mental health, and social disciplines, and demonstrates how this knowledge can lead to improved outcomes for older people. The first half of this expert volume discusses biomedical and life course factors in aging, particularly as they affect cognition and well-being in later life. From there, effective solutions are the focus: interventions and care programs to improve mental functioning and general quality of life, and current policy and practice ideas in promoting healthy, active, and cognitively robust aging. Together, these diverse chapters offer a multi-faceted approach to understanding and modifying what was formerly the inevitable course of growing old. A sampling of the coverage:

• How the aging process affects the immune system.
• Occupational gerontology - work-related determinants of old age health and functioning.
• Social, behavioral, and contextual influences on cognitive function and decline.
• Lifestyle factors in the prevention of dementia.
• Understanding long-term care outcomes: conventional and behavioral economics.
• Social capital, mental well-being, and loneliness in older people.

For gerontologists, sociologists, social workers, health psychologists, and others working to improve older people’s lives, Health and Cognition in Old Age brings expertise, versatility, and confidence to the table.

Anja K. Leist is a psychologist specializing in life-span development and social epidemiology. After finishing her PhD studies in psychology at the University of Trier, Germany, she has been working as postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg, and at the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, Netherlands. Her current research interests involve life-course influences on cognitive function and health in older age, and technology and aging. Jenni Kulmala has a PhD in gerontology and public health from the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. She is currently working at the Gerontology Research Center (GEREC) and department of health sciences, University of Jyväskylä, Finland. She also collaborates with University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio and Aging Research Center (ARC), Karolinska Institutet, Sweden. Her research interests involve sensory and cognitive functions, psychosocial symptoms and life-course epidemiology. Fredrica Nyqvist has a PhD in social policy from Åbo Akademi University in Finland. She is now working as a senior researcher at the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL), Finland. Within the FLARE fellowship she has established research collaboration with Umeå University, Sweden and Northumbria University, UK. She has extensively investigated the application of social capital concept. Her current research explores inequalities in social capital, loneliness and well-being in an aging population and the role of social capital as a positive resource in older people’s mental health.