ageing

Common Mental Health Problems amongst Older People

This learning object introduces you to some of the key facts and statistics about depression, dementia and long standing mental ill health. It explains who might be at risk of developing a mental illness as they grow older and why. It also includes information about people who have experienced serious mental illness such as schizophrenia throughout their lives and the main issues facing them as they age. This object also contains a self-assessment section where you can test how far you have assimilated the key messages from this learning object.

Talking With Your Older Patient

What are effective ways to interact with older patients, particularly with those facing multiple illnesses, hearing and vision impairments, or cognitive problems? How does one approach sensitive topics such as driving privileges or assisted living? Are there special communication strategies that can help older patients who are experiencing confusion or memory loss? It is with these questions in mind, that the National Institute on Aging (NIA), part of the National Institute of Health, developed this Handbook.

A literature review of the likely costs and benefits of legislation to prohibit age discrimination in health, social care and mental health services and definitions of age discrimination that might be operationalised for measurement

Literature review offering an analysis, derived from literature written internationally, of age discrimination in health, social care and mental health services and the costs and benefits of providing these for an ageing population.

Life in old age (Radio 4 series: The seven ages of humanity)

Four Radio 4 programmes in a series about the health and wellbeing of the seven ages of humanity. These four programmes explore life experiences and issues for people in their sixties and seventies.

The first programme looks at memory loss, the second discusses chronic conditions such as osteo-arthritis and the inability to hear, the third examines retirement, and the final programme looks at how medicine can fix some of the physical problems of old age.