The book is a storehouse of concise, useful information on the effects of aging on health, the mind, and behavior. Its 588 entries (including 172 new and 150 substantially revised) cover a broad spectrum of topics—from adjusting to retirement to grandparenting, sleep disorders to Alzheimer’s disease. All are directed to the average reader; all stress successful aging and how to accomplish it.

New entries cover such topics as the incidence and causes of frailty, the cognitive benefits of diversified activity, and findings of the Women’s Health Initiative. There is new information on matters like the effects of untreated hearing impairment on spouses and the impact of insufficient exposure to sunlight on sleep, plus new insight into what to look for in searching for a quality nursing home for a loved one.

Also included are results of recent studies on interventions that help to reduce age-related declines in mental and physical health, among them revelations that reports on age-related declines in memory have been skewed by testing errors. And with memory a concern for seniors fearful of declining mental agility, the book tells how to bypass memory problems—such as how to remember where you parked your car—and how physical exercise and challenging mental games can help reduce the risk of dementia. Other “how to avoid” entries offer ways to protect against eye fatigue in computer use, hip fractures when falling, and back injuries while lifting heavy objects.

No other book is so specifically geared to the challenges of how to reduce or even eliminate many of the problems associated with growing old. Aging in the Twenty-First Century can help seniors come to grips with their own aging process—and help younger adults understand what is happening to older family members.

About the Authors
            Donald H. Kausler, Curators’ Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Missouri–Columbia, is the author of several books, including Learning and Memory in Normal Aging. His son Barry C. Kausler is a media producer and writer based in Columbia. His daughter Jill A. Krupsaw is a registered nurse in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Praise for Prior Editions:

 “Represents a Herculean effort to educate patients. It is an ambitious work that collates years of collected medical and psychiatric data into a dictionary format. The book defines and discusses several hundred symptoms, organs and problems encountered by our aging population as well as those confronting persons involved in their care. It is an educational and informational resource, easy to read, practical and useful.”
—Chicago Medicine

“[This book] is a valuable resource for both lay persons and practitioners who wish to acquire nontechnical expertise in aging. . . . [It] is comprehensive and clearly presented, strikes a nice balance between an emphasis on basic and applied issues, and is appropriately grounded in theory and research on the biological and psychosocial aspects of late adulthood. . . . It should be quite useful for some time to come.”
—Contemporary Gerontology

“Intended for general readers, this volume clearly explains various aspects of aging in nontechnical language. Topical coverage is very broad, and the selection of subjects appears to reflect both currently popular areas and the authors’ own interests. . . . Recommended for general readers, undergraduates, and practitioners looking for basic information.”—Choice