Stories In Ageing

Stories in Ageing 2e presents an insightful collection of personal stories as told by a range of older people, carers, health professionals and family members. This unique resource offers nursing students and health professionals an extraordinary perspective on a range of topics related to ageing, including assisting and caring for the older person, the experience of ageing within a culturally diverse society, sexuality in the later years, maintaining independence at home and positive experiences of ageing. Available as a print or eBook, this valuable resource builds empathy and understanding, and provides examples of innovative approaches to care with a focus on reflection, inquiry and action. The teaching and learning strategies assist in developing skills, attitudes and mindfulness around ageing, with a strong focus on a person-centred and lived approach. A unique multilayered structure also promotes engagement with learners across diverse educational levels, ranging from certificate qualifications through to the undergraduate and postgraduate student. Most importantly, Stories in Ageing provides a much-needed consumer voice for the older person, their families and their carers. Including 10 chapters, each presenting a variety of stories from consumers, carers and healthcare professionals around a range of topics related to ageing. With 19 video stories embedded within eBook presenting personal accounts from a range of lived experiences. Reflection, inquiry and action provide the framework for the teaching and learning strategies for each story, aimed at certificate, undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Weblinks, references and readings are included for further reading and research. Transcripts of all interviews are included in the back of the book. An eBook included in all print purchases

A Lasting Conversation, Stories on Ageing explores many a spec ts o f ageing including resilience and defeat, satisfaction and reg ret, excitement and fear, love, loss and laughter. These stories are written from various perspectives, including older women and men, their daughters and sons, grandchildren and observers. They present a fascinating picture of what it is to grow old as an Australian. Each story is infused with acute observations and wry humour. A Lasting Conversation includes the work of some of Australia’s best story tellers, Jon Bauer, Tony Birch, Gillian Bouras, Helen Garner, Sonya Hartnett, Kate Grenville, Cate Kennedy, Michael Meehan, Mandy Sayer, Amy Witting and Michelle Wright as well as stories by health care professionals. This collection will be a resource for thebaby-boomers who are approaching old age, older people,their families, carers, doctors and students.

For fans of David Sedaris and Nora Ephron, here is a humorous, irreverent, and poignant look at the gifts, stereotypes, and inevitable challenges of aging, based on the wildly popular New York Times essay from award-winning journalist Steven Petrow. Soon after his 50th birthday, Steven Petrow began assembling a list of “things I won’t do when I get old”—mostly a catalog of all the things he thought his then 70-something year old parents were doing wrong. That list, which included “You won’t have to shout at me that I’m deaf,” and “I won’t blame the family dog for my incontinence,” became the basis of this rousing collection of do’s and don’ts, wills and won’ts that is equal parts hilarious, honest, and practical. The fact is, we don’t want to age the way previous generations did. “Old people” hoard. They bore relatives—and strangers—with tales of their aches and pains. They insist on driving long after they’ve become a danger to others (and themselves). They eat dinner at 4pm. They swear they don’t need a cane or walker (and guess what happens next). They never, ever apologize. But there is another way . . . In Stupid Things I Won’t Do When I Get Old, Petrow candidly addresses the fears, frustrations, and stereotypes that accompany aging. He offers a blueprint for the new old age, and an understanding that aging and illness are not the same. As he writes, “I meant the list to serve as a pointed reminder—to me—to make different choices when I eventually cross the threshold to ‘old.’” Getting older is a privilege. This essential guide reveals how to do it with grace, wisdom, humor, and hope. And without hoarding.

We All Become Stories speaks to us because it reveals "aging" as not something that happens just to older people, but as a lifelong evolution - a journey of self-discovery open to everyone. Through their stories, conversations with them, and her own poetry, Ann Elizabeth Carson illuminates the life stories of 12 elders who adapt with courage, wit and creativity, to forge satisfying lives in a modern Western society that seldom welcomes or respects the old. These elders reframe aging and old age as fascinating, often difficult, yet rewarding challenges that bring benefits and insights not readily accessible to the young. Carson is serving as storycatcher here - deeply listening so that elders can formulate their own aging life story and deeply reflecting and telling her own aging life stories. - Ellen B. Ryan, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, McMaster University, Writing, Aging and Spirit: www.writingdownouryears.ca

Is getting older to be feared or embraced? Is it merely a matter of deterioration and death or is it a platform for a new lifestyle with new opportunities and new joys? This is a story about getting older. The main character, Don, a 73-year-old retired widower is initially confused and depressed about getting older. The book takes him through the fears, the challenges and the merits of being a senior citizen. It does so on three levels of narrative. First, there is the primary story of Don’s sharing in one-on-one counseling to help him resolve his issues with aging. The Epilogue is a surprise conclusion to this counseling journey. Second, there is the presentation of Don’s own internal dialogue regarding getting older with his inner reflections combined with his counseling journal entries. Third, there are five short stories spread out over the journal entries which emphasize the truths that Don is trying to get at with his journal entries. There have been several notable books written about aging, its causes and its challenges. Yet, there has never been a book like this one. Through the art of fiction it gets to the core of the questions haunting the prospects of getting older in a way that readers can personally identify with and use to resolve their own issues with aging. If readers follow the intertwining stories, perhaps they will discover answers for themselves, at least that is the intention of this book.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER NATIONAL BESTSELLER SILVER MEDALIST for the 2022 Axiom Business Book Award for Success/Motivation/Coaching SHORTLISTED for the 2021 Science Writers and Communicators of Canada Book Award Author of the iconic bestsellers This Is Your Brain on Music and The Organized Mind, Daniel Levitin turns his keen insights to what happens in our brains as we age, why we should think about health span, not life span, and, based on a rigorous analysis of neuroscientific evidence, what you can do to make the most of your seventies, eighties, and nineties today no matter how old you are now. Successful Aging uses research from developmental neuroscience and the psychology of individual differences to show that sixty-plus years is a unique developmental stage that, like infancy or adolescence, has its own demands and distinct advantages. Levitin looks at the science behind what we all can learn from those who age joyously, as well as how to adapt our culture to take full advantage of older people's wisdom and experience. Throughout his exploration of what aging really means, Levitin reveals resilience strategies and practical, cognitive enhancing tricks everyone should do as they age. The book is packed with accessible and discussable takeaways, providing great material for reading groups and media coverage. Successful Aging inspires a powerful new approach to how readers think about our final decades, and it will revolutionize the way we plan for old age as individuals, family members, and citizens within a society where the average life expectancy continues to rise.

Author, activist, and TED speaker Ashton Applewhite has written a rousing manifesto calling for an end to discrimination and prejudice on the basis of age. In our youth obsessed culture, we’re bombarded by media images and messages about the despairs and declines of our later years. Beauty and pharmaceutical companies work overtime to convince people to purchase products that will retain their youthful appearance and vitality. Wrinkles are embarrassing. Gray hair should be colored and bald heads covered with implants. Older minds and bodies are too frail to keep up with the pace of the modern working world and olders should just step aside for the new generation. Ashton Applewhite once held these beliefs too until she realized where this prejudice comes from and the damage it does. Lively, funny, and deeply researched, This Chair Rocks traces her journey from apprehensive boomer to pro-aging radical, and in the process debunks myth after myth about late life. Explaining the roots of ageism in history and how it divides and debases, Applewhite examines how ageist stereotypes cripple the way our brains and bodies function, looks at ageism in the workplace and the bedroom, exposes the cost of the all-American myth of independence, critiques the portrayal of elders as burdens to society, describes what an all-age-friendly world would look like, and offers a rousing call to action. It’s time to create a world of age equality by making discrimination on the basis of age as unacceptable as any other kind of bias. Whether you’re older or hoping to get there, this book will shake you by the shoulders, cheer you up, make you mad, and change the way you see the rest of your life. Age pride! “Wow. This book totally rocks. It arrived on a day when I was in deep confusion and sadness about my age. Everything about it, from my invisibility to my neck. Within four or five wise, passionate pages, I had found insight, illumination, and inspiration. I never use the word empower, but this book has empowered me.” —Anne Lamott, New York Times bestselling author

"Elizabeth Hay, one of Canada's most beloved novelists has written a poignant, complex, and hugely resonant memoir about the shift she experienced between being her parents' daughter to their guardian and caregiver. As the daughter takes charge, and the writer takes notes, her mother and father are like two legendary icebergs floating south. They melt into the ocean of partial, painful, inconsistent, and funny stories that a family makes over time. Hay's eloquent memoir distills these stories into basic truths about parents and children and their efforts of understanding. With her uncommon sharpness and wit, Elizabeth Hay offers her insights into the peculiarities of her family's dynamics--her parents' marriage, sibling rivalries, miscommunications that spur decades of resentment all matched by true and genuine love and devotion. Her parents are each startling characters in their own right--her mother is a true skinflint who would rather serve up wormy soup (twice) than throw away an ancient packet of "perfectly good" mix; her father is a proud and well-mannered man with a temper that can be explosive. When All Thing's Consoled is a startlingly beautiful memoir that addresses the exquisite agony of family, the unstoppable force of dementia, and the inevitability of aging."--