For individuals with strong work identities, the decision to retire can be particularly challenging. For academic physicians, retirement is an important personal decision that also has far-reaching implications for the healthcare system. This is because academic physicians are responsible for producing the research from which key medical decisions…

Pathways healthy and physically functional centenarians take to achieve advanced old age have fascinated mankind for centuries. This hermeneutic phenomenological study documents characteristics perceived by centenarians as important and central to their attainment of advanced longevity. Secondary data including written transcripts and audio and…

This study developed and tested a model to identify the predictors of retirement planning based on an extension of the theory of planned behavior ([TPB], Ajzen, 1991) that included individual differences in proactivity and time discounting. The results showed that personal attitudes, sense of control, social influence, and stable traits have a…

Scientific investigations have revealed that behaviors about health and illness states are related to socioeconomic status, gender, and cultural factors. Chronic diseases and comorbidity are common in elderly people when compared to the rest of the population. Major problems of the elderly in Turkey are related to health behaviors, financial…

Aging is a complex process that involves factors such as cultural, ethnic, and gender differences and is unique to each individual. Love, sexual intimacy, and sexuality are characteristics that help define individuals and often contribute to how well they will continue to live and age. Enhanced knowledge and healthy attitudes about sexual needs…

This article includes a description of conceptions of aging and engagement with learning for 16 older people (52 to 80 years; mean age 62 years) with a lifelong intellectual disability. The sample also included the care workers and family member/friend. The older people had sufficient verbal skills to participate in the interviews. Half the sample…

Within a communication predicament of aging and disability framework, this study examined the impact of two types of contextual variation on perceptions of older adult assertiveness within problematic service encounters. Young (N = 66) and older (N = 66) participants evaluated conversational scenarios in which a visually-impaired older woman…

This paper reports the results of two semistructured focus group interviews with 17 retirees that explore the issues these retirees perceived as central to their learning in later life (LLL). Focus is especially placed on the factors leading to their learning interests after retirement. A total of six themes (past experience in adulthood and…

Despite the prevailing agreement among researchers that the increasing rate of elder abuse in Israel is relatively understudied, not sufficiently identified, and not appropriately addressed, literature on elderly abuse in the Israeli society remains limited. The common discourse on aging, eldercare, and elder abuse and neglect, mainly revolves…

Perceptions of extreme, moderate, and mild forms of elder abuse among African-American women (n=25) and men (n=10) were examined. African-American respondents emphasized physical abuse when giving examples of extremely abusive behavior. Along with physical abuse, verbal abuse was the most frequently identified form of abuse, and was significantly…

This qualitative study examined the perceptions of 18 senior adults about successful aging and the role of learning in the process of adapting to age-related changes. Findings indicated that successful aging involves engaging with others; coping with changes; and maintaining physical, mental, and financial health. Within these themes, learning…

Prompted by increasing U.S. longevity and aging demographics, this phenomenological study explored what it is like for 13 women, 75-91, to thrive in elder adulthood. Through multiple interviews, projective inventories, and focus groups, 6 group patterns emerged: (a) vital involvement and service, (b) desire to learn, (c) appreciation of basic life…

As people live longer and the number of older adults increases worldwide, it becomes important to understand the factors that influence how we understand and perceive our own aging as well as how we construct our attitudes toward older adults. Although studies have indicated that later adulthood can be a healthy, productive, and satisfying time of…

Using an updated version of the Aging Semantic Differential, 534 younger, middle age, and older participants from a college community rated female and male targets categorized as ages 21-34 and 75-85. Participants also provided views about their own aging. Repeated measures of analysis of variance examined attitudinal differences by age and gender…

Retirement is viewed as a passage that can result in psychological, physiological, and economic problems among some retirees. Adequate preparation for retirement through preretirement education, as practiced in the Western-European societies, has been found to ease transition into retirement and adjustment in retirement. Preretirement education is…