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Aging with Optimism in FEGS Behavioral Health Residential Programs
Growing old in America today carries a different connotation than it did in the past. The elderly are no longer settling for aging gracefully, rocking chairs, and permitting family members to decide how they will spend the remainder of their lives. Instead, striving for a youthful appearance and...
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Barriers to Accessing Mental Health Care for Older Persons with Depression
Early in my career, I took my oldest daughter to her first dentist appointment. Making small talk, the dentist asked me what I do. I told her about my research on barriers to care, the stigma surrounding mental illness and interventions to improve treatment participation for older adults. As she...
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Principles for Promoting Inter-Group Relations Among Adolescents Through Group Work
Group work is a wonderful way of reducing prejudice and bigotry, promoting inter-group relations and enhancing ethnic group identity in adolescence. With its emphasis on mutual exploration and discovery, group work is very well suited to address these issues. The following are seven principles for...
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A Family Member’s Journey into the Depths of Bipolar Disorder
Only a few short years before leaving his cat and clothes in the covered alleyway, next to the dumpster behind the deli on 2nd Avenue, Bob was an accomplished plastics engineer. His parents, brother and sister were living back east, and his favorite aunts, an uncle and cousin lived a couple of...
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Senior Peers Provide Companionship to Homebound: New York City Program Addresses Social Isolation in Older Adults
Individuals of any age group benefit from being socially connected: having friends, outside activities and people to talk to. Older adults, especially those with a mental illness, potentially have more difficulty remaining connected because it is easier for them to gradually lose their social...
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Point of View – Generational Competence: A Conceptual Framework for Aging in America
Two major demographic trends will unfold in America during the first half of the 21st century. Minorities will grow from 29% to 47% of the American population, and older adults (65+) will increase from 13% to 20%, becoming roughly as large as the population of children and adolescents under 18 for...
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Older Adults: The Hidden “Sandwich” Generation
No one signs up ahead of time to become a caregiver, yet millions of Americans today are caregivers. The Family Caregiver Alliance’s definition of caregiving states that the group of caregivers is composed of, “Anyone who provides assistance to someone else who is, in some degree, incapacitated...
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Older Consumers and the PROS Model: A Growing Challenge
In 2011 the post-World War II “baby boom” generation starts turning 65. With this change it is expected that the census of elderly people diagnosed with a mental illness will also increase. It is projected that by the year 2030, the number of older adults diagnosed with a mental illness will...
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Mental Health in The Elderly: Boomers Coming of Age
According to the National Institute for Mental Health in England (2005), “The presence of Mental Health problems [for the elderly], is a strong independent predictor of poor outcomes, such as increased mortality, length of stay, institutionalism, and resource use.” In North America an...
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I’m Still Here: Engagement as Treatment for Dementia
A few years ago, I was conducting training for staff in a long-term care facility in Australia. It was a two-day training program, focusing on the use of the Montessori-based Activities Programming (MAP). I have been conducting research on the use of Montessori educational methods as a means of...
