Australia has around 1,000 Men's Sheds--informal community-based workshops offering men beyond paid work somewhere to go, something to do and someone to talk to. They have proven to be of great benefit for older men's learning, health and wellbeing, social integration, and for developing a positive male identity focusing on community…

Background: Community collaboratives provide a means to build local capacity, reduce service fragmentation and duplication, maximize efficiency, and create synergies for "systems change". But what are the collaborative practices that aging services providers and other stakeholders employ for "system change" and…

Social workers rarely receive education and training in the areas of grief, bereavement, and death and dying, which may lead to difficulties in compassionately and ethically addressing concerns in end-of-life or grief-related contexts. This article presents actual and potential outcomes from three challenging end-of-life case studies using…

The present work is an approach to study the "Cuban model" for educating the elderly, and its aim is to describe the main features of the experience developed by this country. The University of the Third Age is more than three decades old in Latin America, but none of the countries in the region can show a state educational policy…

Purpose: Subjective memory complaint is a term used to refer older adults who report memory problems. Extensive literature exists on its etiology and impact on long-term cognitive decline, and some physicians consider it important in the early detection of dementia. Despite the salient features reported by both patients and clinicians, few people…

Purpose: This article, based on analysis of data from a mixed methods study, builds on a growing body of assisted living (AL) research focusing on the link between residents' social relationships and health. A key aim of this analysis, which uses the social convoy model as a conceptual and methodological framework, was to examine the relative…

Large-scale social surveys of visually impaired people often explore participants' mobility and travel behaviour. What is methodologically more challenging is gathering participant-centred data in relation to their own interpretation of the barriers they face. Findings from a national survey of visually impaired people are presented in this…

This study explores the relevance of the Kaleidoscope Career Model (KCM) to women's later life career development. Qualitative interview data were gathered from 14 women in both the "truly" late career and bridge employment periods using a longitudinal design. The relevance of authenticity, balance, and challenge--central parameters in the KCM--is…

The purpose of this study was to substantiate and further develop a previously formulated conceptual model of Role Acceptance in Mexican American family caregivers by exploring the theoretical strengths of the model. The sample consisted of women older than 21 years of age who self-identified as Hispanic, were related through consanguinal or…

Purpose: To explore the nature of men's experiences of osteoporosis by developing an understanding of men's explanatory models. Design and Methods: This descriptive study invited community-residing male osteoporosis patients aged 50+ to participate in interviews about osteoporosis. Participants were recruited from a hospital-affiliated bone…

The success of older adult students seeking higher education degrees depends, in part, upon fulfillment of critical support needs. This phenomenological study explored the experiences of nine contemporary Older Baby Boomer students (ages 50-62) who are pursuing bachelor's degrees at a Midwestern university. Qualitative data was gathered from…

The purpose of this study is to confirm the working hypothesis on two major models of functioning decline and two corresponding models of rehabilitation program in an older population through detailed interviews with the persons who have functioning declines and on-the-spot observations of key activities on home visits. A total of 542…

The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to explore whether the way mental health is conceptualized by older Iranian immigrants can influence their mental health-related practices. In-depth interviews were conducted with 15 Iranians who had immigrated to the United States after the age of 50. The findings from this study revealed…

The present study focused on changes in volunteering over time among Italian adults and examined a model in which motives from self-determination theory (SDT) were hypothesized to influence a series of social-cognitive processes including self-efficacy judgments and constructs from the theory of planned behavior (TPB). The study was conducted with…

In order to test the hypothesis that retirement would be particularly stressful for this highly motivated cohort, forty retired members of Israeli kibbutzim (22 men, 18 women) were interviewed in an open-ended fashion, concerning their early history, their decision to join the kibbutz, their working life, and their post-retirement adaptation.…