Cultures of Care in Aging

Edited by:
Thomas Boll, University of Luxembourg
Dieter Ferring, Université du Luxembourg
Jaan Valsiner, Niels Bohr Professor of Cultural Psychology, Aalborg University

A volume in the series: Advances in Cultural Psychology: Constructing Human Development. Editor(s): Jaan Valsiner, Niels Bohr Professor of Cultural Psychology, Aalborg University.

Published 2018

This book is about caring for elderly persons in the 21th century. It shows that care has many facets and is influenced by many factors. Central topics of this book thus include the relation between the person depending on care and the care giver(s), the impacts of caregiving on the family and the larger social context, as well as socio-cultural and political aspects underlying the growing need for and the practice of formal and informal care. It is evident that care as a real-life phenomenon of our time needs the co-operation of multiple disciplines to better understand, describe, explain and modify phenomena of elder care. Such a need for cross- disciplinary research is even more urgent given the increasing population aging and the impending gaps between demand and supply of care. The present book is dedicated to this approach and provides a first substantive integration of knowledge from geropsychology, other gerosciences, and cultural psychologies by a multi-disciplinary cast of internationally renowned authors. Cultural psychology emerged as a valuable partner of the gerosciences by contributing essentially to a deeper understanding of the relevant issues. Reading of this book provides the reader—researcher or practitioner—with new insights of where the problems of advancing age take our caring tasks in our 21st century societies and it opens many new directions for further work in the field. Finally and above all, this book is also a strong plea for solidarity between generations in family and society in a rapidly changing globalized world.

CONTENTS
Introduction: Culture in the act of caring: Bringing Geropsychology, other gerosciences, and Cultural Psychology together, Thomas Boll, Dieter Ferring, and Jaan Valsiner. PART I: Population aging, demographic trends, and consequences for long-term care, Anja Leist. History of professional care for the elderly persons, Benoĭt Majerus. Turning the ‘problem’ into the solution: Hopes, trends and contradictions in home care policies for ageing populations, Virpi Timonen and Tine Rostgaard. Positive aging and concepts of care: Need for bridge-building instead of separation, Hans-Werner Wahl and Clemens Tesch-Römer. Commentary: Coming of age in a youthful culture: A commentary from cultural psychology, Svend Brinkmann and Peter Musaeus. PART II: Caring for the elderly – effects on family and adolescents, Anette Schumacher and Helmut Willems. Older persons’ care-related preferences: Cultural and cross-cultural influences, Martin Pinquart, Silvia Sörensen, and Yajun Song. Commentary: The carer and the cared: A cultural-psychological elaboration, Jaan Valsiner. PART III: Scientific and legal concepts of care dependency: Role for understanding, emotional responding, and acting in the field of elder care, Thomas Boll and Dieter Ferring. The role of informal caregivers in long-term care for older people: Needs and supports, Francesco Barbabella, Arianna Poli, Sara Santini, and Giovanni Lamura. Suffering and compassion in older adult caregiving relationships, Richard Schulz and Joan K. Monin. Person - environment fit and quality of care, Ása Róin. Commentary: Meaning focused perspectives on suffering, compassion, and caregiving for the elderly: A commentary on Schulz`s & Monin`s model, Olga V. Lehmann. PART IV: A systematic review of self-care assistive technologies for aging population, Afsaneh Abrilahij and Thomas Boll. Personnel recruitment and retention in long-term elder care, Lynn Chenoweth and Samuel Lapkin. Concepts and strategies of quality assurance in care for older people, Henk Nies and Kai Leichsenring. Striving for culturally competent elder care, Amélie Blanchet Garneau, Anne Bourbonnais, and Jacinthe Pepin. Commentary: Caring through culture, Nandita Chaudhary and Jaan Valsiner. Conclusions: Care in aging: Cross-fertilization within and between geropsychology, other gerosciences, and cultural psychology, Thomas Boll, Dieter Ferring, and Jaan Valsiner.