Older people and therapeutic care

Bowel care in older people.

Bowel dysfunction not only causes considerable hardship for many older people and their carers, it is also financially costly to the health service and to the individuals affected. Despite the prevalence of constipation and faecal incontinence amongst, for example, older people in institutionalised settings, both conditions are often iatrogenic and entirely preventable. One reason why these con...

Eye care for older people

the global trend Worldwide, people are now living longer and birth rates are declining; older people are therefore making up an ever greater proportion of the world’s population. This means that the number of older people is increasing very rapidly compared to the overall growth of the global population. By 2025, there will be twice as many older people worldwide as there were in 2000 (an incre...

Health care for older people.

Housing and health care for older people.

There is an enormous impact of home conditions both on the health of an older person living with a long-term illness, and their ability to remain independent in the face of disability. Geriatricians are often called upon to give advice to older people with a new illness about where to live. It is important therefore that they should understand the relationship between housing and health, and ho...

"Cultivating health": therapeutic landscapes and older people in northern England.

While gardening is seen, essentially, as a leisure activity it has also been suggested that the cultivation of a garden plot offers a simple way of harnessing the healing power of nature (The therapeutic garden, Bantam Press, London, 2000). One implication of this is that gardens and gardening activity may offer a key site of comfort and a vital opportunity for an individual's emotional, physic...