Definition
Psychological theories of health and aging explain and predict health during the aging process using psychological (and other) variables and constructs. They can be used to design, evaluate, and refine interventions to promote health in later life.
Overview
Terms such as “demographic change” have become commonplaces and potentially put a negative spin on what is otherwise a tremendous success story: Since the 1950s, both global average life expectancy (48 years in 1955; 71 years in 2013; WHO 2017) and the proportion of older adults in most societies has increased dramatically.
However, as the human body ages, it undergoes physiological changes that ultimately result in decreased functioning in a wide range of domains (Aalami et al. 2003), e.g., sensory (hearing, vision, sensomotoric), structural (bone density, muscle tone, neural transmission speed), and functional (lung function, digestive system)....
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Schüz, B., Wurm, S. (2021). Psychological Theories of Health and Aging. In: Gu, D., Dupre, M.E. (eds) Encyclopedia of Gerontology and Population Aging. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22009-9_107
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22009-9_107
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