Towards a Medical Anthropology of Ageing

Part I:Anthropology and medicine.Chapter One.Introductory considerations ;Chapter Two.Images and concepts of the human ;Chapter Three.Anthropology ;Chapter Four.Trancendental anthropological conditions ;Chapter Five.Medicine: practice and science ;Chapter Six.Medical anthropology --Part II:On Ageing.Chapter Seven.Phenomenology of ageing ;Chapter Eight.Anthropology of ageing ;Chapter Nine.Social approach to ageing ;Chapter Ten.Medicine and ageing ;Chapter Eleven.Biomedicine and anthropology of ageing ;Chapter Twelve.Conclusion.

The proportion of people over 65 is substantially increasing and will continue to do so in the coming decades. Societies are concerned about the depletion of pension funds and austere fiscal plans that are unable to subsidize the basic care, protection and needs of their growing elderly populations. Gerontology is rapidly becoming a burgeoning research discipline that studies multiple aspects of human ageing, leading to top-down social policies that ineffectually address the significant needs of aged persons. Geriatric medicine has also expanded, attempting to medicalize the ageing process into a disease-free stage of "healthy ageing." Ageing itself, this book argues, however, is not a disease per se, and should not be medicalized.In an era of uncertain medical expectations and unfulfilled social care of the ageing, this book presents an anthropological view, that focuses on three essential and transcendental conditions of human life that become vulnerable with advancing age: namely, relating to others, being in the world, and leaving a mark or legacy in the world