This well-established and accessible text has been completely revised in this expanded fifth edition. Each chapter has been updated, often extensively, to reflect current thinking, and an important new chapter on death, dying and bereavement has been added.

Providing a comprehensive overview of the psychological processes of ageing, the text examines what constitutes older age, and presents the latest theory and research in a variety of domains, including intellectual change in later life; ageing and memory; ageing and language; ageing, personality and lifestyle; and mental health and ageing. Consideration is given to the problems inherent in measuring the psychological status of older people, and the author looks to the future to answer the question what will constitute 'being old'?

This new edition is essential reading for all those working or training to work with older people, and a key text for students.

Ian Stuart-Hamilton is Professor of Developmental Psychology at the University of Glamorgan, Wales. He has over thirty years' research experience in a wide variety of psychological techniques and settings. The Psychology of Ageing is now translated into 16 languages, and was awarded a British Medical Association Book of the Year award in the Geriatric Medicine section in 2008.

Foreword to the Fifth Edition. 1. What is Ageing? 2. Measuring Intellectual Change in Later Life. 3. Ageing and Memory. 4. Ageing and Language. 5. Ageing, Personality and Lifestyle. 6. Mental Health in Later Life. 7. Problems in Measuring the Psychological Status of Older People. 8. Dying, Death and Bereavement. 9. What is the Future of Ageing? Appendix I: Basic Anatomy of the Nervous System. Appendix II: Fluid and Crystallized Intelligence. Appendix III: Basic Psycholinguistic Concepts. Appendix IV: The later career of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. Glossary. References. Index.