Gerontological Literature

In 1988, an article addressed to the health-care profession posed the rhetorical question of whether aging was a disease. A provocative question at the time, it moved the author to remark that "aging as a biological process in great part still is terra incognita--shrouded in competing hypotheses and speculations" (Grassi 1988 p. 21). While gerontology even at that time was not an unknown medical specialty in the 1980s, popular culture then, as now, marginalized discourse of its elderly population. Mass media and advertisers routinely skew toward the buying habits of 18-to-35-year-old males, not the 50-plus demographic, which actually has more discretionary income and thus offers marketers greater real profit potential (Bron 2001).

The very fact that there is a growing mass of literature dealing with a variety of gerontological issues suggests that the elderly in one branch of discourse are not casually marginalized but rather are at the center of attention.

Even so, a cursory scan of gerontological literature quickly reveals two things about discourse of the elderly. First, the elderly have been problematized; almost alone, popular publications such as those distributed by active-elderly advocacy groups figure the aging entity within the normal population standard. Second, in the problematized bontext of research, treatment of elderly subjects is in the aggregate, en masse, statistical. Valuable as statistical analysis may be in the professional literature, it tends to be f

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le, although dementia by itself did not exclude participation. All study subjects were patients at the Manchester Royal Infirmary in England. Both day patients and inpatients were included in the study. Sample Size. Over the 8 weeks, 115 patients were admitted, but noncooperation, somatic condition, or mental condition excluded all but 59 patients, 65% of whom were women. All patients came from about the same socioeconomic group. Indicators defined. The indicators were nurse observation, detection, opinion, and casenote annotation versus specific psychometrics designed to detect depression levels and kinds. Measuring Instruments. Patients completed a Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS), a 30-point self-report questionnaire designed to detect syndromes and severity of depression. Results of patient completion were keyed to the Geriatric Mental Status Schedule (GMSS) and its AGECAT diagnostic utility. GMSS can identify depressive neurosis (DN) and depressive psyhchosis (DP), and syndrome scores of DN3 or DP3 were defined as depression cases. Nurses rated patients in one of four classifhcations: "definhtely not depressed", "probably not depressed", "probably depressed' and "definitely depressed." The form also included a summary geri

Category: Psychology - G