Current Discussion

Dressing, personal care and eating are the stuff of everyday life. These activities are so essential that disability activists and scholars argue receiving help with these tasks should be seen as a fundamental right.

‘Doing age’ refers to how individuals construct age in terms of actions and interactions with others. ‘Doing age’ made me think: how do our daily practices throughout the life course impact how we will experience later life?

Last week I had the experience of attending a virtual dementia tour, which was eye-opening and inspiring- yet troubling in terms of ‘representing dementia’. We were greeted by a series of people who immediately sat us down and told us that we were going to learn what it’s like to be old, living with dementia, and residing in a long-term care institution.

Within social gerontological research, there has been an overwhelming focus on the care needs of older people experiencing physical and cognitive declines. Implicit in discussions of eldercare are questions of dependency, power, and the use and control of resources.

Sex among older adults is a taboo subject. After five years as a gerontology major, I can count on one hand how many times sex and older adults have been addressed during my academic career. In fact, the times that sex and older adults have been addressed, the conversation usually shifted towards the direction that older adults have issues having sex. Outside of school, sex and aging is a subject most people would not even think to address.

March 2, 2016 Our blog provides a virtual space to facilitate discussion with regards to critical issues in the study of aging and late life. We have opened this space…