While older than 65 years-old population is growing, the need to know more about the nature, the characteristics and problems of ageing become all the more urgent. Changes in human behaviour after maturity are obviously related to individual biological conditions but not necessarily linked to deficits or illness. For sure late maturity should not be perceived as the beginning of a irreversible process of decay, but rather as a beginning of a life phase in which the elderly develops quite complex responses to the many societal demands toward him/her, relying on sophisticated adaptive mechanisms to make use of previously learned capacities. The book offers a reading of the old age as a social resource and of ageing as a process of adaptive change. The volume is intended for students of Psychology, for psychologists working with elderly people, for geriatric medical doctors, for those in charge of elderly people assistance policy design and implementation, for the agents of welfare services.

Contents: I. Psychological theories of human ageing. - II. Genetics, neurological and social foundations of longevity and ageing. - III. Individual stability and change in the last stages of existence. - IV. Older age cognitive functions. - V. Experience contribution during ageing. - VI. Emotions development during ageing. - VII. Assessing the elderly as a person: technical and ethical problems. - VIII. Ethical and legal problems in clinical work, in research and in assistance policy. - Bibliographical references.

Caterina Laicardi teaches Tests' Theory and Practice at the Faculty of Psychology of Sapienza University, in Rome.

Lina Pezzuti is reasearcher at the Department of Developmental and Socialisation Processes Psychology at the faculty of Psychology of Sapienza University, in Rome.