VOLUME 10, NUMBER 2, 2007

Healthy ageing
Božidar Voljč

Health with its comprehensive nature represents a prerequisite for an active longevity. Today life is healthier than in the past, that's why an average lifespan became longer with the increasing number of healthy aged and socially more organised citizens. With the further intensity of such changes the societal role of old people will become even more important. Such circumstances stipulate also an individual relation to health, in particular within the frame of healthy ageing. Since organism ages all its lifespan, healthy ageing is not restricted to the old age only, its levers have to be searched from the birth on within the childhood, adolescence, adulthood as well as within the oldness itself. The oldness is combined with important social and health shocks, however, with the respect to oneself, to the surrounding people, to the society as well as to the ethical values of health, a healthy, active and spiritually reach life can be achieved. The relation to the nearing death, which should occur in dignity, is also important.

Key words: Health, values, comprehensiveness, life expectancy, healthy life, individual health, ages of life, age, ethical values of health, dying.

Swimming and water aerobics for elderly persons
Boro Štrumbelj

In this paper are presented several beneficial effects of the swimming and other water activities on the human body. Because of horizontal posture of the body in the water and because of physical laws acting on the body (buoyancy opposes the force of gravity) the skeletal system is not under influence of increased load. Because of that awimming is appropriate for elderly people and for overweight people, paraplegiks and spastiks. With adequate load, swimming is also beneficial for rehabilitation after injuries and some illnesses (cardiac infarct, hips dislocation, different spinal columne injuries). Contraindications for exercise are also presented. In the paper are in detailes presented swimming and water exercisses for elderly persons according to load, selection of exercissies, duration and water temperature.

Key words: swimming, water aerobics, seniors

Old age depression
Barbara Oražem

Depression is a complex disorder of men's health with specific changes in his physical and mental functions. Depression has a deep impact on subject's social sphere. Different factors play their part in etiology of late-life depression, neurobiological as well as psychosocial. The elderly have to face with many losses: physical (a variety of medical illnesses and disabilities), mental (deterioration in mental function, lack of self-trust), interpersonal (death of a spouse, siblings or friends) and social (retirement, financial problems, and relocation of residence). The most common treatments for depression in old age are psychotherapy and antidepressant medication. It is very important to recognize the symptoms of clinical depression and also to be aware of the fact, that the vicious circle of pain, caused by depression, can be successfully treated.

Key words: depression, elderly, risk factors, treatment

To treat or not to treat mental disorders in old age?
Aleš Kogoj

Several groups of psychotropic drugs are used for the treatment of mental disorders. Drugs can significantly alleviate symptoms of mental disorders. However, they can also possess different side effects. Also changes of metabolism of drugs in old age have to be taken into consideration. Cautious use of psychotropics is suggested in combinations with several drugs used for the treatment of other medical conditions. However, psychotherapeutic methods should be taken in consideration with or without the use of psychotropic drugs.

Key words: old age, mental disorders, drugs

The Life Course and Wisdom as a Guiding Idea
Ricca Edmondson

While developing wisdom was regarded as a central aim of the human life course for millennia, twentieth-century academic research downplayed this concept, which has only recently begun to be re-established in ageing studies. This article highlights some of the major reasons why wisdom is so important to older people, both as individuals and as a group. It examines current approaches to wisdom in psychology, which have clear affinities to ideas originating in ancient Greece and can usefully be supplemented by them. In particular, the work of Aristotle offers useful approaches to understanding what wisdom is, and contemporary ethnographic evidence both illustrates and develops Aristotelian insights. Suggesting that wisdom in most of its conceptualisations is strongly connected to the conduct of the human life course, the article presents some cases to illustrate this claim, taken from Austria and from the West of Ireland. These cases are intended to advance our understanding of wisdom by highlighting two ways in which it is an interactive phenomenon. Wisdom involves interaction and change between individuals, and it also interacts with its social context. The development of wisdom is presented here as an important component of people’s life courses as they age, and as an important potential contribution by older people to society.

Key words: wisdom, life course, ageing, ethnographic method