Handbook on Ageing with Disability

Mainstream gerontological scholarship has taken little heed of people ageing with disability, and they have also been largely overlooked by both disability and ageing policies and service systems.

The Handbook on Ageing with Disability is the first to pull together knowledge about the experience of ageing with disability. It provides a broad look at scholarship in this developing field and across different groups of people with disability in order to form a better understanding of commonalities across groups and identify unique facets of ageing within specific groups. Drawing from academic, personal, and clinical perspectives, the chapters address topics stemming from how the ageing with disability experience is framed, the heterogeneity of the population ageing with disability and the disability experience, issues of social exclusion, health and wellness, frailty, later life, and policy contexts for ageing with disability in various countries.

Responding to the need to increase access to knowledge in this field, the Handbook provides guideposts for researchers, practitioners, and policy makers about what matters in providing services, developing programmes, and implementing policies that support persons ageing with long-term disabilities and their families.

Michelle Putnam is a Professor at the School of Social Work at Simmons University in Boston, Massachusetts. She has studied the experience of ageing with disability, focusing on social care and public policy, for over 20 years. Her work has forwarded efforts to bridge the fields of ageing and disability.

Christine Bigby is a Professor of Social Work and Director of the multidisciplinary Living with Disability Research Centre at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. Her research is focused on building the evidence base for programmes and practice that support the social inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities.