The Concept of Successful Ageing

Abstract

In Australia, as in other Western democracies, the category ‘old age’ often refers to men and women who are not only advanced in age, but who are also poor. When two Victorian psychiatrists introduced the concept ‘successful ageing’ into discussions on mental health in old age in the 1960s, they too drew on the experience of men and women whose lives were marked as much by hardship as advancing age. However, their use of this concept has the potential to contribute to a broader understanding of life in old age in twentieth-century Australia because it was also based on observations of changes in the experience of old age that affected all classes. This article has been peer-reviewed.

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Cecily Hunter

Cecily Hunter is currently working with the Consortium established to evaluate a recent Australian government initiative in dementia care, writing a paper on the history of dementia policy. Her research interests centre on the development of social medicine in Australia which she is investigating through the social histories of geriatrics and occupational health.