Originally published in 1984, the overall purpose of this book was to provide ideas and suggestions about the usefulness of applied psychology in dealing with some of the problems of the elderly.

Although many problems of the elderly are not included, the editors wanted to put forward ideas which they, both individually and collectively, had found to be of practical value in dealing with the kinds of problem they found to be most urgent. Despite the recent increase of interest by psychologists in this field, many professional and non-professional workers had not had any experience in working alongside a psychologist. In addition, there were many professional psychologists who had had little to do with this specialist field. The book was aimed at these two groups.

The chapters of this book range from the more traditional psychological topic of assessment through to psychological treatment and management approaches for various problems.