The objective of this paper is to review the difficulties associated with measuring self-help groups for what they are, and the methodology used. This report identifies issues inherent to research on self-help groups for the elderly. Elderly group participants sharing a common problem and meeting to discuss it without the benefit of professional support will, without doubt, become a more and more prevalent resource for use in the future. Consequently, it is imperative to ascertain which questions the researchers should be asking. Three research objectives are described: descriptive studies, process examination and the assessment of outcomes considered relevant to self-help groups. The discussion addresses three types of objects under study: the group participants, the group itself and the interorganizational ties established by the group, particularly in dealing with health service agencies.

To define policies to cope with the aging population of developed countries, one must combine several analytical dimensions in space and in time. Is there a contradition between short-term policies to contain the expansion of the care segment of health services and the potential increase in needs for the “old-old” segment of the population? How should policies aimed at the security of income be balanced with policies aimed at the organization of services, be they curative services or local services designed to protect the autonomy and dignity of the elderly? In this text, an attempt is made to put together the bits and pieces of the policy for aging puzzle.

Health promotion and participatory research present challenges and opportunities for extending the benefits of science to populations who have not fully benefited from innovations available through self-care and mutual aid. This paper illustrates some of the strengths, weaknesses, issues and problems in applying the approaches of health promotion and participatory research with First Nations populations for purposes of arthritis self-management. We suggest ways in which these experiences apply to the elderly. Preliminary results from our First Nations Arthritis Self-Management study illustrate participatory research and promising outcomes. The adaptability of these health promotion strategies in the First Nations community can be generalized to the elderly in the general population based on their common experience with arthritis and the advantages of participatory planning with distinguishable demographic groups who share a common identity.

Though this is not a recent work (1991), it merits the attention of anyone who works in this field, as well as that of researchers in gerontology who are particularly interested in the issue of housing for elderly who have lost their autonomy. The authors of this book examine, from its numerous angles, the concept of congregate housing, a form of housing which provides a minimum of support services to elderly who are grappling with disabilities. Ten articles in the form of debates, analyses and real-life experiences allow readers to discover the complexity of this alternative to institutional living. The importance of this work cannot be denied, nor can the quality of the researchers who contributed to the various articles.

The flow of time can be conceptualized either as a cycle or an arrow. We offer a combined view: a helix. Chronological age (geophysical time reference) is not necessarily identical to biological age (internal time reference), and aging does not necessarily imply senescence. A new scheme of senescence, based on homeodynamics (nonlinear mechanics and nonequilibrium thermodynamics), is introduced as a plausible physical basis for understanding senescence. We propose that energy throughput, initially constructive of forms and functions, becomes destructive once most of the available degrees of freedom have been “frozen out” by the construction. Senescence becomes manifested at that point.