Growing Older & Wiser: Coping with Expectations, Challenges, and Change in the Later Years

``Aging is a process that produces enormous variability within the populations,'' finds Billig, director of the geriatric psychiatric program at Georgetown University. He treats the complex questions of when aging begins and when its impact is felt (generally in the mid-70s) in a selection of case histories from his practice among the ever more numerous elderly population of the United States. Looking beyond the inevitable physical deterioration, Billig views the most important characteristic of living well--at any age, but especially in the later years--as the capacity for hope and optimism. He views such normal issues of aging as loss through death, physical diminution and anxiety about the future as problems that can be alleviated with medical and psychological intervention, and he also provides an informative chapter on senility. This encouraging, readable survey depicts life as a process that unfolds continuously through various stages. (Nov.)