Aging and eldercare in more developed countries - The United States, SouthKorea, and Puerto Rico

Successful aging can be enabled through a knowledge of what elders need to remain interdependent with their families, communities, and societies. But the rapid growth of the elderly populations in both the more and lesser dev eloped countries is raising demands for eldercare and requiring brand new w ays of assuring its success at these multiple levels of social organization . Two unifying themes in this special issue are (a) the relationships of he alth, illness, functionality, and disability to eldercare in old age; and ( b) the evolving roles of family, community, and nation state in eldercare. All the articles in this special issue seek to foster new theory and new pr actice in eldercare. The authors believe that locally successful answers wi ll promote global solutions when culturally appropriate adaptations are mad e. All cultures have much to teach.