Homeostasis and complexity as integrating tools in gerontological education

Gerontological education is an interdisciplinary process that involves inte grating biological, psychological, and sociological issues of aging. In thi s context, the PhD program in Gerontology at the University of Kentucky has used the following two phenomena as integrating tools in its first year in troductory courses: (1) homeostasis, defined as the maintenance of stabilit y, and (2) complexity, a multi-faceted model of system evolution. This pape r describes the development of these concepts, gives examples of their use, and summarizes student evaluations concerning the helpfulness of homeostas is and complexity in understanding biomedical and psychosocial issues of ge rontology. Formal student evaluation consisted of an objective questionnair e administered at the end of the first year and a subjective written evalua tion obtained upon completion of qualifying examinations at the end of the third year On a scale of 1-10, results of the questionnaire at the end of t he first year showed homeostasis to be significantly more helpful in unders tanding biomedical than psychosocial issues in gerontology (average rating 8.4 versus 5.2, p < 0.05). We attributed the difference to a more implicit than explicit use of homeos tasis in the social sciences. Complexity was moderately helpful in understa nding both biomedical (7.0) and psychosocial (7.3) issues, but more helpful in understanding their interactions (7.9), albeit differences between thes e means were not signigicant. The subjective evaluation by third-year stude nts indicated that homeostasis and complexity were helpful in their geronto logical education, and complexity, in particular, played a role in developi ng their research projects. In summary, results of this study indicate that homeostasis and complexity can be useful integrating tools in gerontolical education with the stipulation that care must be taken with homeostasis to point out its applicability to psychosoical issues of aging.