This text provides a foundation of essential knowledge and practical guidance for building best practice in the care of older people.

Fully updated for its second edition, Care of Older People uses a whole-person and values-led approach to explore practice with older people, providing the opportunity for practitioners to reflect critically on not just what they do but also on how and why. It includes two new chapters, the first looking at the ways in which digital technologies can impact on how care support is delivered and the potential for older people’s lives to be enriched or otherwise by them, and the second reflecting the particular challenges of helping older people at the end of their lives to manage their needs. Highlighting how older people in receipt of care support can be enabled to be co-producers of knowledge, it challenges the depiction of older people with support needs as one-dimensional individuals rather than multi-dimensional people with life left to live.

This accessible book is an invaluable learning resource for all those working, or studying, across the caring professions, including social work, social care, nursing, occupational therapy and anyone committed to excellence in eldercare.

Dr Sue Thompson has many years’ experience as a nurse, social worker, care manager, practice teacher, distance learning tutor, researcher and writer of working in the field of eldercare. Throughout her career, her passion has been to promote eldercare practice which is driven by a desire on the part of those who support dependent older people to help them to live, as far as is possible, the life they want to be living. This passion inspired her PhD study on reciprocity in old age, where she explored whether a sense of ‘usefulness’ remains important to older people’s self-esteem and spiritual well-being when they become significantly dependent on others, and whether this is recognised by those undertaking assessments of their care needs.