By Lisa Watts
Original research explores COVID-19’s impact on older adults and their caregivers, long-term services and supports, end-of-life care, and technology.
A new collection of original research and perspectives on the ramifications of COVID-19 for older adults offers insights for policymakers, researchers, and practitioners. The COVID-19 Pandemic and Older Adults: Experiences, Impacts, and Innovations (Taylor & Francis Publishing, April 2022) collects 17 articles that first appeared in a 2021 double edition of the Journal of Aging & Social Policy.
Edward A. Miller, the journal’s editor, focused the book’s chapters on four areas of inquiry:
- Personal experiences with COVID-19, primarily in relation to community-dwelling older adults but also with respect to family caregivers in formal care settings.
- The impact of COVID-19 on long-term services and supports, mainly with respect to nursing homes in the United States and overseas.
- End-of-life care during the pandemic.
- Technology and other innovations emerging from the crisis.
“We are at a point in the pandemic where we can draw important lessons for subsequent waves of the virus and for future pandemics, particularly around mitigating the devastating effects on older adults,” says Miller, who chairs the Department of Gerontology at the University of Massachusetts Boston. “COVID-19 shined a spotlight on chronic challenges facing the aging care sector. We need to fully understand the myriad ways in which the pandemic affected older adults, their families, communities, and caregivers, to chart a better path going forward.”
Learn more about the new book at the Gerontology Institute Blog.