Gerald A. Larue shows how social values impact elders in the United States and how older persons, and those who advocate on their behalf, may respond to the attitudes and actions of others. This book offers the elderly and those who care for them a vibrant look at the challenges of aging: the role elders can and do play in shaping and changing society's views of its oldest members, regaining control of important life choices, and the struggle to live a meaningful and independent existence free of anxiety, fear, and uncertainty.

Included are chapters on stereotypes, human rights, agism, the ethics of survival, elder power, elder abuse, fear of aging, caring for elders, health care, dementia, loneliness, death and dying, and much more.