The policy and popular debates suggest that the housing equity of elderly home-owners has provided them with a considerable stock of wealth which will influence the future social structure of the United Kingdom, as wealth is transferred to a wider cross-section of British society through inheritance. While various estimates suggest that the distribution of intergenerational transfers of equity is set to widen in the future (Hamnett, Harmer and Williams 1991), it is not known whether the rate of growth of housing inheritance will continue at the pace set in the 1970s and 1980s. This is due to the process of equity extraction by elderly persons, largely from their housing assets. The extent to which one form of equity extraction (formal equity release schemes) has influenced future housing inheritances is the focus of this paper. Drawing on data collected during a postal survey of institutions offering formal equity release schemes, and secondary literature, we conclude that such schemes are unlikely to have a substantial impact on future intergenerational transfers of housing equity. The equity withdrawn under existing schemes is minimal and is likely to remain so due to lack of demand and inflexibility in the supply of existing schemes. In this paper we shall examine the participation of elderly persons in, and the market for, equity release schemes.

The loss of self in Aizeheimer's Disease is examined from a social constructionist view of the nature of the self. Empirical evidence derived from the structure of the discourse and behaviour of three Alzheimer's sufferers is presented to show that self1, the self of personal identity, persists far into the end stage of the disease. Self2, the multiple personae that are projected into the public arena, and which require the cooperation of others in order to come into being, can be lost, but only indirectly as a result of the disease. The primary cause of the loss of self2 is the ways in which others view and treat the Alzheimer's sufferer. Recommendations are made regarding interactions between Alzheimer's sufferers and caregivers.

Given the vulnerability of elderly people living in long-term hospitals and in other forms of institutional provision, it is essential that the quality of their care is as high as possible. This observation, moreover, has widespread relevance irrespective of variations in the structure of health and social care provision in different countries. In pursuit of this objective the newly established ‘arm's length’ inspection units in Britain will be responsible for setting and also safeguarding standards in homes. The article, based on research commissioned by the Social Services Inspectorate, uses a global measure of quality derived from the inspection of residential care homes, examines the correlates of this measure in a sample of local authority and independent homes in Britain and discusses the implications of the findings for policy and further research.

Geriatric medicine became a part of medical science in the middle of the nineteenth century, more than haifa century before ‘geriatrics’ was named, and a century before it was established in British health care. It was born in Germany along with ancient theories that ageing was in itself a disease, but was increasingly influenced by new pathological and physiological knowledge on ageing and disease, and further developed during the great French clinical era of the latter part of that century. As part of the development of this particular branch of medical science, a gradual categorisation of old age took place, with much credit to the Belgian statistician Quetelet, who may be regarded as the inventor of the category ‘the elderly’ defined by age. The developing biomedical images of old age were given much space in encyclopaedias, dictionaries and popular health literature after 1870. Therefore, the defined existence of old-age limits must also have influenced the legislators responsible for the first national Acts on old- age pension, which now celebrate their centenary.

This paper examines social interaction among seniors in Bermuda, the relationship of various interaction variables with psychological or emotional well-being, and caregiving. The data come from the first ever social science survey conducted among seniors in this country. The findings are compared with selected industrialised countries. Bermudian seniors have strong social ties, somewhat stronger than have been reported in other developed nations. Overwhelmingly, perceived health is related to life satisfaction and functional disability is related to self-esteem among Bermudian seniors. The lack of relationship with social support may well be due to the lack of variation in social support, with virtually everyone having strong social ties. Informal assistance is strong in Bermuda as has been demonstrated for seniors elsewhere. Similarly, the predictors of informal assistance were no surprise, including functional disability, perceptions of health, and having a household member. That is, Bermudian seniors were somewhat distinctive, particularly in their strong social ties, but otherwise appear to be quite similar to seniors in other developed nations. Their geographical isolation and relative small size are believed to be related to their strong social network.