Facing the challenges of ageing populations – Contributions from Geropsychology –

Human ageing represents one of the major challenges of Europe in the upcoming decades given that nine of the 10 oldest world populations are from Europe. This has and will have evident consequences at all levels of the socio-ecological context. It is thus a challenge for Psychology and especially Geropsychology to provide sound research-based knowledge about processes of human ageing as well as expertise about training, education and interventions that will help to promote quality of living and subjective well-being both at the individual and the social level. The symposium follows this notion and scholars from eight European countries will report on new developments in theory and research across the various geropsychology domains that will help to tackle the challenge of ageing. In a first part on “Cognitive decline, aging, and mental health”, the symposium will address clinical aspects of ageing. Di Nuovo (Italy) presents findings on interventions enhancing quality of life of elderly persons with mental deterioration or Mild Cognitive Impairment. R. Drăghici will report on the diagnostic use of drawings by elderly persons with neurocognitive disorders. Stepankova, Kopecek, and Schmand (Czech Republic) focus on positive aspects of ageing presenting findings on cognitive superageing. Gatterer, and Blokesch, (Austria) present the theoretical rationale underlying schematherapy use in older adults. The second part of the symposium addresses “Quality of life, aging, and health behaviour” and presents findings on personal and contextual factors that have an impact on these criteria. Fernández-Ballesteros, Angeles Molina and Sánchez Izquierdo (Spain) report findings on contextual influences in social images about ageing, testing predictions of the Stereotype Content Model. Lang and Damm (Germany) present theory and research findings on perceiving future time and its impact on preparing for old age. Despot Lucanin, Lucanin, Bjelajac and Delale (Croatia) present findings on the predictive contributions of psychosocial factors to life satisfaction in old adults. Finally, Ferring and Boll (Luxembourg) give insights into perceived gains and losses when caring for an older relative and their implications for psychosocial intervention.