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This paper analyses the concept of ageing and old age from various perspectives. From a historical perspective, people in Antiquity and the Middle Ages explained the ages of man in different schematic terms, related to the physical causes for the processes of human growth and decline, or related to daily, annual or historical time. From a cross-cultural perspective, the predominant view has been that older adults in developing societies were better situated socially and psychologically than their counterparts in developed societies. The process of ageing can be seen from separate biological, psychological and social perspectives. Regarding the individual aged person, these mutually interactive processes, must be considered together, along with the cultural conditions and historical times in which they occur. Increased awareness of the positive contributions to modern society made by the aged as upholders of cultural heritage and traditions may help to counteract the derogatory of references to the elderly as ‘the rising tide’, associating this group of the population with heavy financial burdens on society. Published by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons.

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