This book is about the ways digital technology can contribute to the welfare of older people. The Internet, mobile phones and other technologies have changed how we live and work. Such technologies also shape how services for older people are organised in ways that potentially place carers and older people at the centre of service provision. Telecare can make homes 'smart' so that they are more comfortable and less risky for people who can take advantage of devices that help make them independent members of their community.

Digital Welfare is part of the broader project in Britain and elsewhere to adopt new information and communications technologies (ICTs) to organise and deliver health and social welfare services. This includes mundane technologies like an alarm to call for help to complex telecare 'smart homes' and electronic patient records. The intended and unintended consequences of such new technologies must be explored if we are to benefit from these innovations. Based on recent research this book seeks to highlight and examine the new opportunities and dilemmas that confront older people and all those concerned with their welfare in the network society.

This edited collection provides original contributions from leading academics and researchers in the field to access the evidence for improved professional integration and user-centred health and social care services for older people arising from health informatics. Digital Welfare for the Third Age will be of interest to all those working with older people.

Loader (sociology, U. of York, UK), Hardey (social sciences, U. of Hull, UK), and Keeble (a development officer in local government in the UK) present nine papers presenting research on different aspects of telehealth provision to elder people in the UK. The papers are organized into section discussing policy and integration of services; the role of older people in shaping the technologies that might be available to them through attitudes towards technology, new responsibilities consequent of new information and communication technologies, and Internet support groups; and the importance of the role of design and the integration of users into all levels of implementation. Annotation ©2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

More and more of us are living for longer - better health care and higher standards of living mean that the number of older people will increase greatly over the next few decades. The drive to enable older people to continue living independently as long as possible is one response to this unprecedented population shift, as older people's voices get louder and as resources show the strain.