Encyclopedia of Geropsychology

This encyclopedia brings together key established and emerging research findings in geropsychology. It is a comprehensive coverage of the entire breadth of the field, giving readers access to all major subareas and illustrating their interconnections with other disciplines. Entries delve deep into key areas of geropsychology such as perception, cognition, clinical, organizational, health, social, experimental and neuropsychology. In addition to that, the encyclopedia covers related disciplines such as neuroscience, social science, population health, public policy issues pertaining to retirement, epidemiology and demography and medicine. Paying careful attention to research internationally, it cites English and non-English empirical literature from around the globe. This encyclopedia is relevant to a wide audience that include researchers, clinicians, students, policy makers and nongovernmental agencies.

Nancy A Pachana, PhD is Professor of Clinical Psychology in the School of Psychology and founder and co-director of the Ageing Mind Initiative at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. She received her PhD in Clinical Psychology from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland in 1992.

She has an international reputation in the area of geriatric mental health, particularly with her research on late-life anxiety disorders. Ranked in the top 10 cited anxiety researchers by publication number over the past 5 years in Web of Science, she co-developed the Geriatric Anxiety Inventory (GAI), a published short self-report inventory in wide clinical and research use globally which was translated into two dozen+ languages. She is also the founder and co-convener of the International Psychogeriatric Association's (IPA) late-life anxiety task force, which seeks to promote best-practice in the assessment, diagnosis and treatment of such disorders globally. Her research interests include the measurement and treatment of anxiety and mood disorders in later life, novel empirical interventions in residential aged care and for carers, measurement of cognitive decline and general health and well-being in later life. She received the Inaugural Alastair Heron Prize for Research in Dementia (2006) from the Clinical College of the Australian Psychological Society and has been an invited keynote at many conferences such as the presidential symposium for the International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics meeting in Seoul, South Korea.

Spanning the disciplines of gerontology, geriatric psychiatry and clinical psychology, her 160+ original articles in peer-reviewed international journals include 23 book chapters, and 3 edited and 1 authored book.

She is a member of the World Health Organisation Consultation Group on the Classification of Mental and Behavioural Disorders in Older Adults which reports to the International Advisory Group for the Revision of ICD-10 Mental and Behavioural Disorders. From 2009-2011 she was the only international member of the American Psychological Association Task Force on Dementia Assessment Guidelines, which serve as the US national guidelines for assessment of dementia and related conditions. In 2006 she led a team publishing guidelines for the provision of psychological services for older adults, adopted as part of the Australian Psychological Society national ethical codes of practice for psychologists in Australia. She has co-authored several major reports to government from the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health.

She has received more than 9.5 million dollars in competitive research funding since 2006, including a CI on an Australian Ageing Productively Program Grant for $AU2.1 million, examining predictors of healthy ageing in the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health (ALSWH) and the Perth Health in Men Study, as well as co-PI on the newly funded Centre for Research Excellence in Women's Health in the 21st Century (CREW21) at UQ for $AU2.2 million. She is a CI on the newly refunded HABITAT (How Areas in Brisbane Influence health And activity) longitudinal study, with an $AU1.2 million NH&MRC 5 year project grant.

Professor Pachana contributes regularly to government and non-government programs. She is a Fellow of the Australian Psychological Society and serves on the Board of Directors of the International Psychogeriatric Association (IPA) having served as Deputy Editor of IPA’s International Psychogeriatrics and currently is on the editorial board of the Journals of Gerontology: Psychological Science. She is co-founder and co-director of The University of Queensland Ageing Mind Initiative. In 2010 she was awarded an Australian Davos Connection (ADC) Future Summit Leadership Award, based on her expertise and leadership in the field of geropsychology.