title: "Old age doesn't come alone": discursive representations of health-in-aging in geriatric medicine.
abstract: Traditional approaches to identity across the lifespan have assumed that age itself and generational statuses and roles determine "who we can be." In contrast, a discursive perspective can show how, during interaction, we actively construct age-salient identities for ourselves and others through talk. Conversational processes of age-identity management are explored in a corpus of (United Kingdom) geriatric medical outpatient consultations. In diverse ways, doctors deny the age-relevance of medical troubles that their patients routinely endorse.
authors.affiliation: University of Wales College of Cardiff, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Coupland
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Coupland
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over / Q000523:psychology; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D003144:Communication Barriers; D003717:Denial, Psychological; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016901:Intergenerational Relations; D008297:Male; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D012803:Sick Role; D013240:Stereotyping; D014852:Wales