title: Well-being and older people: a review of the literature.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Most countries in the world are experiencing an expansion in their population of older people. As people now expect to live longer, they also seek continuing health and well-being throughout their extended old age. Occupational therapists are involved in working towards the attainment of well-being with their older clients. However, their understandings of what well-being for older people entails seems varied, as this examination of the occupational therapy and related gerontological literature reveals.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Three key points emerge from the literature review: first, the definition of well-being is usually assumed, or is lacking in clarity, and a range of similar terms, such as happiness and life satisfaction, are used interchangeably; second, well-being has been measured in research using various scales, which may not capture the complexity of the concept; and third, the perspective of the older person is often missing in discussions of well-being.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  It is suggested that one way of moving occupational therapists' understanding of well-being forward is to conduct research into what older people themselves understand or perceive well-being to be.
authors.affiliation: School of Occupational Therapy, University of South Australia, North TCE, Adelaide, 5000. mandy.stanley@unisa.edu.au
authors.forename: Mandy
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Stanley
authors.forename: Julianne
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Cheek
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged / Q000523:psychology*; D006240:Happiness; D006801:Humans; D010549:Personal Satisfaction; D011788:Quality of Life / Q000523:psychology*