ABSTRACT
This book is about the significance of learning in the lives of elderly people – both planned and incidental learning. It has been suggested that learning is crucial to all aspects of personal and social living, to both mental and physical life, and to both the length and quality of life itself. In other words, learning is fundamental to human being. What we have been examining is, literally, lifelong learning at the latter end of life. But it is not always the type of planned learning that is associated with education and classrooms – often it is unplanned and incidental. However, what we have seen is something that every educator of adults, every therapist and every carer – whether professional or voluntary – should understand – that learning is itself a driving force of life itself. Everybody who works with older learners can be a learning therapist. Since learning is a human process that covers every aspect of human living, those who should be aware of the significance of learning cover all the professions and occupations who work with the elderly. Learning therapy is both educative and therapeutic – it is about caring for and developing the learners whether they are students or frail elderly in need of nursing and medical care.
