practice innovations with vignettes that clearly illustrate con-sumer experience and outcomes across discipline areas.

If the book has a weakness it would be its almost exclusiveAustralian focus. However, this is also what gives it rel-evance, given Australia’s unique geography and aged careapproach within the South-East Asian context. I would rec-ommend this book to anyone researching, managing or prac-tising in the Australian community-based care arena, inaddition to those who are currently in training for the future.This is because it provides the reader with a fresh, butcomprehensive, overview of community-based care. The textprovides a sound understanding of the issues and makesinnovations both comprehensible and engaging. The accom-panying DVD which contains video clips also serves tocapture appropriately the realities of caring for older peoplein our society.

Catherine BridgeFaculty of the Built Environment, City Futures ResearchCentre, The University of NSW (UNSW), Sydney, NewSouth Wales, Australiaajag_515 48..51

Foot problems in older people: Assessmentand managementH. Menz. Churchill Livingstone, Edinburgh, 2008. 280 pp. ISBN-100080450326, ISBN-13 978-0080450322. AUD$76.00.

This text is an impressive guide to the assessment and man-agement of foot and ankle problems in older people. Targetedtowards a range of health professionals involved in foot care,it manages to be both scholarly and practical.

The book’s layout is clear and appealing and the text iswell written. Sections of the book are colour-coded, toassist with the use of the book as a clinical reference.Chapters 1 and 2 cover the prevalence of foot problemsand physiological changes associated with ageing. Theremaining 10 chapters cover assessment of the older personwith foot problems, common foot problems and their man-agement, foot and ankle manifestations of common sys-temic conditions, wound management, footwear andorthotics, surgical considerations and assessment of out-comes. Each chapter provides both a comprehensive, criti-cal review of the literature and practical guidelines forclinicians.

One of the strengths of the book is its strong evidence-based approach. Each chapter is accompanied by a compre-hensive reference list. However, readers are directed toother sources when a topic is beyond the scope of thebook.

Another of the book’s strengths is the use of photographs,illustrations and diagrams, which graphically portray the

kinds of foot problems experienced by older people. Thephotographs are in full colour and not for the squeamish.However, they make the book particularly helpful for podia-try students and for nurses and other health professionalswho encounter foot problems in older clients. The attentionthat the book pays to difficulties in assessing foot andankle problems also makes it especially useful for podiatrystudents.

Most of the research is from the USA or the UK, so the bookclearly has more relevance to Australia than to developingeconomies. Even so, the diabetic foot is given less attentionthan might have been expected. A related issue is the rela-tively sparse consideration of prevention as opposed totreatment.

Yvonne WellsLa Trobe University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australiaajag_516 48..51

Guide to the psychiatry of old ageD. Ames, E. Chiu, J. Lindesay and K.I. Shulman. CambridgeUniversity Press, Cambridge, 2010. 130 pp. ISBN978-0-521-68191-9 (soft cover). AUD$90.95.

The Psychiatry of Old Age is now an established sub-speciality in Australia. All states have some sort of agedpsychiatry service, although the numbers of communityteams and inpatient units vary widely. Services are growing,however, as Governments recognise the need for expert careof older people with serious mental disorders including thebehavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia. Aswell as psychiatrists with sub-specialty training, we neednurses, psychologists and social workers with experience inthis complex area to provide treatment and support topatients and carers and to assist those other clinicians –general practitioners, geriatricians and residential care pro-viders – who provide the bulk of day-to-day care.

There is therefore a great need for a brief text that coversthe elements of assessment and diagnosis and that describesthe epidemiology, aetiology, clinical presentation and treat-ment of all the major clinical syndromes that arise in oldage (the dementias, delirium, mood disorders, psychoses,personality disorders and substance abuse). Ideally, such atext should be useful to enthusiastic medical students, psy-chiatry and geriatric trainees, and nursing and allied healthprofessionals.

Two of the authors of this 130-page book hail from Mel-bourne, being former professors of old age psychiatry at theUniversity of Melbourne. All of the assessment tools andservices are therefore immediately recognizable to local prac-titioners and words of advice regarding their use make excel-lent sense. There is a minimum of jargon and only briefdescriptions of psychotropic medications, which are wellcovered elsewhere, are included.

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Students and trainees will welcome the liberal use of shortlists of diagnostic criteria, the causes of conditions, treat-ments and the like. Chapters are nicely divided into briefsections with clear headings that make it easy to dip in andout of the book as clinical need dictates. More graphics mighthave been helpful but doubtless would have increased thebook’s cost. I particularly liked the ‘clinical pearls’ in thechapter on assessment (e.g. that white hair roots may be apointer to self-neglect in older women). Such tips may berecalled later when much else is not. For particularly keenreaders, each chapter has a handful of references to articles inreadily accessible journals. The book concludes with sensibleadvice on the organization of old age psychiatry services andtheir possible future direction.

I strongly recommend this book to aged care service provid-ers, aged psychiatry teams and medical and nursing schools.

Daniel O’ConnorMonash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australiaajag_517 49..52

Ageing and spirituality across faiths and culturesE. MacKinlay (ed.). Jessica Kingsley Publishers, London, 2010. 272pp. ISBN 9781849050067 (soft cover). Distributed by FootprintBooks; A$39.95.

The premise for this book is both laudable and ambitious.The book attempts to encompass a wide range of spiritualdimensions including religion, culture and belief. Theoutcome is an interesting and for the most part very readablebook, which provides a lot of information in quite a smallvolume, from expert contributors.

An issue with this book is that it summarises the conferenceproceedings for a conference on Ageing and Spirituality. Itwas a clever idea to capture these many perspectives wherethey were gathered, and quite an achievement to capture somany authors from this conference. However, this approachto text development has also been a detractor for the finalbook, which is subsequently patchy and a little thin. Thebook would have benefited from more expansion of eachchapter beyond the level of information usually presented ata conference, that is, the development of dedicated in-depthchapters addressing the theme of each conference paper, andwritten to specific guidelines around the expected outcomesfor the wider volume.

Similar to a conference, the quality of the chapters is variable,with some being quite delightful to read (e.g. chapters 4, 9and 13) and some being less interesting or less accessible. Atleast one chapter misses the ‘ageing’ focus altogether, andshould not be in the volume.

Several of the chapters read as interesting case studies (e.g.chapters 11, 12, 14 and 15) without enough of an attempt tobring them back into the context of the overall volume.

Some chapters provide good advice and guidance toclinicians/practitioners for moving spiritualty into their prac-tice (e.g. chapter 13), but several fail to reach any concreteconclusion at all. A requirement that each chapter provideadvice specific to the topic for clinicians and researcherswould have strengthened the book and its usefulness.

Overall the book would have benefited from some decisiveediting to bring the parts to a whole. It is nevertheless aworthwhile contribution to this field, from a group ofauthors who appear both passionate and knowledgeableabout their specific topics.

Lynne ParkinsonResearch Centre for Gender, Health and Ageing, Universityof Newcastle, NSW, Australiaajag_518 49..52

Osteoporosis in older persons: Pathophysiology andtherapeutic approachG. Duque and D.P. Kiel (eds). Springer, Berlin, 2009. 186 pp. ISBN978-1-84882-924-4 (paperback), ISBN 978-1-84628-515-8 (hardcover), e-ISBN 978-1-84628-697-1 (hard cover). $59.95.

While this book was a very easy and informative read,the question is whether there is a need for another osteoporo-sis resource. Certainly this text is beyond the needs of thegeneral public, and the plethora of print and web-basedresources already serve that purpose. There are also numer-ous print and electronic texts on the topic of osteoporosisaimed at health-care professionals. Despite that, the textappears to find a niche as a text suitable for those alliedhealth professionals and nurses providing care to olderpeople. Specifically, this text provides a clear and conciseinsight into the unique aspects of senile osteoporosis. Giventhe ageing population in Australasia and the broader interna-tional community, this text offers a timely contribution.

The text is written by accomplished authors and the text isedited by those with appropriate expertise. Yet representa-tion of Australasia is scant, leaving the northern hemisphericfocused text with limited specific relevance in Australasia,although the general relevance remains strong. Only a singlechapter was authored by Australasians and the wealth ofexpertise in osteoporosis management and research in thisregion might have attracted a greater input.

The strength of the text is its style, organisation and readabil-ity. The first seven chapters in particular provide seamlessdissemination of knowledge related to ‘pathophysiology’ ofsenile osteoporosis. Subsequent chapters (8–13), while wellwritten and relevant, appear to be more ‘silo’ based. That is,the transition from chapter to chapter is less fluid. The weak-ness of the text is that concepts are omitted that might havebetter tied the second half of the book together and, indeed,content that was included with insufficient detail to be ofgreat value. The chapter on ‘fracture care in the elderly’ for

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