Contemporary stroke care is diverse, contributing to complex ethical dilemmas and controversies. In Greece, continuing austerity measures and an ageing population are expected to increase the burden of stroke on health care delivery. We sought to explore ethical views and stances of health care professionals caring for stroke patients in Greece. Forms of discrimination against elderly hospitalized patients were also addressed. A qualitative design was adopted whereby an informal focus group interview and follow-up, face-to-face individual interviews were undertaken. The sample consisted of 12 nurses working in clinical areas with stroke patients. Their mean age was 31 years with a mean work experience of 10 years. Individual discussions were audio taped after subject consent and were transcribed verbatim subsequently for keywords-in-context analysis. Analysis of the focus interview revealed several recurring themes, namely, ward destination, admission policies, the concepts of age as related to stroke. Individual interviews highlighted several other topics, such as preferences for specific types of patients, communication capacity of the patient's condition, and his or her individual characteristics as a favoring or limiting factors, and challenges to age-related criteria for treatment. There is an age-related criteria of 65 years for ward destination after stroke as set by a ministerial decree, which is still practiced. Moreover, younger stroke patients may be offered more thorough assessments and clinical tests and therapies. Discrepancies in the level of care pose an ethical concern regarding levels of care for older stroke patients in Greece. A longstanding, age-related national policy in Greece regarding hospital admission criteria is shown to be a detrimental influence on ward admission for stroke patients. This policy, coupled with pre-hospital care protocols, was shown to promote ageism against this patient group. The age-related agenda in the Greek health care system has suffused care delivery with pockets of discrimination.

Age Discrimination law in Europe Interesting for research

Although the effect of the EC Anti-Discrimination Framework Directive 2000/78 pervades age discrimination law in all Member States, the courts of each country can and do interpret its provisions - especially pertaining to sanctions - in various ways. In addition, claims of discrimination are handled according to national law, and an administrative law system with its own particular procedure is usually present. This very useful book provides a country-by-country overview of anti-discrimination legislation and related jurisprudence in the 27 EU Member States as well as Switzerland, Russia, and Turkey. The reports, written by experienced employment lawyers from each country, offer expert practical guidance and analysis regarding national laws affecting access to employment and vocational training, information and consultation, working conditions, recruitment, dismissal, retirement, and other relevant factors. The emphasis throughout is on the application of the crucial conceptual elements that derive from EC anti-discrimination law - direct adverse treatment, indirect discrimination, and the grounds on which a difference in treatment due to age is permissible. Each report explains in detail how anti-discrimination law operates at the national level, providing lucid guidance to the legal options available under any set of circumstances likely to arise, including the following: differential treatment, including special or minimum conditions; harassment and victimisation; fixed-term contracts; age-based graduation of compensation; employment relationships with an international dimension; affirmative action; special categories of workers; complaints to a competent person or body in the company; complaints to anti-discrimination offices; suits in labour courts; compensation limits; violator's economic position; non-pecuniary damage suffered by the aggrieved party; effects of collective bargaining agreements; and social plans resulting from planned operational changes. Many of the reports pay special attention to the far-reaching implications of such important recent ECJ cases as von Colson and Kamann, Mangold, Palacios de la Villa, and Bartsch.

Purpose of the Study
Given the policy shifts toward extended work lives, it is critically important to address barriers that older workers may face in attaining and maintaining satisfactory work. This article presents a scoping review of research addressing ageism and its implications for the employment experiences and opportunities of older workers.
Design and Methods
The five-step scoping review process outlined by Arksey and O’Malley was followed. The data set included 43 research articles.
Results
The majority of articles were cross-sectional quantitative surveys, and various types of study participants (older workers, human resource personnel/manager, employers, younger workers, undergraduate students) were included. Four main themes, representing key research emphases, were identified: stereotypes and perceptions of older workers; intended behavior toward older workers; reported behavior toward older workers; and older workers’ negotiation of ageism.
Implications
Existing research provides a foundational evidence base for the existence of ageist stereotypes and perceptions about older workers and has begun to demonstrate implications in relation to intended behaviors and, to a lesser extent, actual behaviors toward older workers. A few studies have explored how aging workers attempt to negotiate ageism. Further research that extends beyond cross-sectional surveys is required to achieve more complex understandings of the implications of ageism and inform policies and practices that work against ageism.

Follow up study in 2007  9 years later  of companies in Greece and their policies and practices towards older workers. Findings - The lower educational levels of Greek older workers, compared with most EU countries, and the abolition of secure employment will make them increasingly vulnerable in the future labour market. Current levels of investment in training will not rectify this and life long learning is still not being implemented. Whether self-employment can be the solution is dubious, due to the changing economic climate and increased competition.

Objectives: This study addresses the gendered risks of loneliness and depression in later life from a social exclusion perspective. Exclusion from social relations (ESR) in older age is an unwanted situation associated with increased loneliness and depressive symptoms, with gender differences in the perception of solitude, and the evaluation of existing social networks, potentially accounting for the increased susceptibility of older women.
Method: Secondary analyses was conducted in a sample of 60,918 participants in the Survey on Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). Older persons’ subjective perception of solitude (i.e. solitude satisfaction), and their satisfaction with established relations (i.e. network satisfaction), were examined in gender-stratified regression models, predicting loneliness and depressive symptomatology, controlling for network size, demographics, and health.
Results: There was no convincing evidence for significant associations between solitude satisfaction (SoS) and loneliness among older men, nor between network satisfaction (NeS) and loneliness for both genders. Low SoS and low NeS were independently associated with more depressive symptoms and an increased probability of depression, especially among older women. This vulnerability could not be attributed to increased loneliness, as only among older women, low SoS was associated with lower levels of loneliness, and lower levels of loneliness was anaemically associated with more depressive symptoms.
Conclusions: The perception of solitude, and the evaluation of social relations, are associated with gendered risks of depression among older persons who are challenged by objective and subjective ESR states.

Objective: To investigate possible correlations between stigma and burnout of nurses and non-graduate professional caregivers of elderly with dementia in nursing homes. Background: Research on dementia stigma in health care professionals as well as its relationship with their well-being is seriously lacking. Methods: This cross-sectional study involved a convenience sample of 171 nurses and other professional caregivers in 16 Greek elderly care units who responded to Maslah Burnout Inventory (ΜΒΙ) as well as the Family Stigma in Alzheimer's Disease Scale (FS-ADS). In order to find adjusted associations between independent variables and the stigma and burnout of professional caregivers, multiple linear regression analysis was used. Results: Cognitive, emotional and behavioural attributions of the three dimensions of stigma were found to be independent predictive factors of burnout's dimensions which indicate that stigma nurses deposit on patients, contributes towards their burnout. Conclusion: Educational preparation of geriatric nurses should provide them with the option of seeing dementia as a normal stage of life since reducing stigma can contribute towards preventing and managing professional burnout.

Report on the situation of older workers in 2012 from the perspective of the social partners.

The survey was conducted on the basis of existing theoretical approaches to gender, sexuality and age, with specific analytical categories here referring to culturally defined positions and actions. Such assumptions were sought in the experiences and narratives of the interlocutors. Using  material that emerged from the interviews / narrations of the subjects, data analysis was conducted that led to new approaches to the issue, complementary or contradictory to the pre-existing ones.

Breast cancer is the most frequent malignant tumor in women worldwide and as breast cancer incidence increases with increasing age, over 40% of new cases are diagnosed in women older than 65 years of age. However, older patients are not treated to the same extent as younger patients and increasing age at diagnosis predicts deviation from guidelines for all treatment modalities. Evidence-based medicine in older patients is lacking as they are usually excluded from clinical trials often because of existing comorbidities and limited life expectancy. Accordingly, there is a higher competing risk of death from other causes than breast cancer compared with younger patients and this may have led to the false interpretation that prognosis of breast cancer in older patients is relatively good. However, every treatment modality should be evaluated during treatment decision making. Multimodal therapy should not be routinely withheld as data show that disease-specific mortality increases with age, probably due to undertreatment. Prognostic markers, fitness and comorbidities rather than chronological age should determine optimal, individualized therapy. It is recommended that treatment decisions should be discussed in a multidisciplinary setting, ideally in combination with any form of geriatric assessment, to improve breast cancer outcome in the older population.

 The aim of the thesis was to examine the relationship between people of different ages and access to employment and jobs through the prism of  the prohibition of age discrimination at work Directive 2000/78/EC. Apart from this legislation, other policies were examined  that were developed in Greece and the European Union (EU). For the purposes of this research, a theoretical research survey was conducted exploring  existing laws and policies relating to age discrimination at work. To arrive at conclusions,  the SPSS programme was  used. Finally, another aim  was also to identify the need for taking  dedicated measures to eliminate age
discrimination.

Purpose of the Study: This study investigates the anxiety people feel about aging and the psychometric properties of the Anxiety about Aging Scale (AAS) in Greek samples. Design and Methods: The AAS was administered in 3 groups: 147 primary health care professionals, 74 Nursing and Social Work students, and 99 com- munity residents. Results and Implications: A confirmatory factor analysis reproduced the 4 factors underlying the Greek-translated AAS, with acceptable reliabilities for the 3 samples. Multivariate analysis of variance showed that students expressed significantly more anxiety about aging (higher overall AAS score), more “Fear of old people,” “Psychological concerns,” and “Concerns about physical appearance,” and less “Fear of losses,” compared with professionals and community residents. Women reported the highest concerns about physical appearance compared with men. Students and professionals having experience with dementia showed lower and higher overall AAS scores, respectively, compared with those who had no such experience. The younger professionals without experience and the less educated ones with experience expressed higher overall anxiety about aging than the older professionals and the less educated both without experience. Our findings suggest the importance of implementing appropriate educational interventions and ongoing training tailored to assuage students’ and professionals’ anxiety about their own aging and lessen their ageist attitudes toward old people.

This study investigated the self-reported discrimination of professional social workers working in both age-related and non- related working conditions. The results highlight the primacy of positive prejudices against negatives, and with women being superior to male professionals. No significant difference was found between people working in the context of the third age  and those who do not work with them.

Introduction: The poor understanding of dementia leads to mistaken beliefs which create the stigma that surrounds the disease. The definition of stigma and the role it plays in defining the experience of the people with dementia is well documented in the literature.
Methods: For the scope of this review there has been a search of research and review papers in databases such as Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), Scopus, PubMed, Heal link και Google scholar focusing in papers of the last decade.
Results: An increasing number of evidence supports the existence of awareness in persons with dementia which remains for a long period of the disease and makes them vulnerable to the negative effects of stigma which was found to be divided into self-stigma, stigma of family, social stigma and structural stigma. Studies also reveal the presence of stigma within the health care professionals with negative effects on the care provided.
Discussion: In order to reduce stigma in dementia, it is important to do steps forward in education and research as well as to raise public awareness about the disease and increase knowledge about it so as to have a better understanding of the condition. This can be achieved through carefully designed strategies and public campaigns, where people with dementia will participate themselves and they will support a change towards acceptance and integration of persons who have been affected by the specific disease.

Psychological theories of aging highlight the importance of social context. However, very little research has distinguished empirically between older people's perception of how others in their social context perceive them (personal meta-perceptions) and the shared perceptions in society (societal meta-perceptions). Drawing on theories of intergroup relations and stereotyping and using a multilevel perspective, this article examines how well older people's perceptions of age discrimination (PAD) are predicted by (a) older people's personal meta-perceptions, (b) societal meta-perceptions, and (c) social norms of intolerance toward age prejudice. Aging meta-perceptions are differentiated into the cognitive and affective components of ageism. Multilevel analyses of data from the European Social Survey (Nover 70 years of age = 8,123, 29 countries; European Social Survey (ESS) Round 4 Data, 2008) confirmed that older people's personal meta-perceptions of negative age stereotypes and specific intergroup emotions (pity, envy, contempt) are associated with higher PAD. However, at the societal-level, only paternalistic meta-perceptions were consistently associated with greater PAD. The results show that a few meta-perceptions operate only as a psychological phenomenon in explaining PAD, some carry consonant, and others carry contrasting effects at the societal-level of analysis. This evidence extends previous research on aging meta-perceptions by showing that both the content of meta-perceptions and the level of analysis at which they are assessed make distinct contributions to PAD. Moreover, social norms of intolerance of age prejudice have a larger statistical effect than societal meta-perceptions. Social interventions would benefit from considering these differential findings.

At a time of unpredictable challenges for health, whether from a changing climate, emerging infectious diseases, or the next microbe that develops drug resistance, one trend is certain: the ageing of populations is rapidly accelerating worldwide. For the first time in history, most people can expect to live into their 60s and beyond. The consequences for health, health systems, their workforce and budgets are profound.
The World report on ageing and health responds to these challenges by recommending equally profound changes in the way health policies for ageing populations are formulated and services are provided. As the foundation for its recommendations, the report looks at what the latest evidence has to say about the ageing process, noting that many common perceptions and assumptions about older people are based on outdated stereotypes.

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