is a social-psychological theory of aging that suggests that disengagement is the inevitable process of dissolving relational ties between a person and society; some consider it a normal part of the aging process (Johnson & Mutchler, 2014; Reed, 1970).
Since then results from a ten year programme of interdisciplinary research which began in the USA in the late 1960s, led to a paradigm shift away from disengagement theory to "successful ageing" (Rowe & Kahn, 1998).
Apart from disengagement theory, which has been discredited as arbitrary, partial, and potentially oppressive (Hugman, 1999, p.
In recent decades, attitudes have shifted away from disengagement theory towards successful and productive ageing, and socially acceptable options available to older people are now more varied.
Written for specialists, though accessible to the lay reader, entries are included on such topics as ageism, alcohol use, ambulatory and outpatient care, caregiver burden, disengagement theory
, and nutrition.
The concept was coined by Swedish gerontologist Lars Tornstam, who had come to believe that disengagement theory (Cumming, 1963; Cumming, Dean, Newell, & McCaffrey, 1960; Cumming & Henry, 1961) had been unjustly abandoned by gerontology.
Disengagement theory was able to explain that some people were satisfied with life, even though they did not perform according to the norms of activity theory.
Gero-transcendence; a reformulation of the disengagement theory.
During the 1960s and 1970s, however, critics of disengagement theory consolidated prevailing ideas about activity into a theory of activity that jelled with popular and philosophical writing in championing retirement life as busy, creative, healthy, and mobile.
Gerotranscendence: A Meta-Theoretical Reformulation of the Disengagement Theory.
Disengagement theory (Johnson and Barer 1992) involves a fundamental change in both pattern and level of activities.
All but disengagement theory assume that people want to maintain their level or pattern of activities or both.