Ageing, Disability and Spirituality
Addressing the Challenge
of Disability in Later Life
Edited by Elizabeth MacKinlay

This collection of essays began with the preparation for the third national
conference on ageing and spirituality, hosted by the Centre for Ageing and
Pastoral Studies (CAPS). Each of the five conferences hosted by CAPS so far has
focused on a different aspect of ageing and spirituality; this conference focused
on disability. Disability in later life arises from two different perspectives:
lifelong disabilities and acquired disabilities of ageing.
Authors of the major papers, selected concurrent presentations and
workshops were invited to write on these important topics for this book. The
perspective is a spiritual one, and the questions examined include:What does it
mean to live with disabilities, mental and/or physical?What does it mean to be
a person with disabilities? What does it mean to care for someone who has
disabilities? How does spirituality assist people living with disabilities? What
spiritual strengths can be drawn on by carers?
This is not a book that will tell you how to provide physical care for older
people who have disabilities; there are other books that do that. This book
focuses on the effects of the disabilities and how people may live effective and
meaningful lives in the face of disability.