Aging Well

May L. Wykle, PhD, RN, FAAN, FGSA, FAGHE, is the Marvin E. and Ruth Durr Denekas Professor of Nursing and Dean of the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve University. She was a recipient of a National Institutes of Mental Health Geriatric Mental Health Academic Award, and Director of a 5-year Robert Wood Johnson Teaching Nursing Home Project. Dr. Wykle’s research interests include geriatric mental health, self-care behaviors among aged cohorts, family caregiving, stresses and strains in elderly physical health, and self-care and compliance of chronically ill aged. She directed a 4-year study funded by the National Center for Nursing Research (NIH) on Black vs. White Caregivers’ Formal/Informal Service Use, and a 3-year study funded by the National Institute on Aging (NIA) on MD Style, Self-Care and Compliance of Chronically Ill Aged. She was a delegate and served on the Planning Committee of the 1993 White House Conference on Aging, and formerly served on the Geriatric/Gerontology Advisory Committee for the Veterans Administration. Her work has been recognized both locally and nationally with numerous awards. Dr. Wykle has authored many articles and has edited 5 books, including Serving Minority Elders in the 21st Century (1999). She is a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing, the Gerontological Society of America, and the Association of Gerontology in Higher Education. She is on the Board of the Rosalynn Carter Family Caregiving Institute, and served as the first Pope eminent scholar in aging. Sarah H. Gueldner, PhD, RN, FAAN, FNAP, FGSA, FAGHE, is the Arline H. and Curtis F. Garvin Professor in Nursing at the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve University, and was formerly head of the nursing programs at the Pennsylvania state University and Binghamton University. Her research interests include identifying simple ways to improve the health and quality of life for elders, incorporating qualitative studies to determine what makes them feel healthy. She was principal investigator of a federally funded randomized clinical trial to measure the effect of outdoor walking on life satisfaction and mood in nursing home residents. She also developed the ten-item Well-Being Picture Scale (WPS) and has tested its ability to measure sense of well-being in elders who for any reason may not be able to read print, or who are too frail to complete more lengthy measurement instruments. The WPS has been used in the United States, Canada, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Egypt, Brazil, and Africa. Dr. Gueldner has published her research findings widely, and is co-editor of four books on gerontological topics, including osteoporosis,successful aging and adaptation to chronic diseases in older adults, and a commemorative dialogue celebrating the International Year of Older Persons in 1999. She recently received Sigma Theta Tau International’s Award for Excellence in Creativity, and her work was spotlighted in the October 2009 issue of the Journal of Gerontological Nursing.