The recently widowed experience many complex problems, and an understanding of their needs and the kinds of difficulties they encounter is essential if appropriate services and help are to be mobilized. It is the old who are most likely to be widowed, and they may face this crisis at a time when they may also be adjusting to ill health and increasing infirmity, and to retirement, with its problems of role identification and adaptation to an increase in leisure and a decrease in wealth. Most will have to learn to live alone, or to uproot themselves from their home and adjust to life with relatives. Often, the elderly person will have been involved in caring for their spouse during his or her terminal illness; widowhood will mean that they have lost their main occupation. For some, who are themselves disabled, widowhood may mean that they have lost the person who cared for them, so that there is an immediate crisis as alternative sources of care need to be found. These problems have to be faced in a situation often complicated by the anxiety, loneliness, apathy, and bewilderment of bereavement.