Journal of Aging Research最新文献

The Rohingya people have been subjected to egregious human rights abuses, culminating in a mass exodus to the Cox's Bazar district of Bangladesh in 2017. This study investigated the knowledge, attitudes, and practices surrounding older persons within the Rohingya refugee community while also elucidating the present community support mechanisms crucial for their well-being, through a sequential mixed-methods approach. The study specifically focuses on older Rohingya persons aged 60 years and above. A printed survey questionnaire was administered to 377 Rohingya refugees residing in camps, complemented by key informant interviews (KIIs) conducted with eight experts and community leaders to gain nuanced insights into the challenges and support systems. The quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics to determine the prevalence of specific knowledges, attitudes, and practices while qualitative data from KIIs were subjected to thematic analysis in alignment with numerical facts, identifying recurring themes related to community support and vulnerabilities. The findings revealed that a significant majority (89.92%) of older Rohingya refugees lived within extended family structures, underscoring the importance of intergenerational coresidence, and a substantial proportion of respondents (87.23%) acknowledged and respected the wisdom and experience of elders. Family bonds, sociocultural, and religious factors played significant roles in ensuring personal care. However, older persons faced numerous vulnerabilities related to insufficient food, unfriendly infrastructure, inadequate healthcare, poor social services, and so on. This paper concludes with several recommendations particularly to strengthen community support for the well-being of older Rohingya refugees living in Bangladesh.

Introduction: This study explores the role of Pakistani women caregivers in older people's decision-making regarding access to healthcare services and medicine practices, including attitudes towards medicine adherence and self-medication.

Methods: Data were collected from 52 women who cared for older people using focus group discussions and semistructured interviews. The study was conducted in the rural and urban regions of Sargodha District, Punjab.

Results: Informal women caregivers play a pronounced role in decision-making about healthcare access and medicine-taking practices for older people. Treating illnesses at home with allopathic medicines is a common practice in both urban and rural settings. Caregivers were unaware of the risk associated with a delay in health-seeking and self-medication.

Conclusion: Findings suggest that educational interventions and coaching should be provided to improve family caregivers' knowledge so that they can contribute to better health outcomes for older people.

Aim: To identify the experiences, expectations, and preferred transitional care expressed by nursing home residents and close family, thus mapping perceived barriers and facilitators to improve this identification process.

Design: In this study, a qualitative design was employed.

Methods: Individual, semistructured interviews were conducted.

Data sources: Interviews of 12 participants (3 residents and 9 close family) were conducted. The data were analyzed using thematic analysis to identify underlying themes.

Results: The following three themes were identified: (1) changes in life situations, (2) dimensions of transfer quality, and (3) interactions with staff.

Conclusion: Nursing home residents and close family emphasize that proper medical care is necessary. However, this is insufficient without addressing multiple ongoing life changes of individuals transitioning between nursing homes and emergency departments. Yet, this effort to manage life changes is significantly insufficient without the support of healthcare professionals.

Introduction: This study investigated domain-specific physical activity (PA) and sedentary behavior (SB) among older adults living in a Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC) as a function of risk of mobility disability.

Methods: Secondary cross-sectional data from 100 older CCRC residents were analyzed. The short physical performance battery (SPPB) assessed mobility disability risk, and PA and SB were self-reported. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Mann-Whitney U test, and Quade's nonparametric ANOVA, with significance set at p < 0.05.

Results: Fifty-nine participants had an SPPB score < 10, indicating high mobility disability risk, while 41 had a score ≥ 10, indicating low risk. The low-risk group had higher total PA (67.1 ± 41.8 vs. 49.2 ± 40.5, p=0.012) and leisure PA (30.5 ± 25.1 vs. 21.2 ± 23.5, p=0.035) minutes, and higher total sedentary minutes (645.8 ± 209.6 vs. 567.0 ± 290.8, p=0.007) and non-screen sedentary minutes (447.1 ± 182.7 vs. 350.0 ± 164.8, p=0.002) than the high risk group. After controlling for age, perceived health, and assistive device use, the differences between groups were no longer significant (p > 0.05).

Discussion: Despite nonsignificant adjusted differences, our findings indicate overall low PA and high SB in the study participants. Given the well-documented benefits of PA, targeted interventions are needed to increase PA and reduce SB in this population.

Introduction: Humanin, a mitochondrial-derived peptide, decreases in the elderly. This study evaluated the effects of concurrent moderate-intensity endurance training (MIET) or high-intensity interval training (HIIT) with D-galactose injection on cardiac function, and the serum and heart levels of humanin and IGF-1 in Wistar male rats. Methods: Left ventricular systolic pressure (LVSP), left ventricular end diastolic pressure (LVEDP), ±maxdp/dt, contractility index (CI) and, Tau were monitored by PowerLab system in CTL, CTL + MIET, CTL + HIIT, D-gal, D-gal + MIET, and D-gal + HIIT groups. The histopathological score, fibrosis, and humanin and IGF-1 levels were measured with hematoxylin & eosin, Masson's trichrome, and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, respectively. Results: Histopathological score and heart fibrosis were reduced by HIIT and MIET in the D-gal group. LVSP, ±maxdp/dt, and CI were lower, while LVEDP and Tau were higher in the D-gal group than in the CTL group. MIET and HIIT alleviated the changes in LVSP, ±maxdp/dt, CI, LVEDP, and Tau. HIIT and MIET increased humanin levels in heart and serum of the D-gal group by modifying IGF-1 levels. Conclusion: The study suggests HIIT and MIET may improve cardiac function by regulating the IGF-1-humanin signaling pathway.

The variation of ribosomal (parameter R), satellite III (1q12) (parameter S), and telomere (parameter T) tandem repeats content of the human genome was studied in DNA samples isolated from blood leukocytes of 535 people whose age varied from 5 to 101 years. For analysis we used the method of nonradioactive quantitative hybridization. The group of centenarians (90-101 years old, N = 106) differs from other age groups by a significantly narrower distribution of the ribosomal repeat content in DNA, a much higher content of satellite III, and a lower content of telomere repeat. A negative correlation was found between the S and T parameters (p < 10^-4). The findings of this study suggest that the calculated parameters S/T and S/(R∗T) exhibit a marked increase with age, culminating in maximal values within the cohort of centenarians. These results imply that the parameters R, S/T, and S/(R∗T) may hold the potential to serve as reliable predictors of life expectancy for individuals in advanced age.

Background: Aging leads to physiological and psychological changes that compromise both mental and physical autonomy, as well as cognitive functions, thereby increasing the risk of anxiety and depression. The sedentary lifestyle typical of older individuals results in a deterioration of the overall quality of life and well-being. Objective: This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of Hatha yoga in improving cognitive health among older adults. We will specifically examine the impact of this practice on attention, memory, and reasoning. Methods: The present study assesses the impact of Hatha yoga on attention, memorization, and reasoning in healthy older adults aged between 65 and 80 years. The study population comprises 45 healthy individuals (26 men and 19 women; 72.3 ± 5.6 years) residing in a retirement home, divided into three groups: a yoga group (YOGA, n = 15) that participated in yoga sessions; a physical activity group (APS, n = 15) engaged in sports and physical activities sessions; and a control group (CONT, n = 15) that did not undertake any activities. The study spanned 24 sessions, with two sessions per week lasting 45 min each. Participants completed test sessions dedicated to evaluating attention, memory, and reasoning before (T0) and after (T1) 12 weeks. A two-way ANOVA was used to analyze the differences between groups and over time. Results: After the intervention sessions, the data showed that the YOGA group registered significantly greater improvements at T1 compared to that of T0 in all cognitive parameters (e.g., attention (p < 0.001, Hedges' g = 1.35), memory (p < 0.001, Hedges' g = 1.04), and reasoning (p < 0.001, Hedges' g = 1.82)). Furthermore, our results revealed a significant difference between the YOGA group and both the APS (p < 0.001) and CONT (p < 0.01) groups for the attention and reasoning parameters at T1. Conclusions: This study underscores the potential of Hatha yoga to enhance the mental well-being of the elderly, suggesting significant benefits for cognitive well-being in this population. Trial Registration: Pan African Clinical Trials Registry: PACTR202405804830163.

Available assessments for early-stage Alzheimer's disease (AD) identify neuropsychological and functional impairments, which rarely correlate in the early disease stages. The ability to bind information in memory declines in preclinical AD stages. However, it is unclear whether such cognitive deficits underlie functional impairment in prodromal AD stages. This study investigates whether incorporating memory binding, a function that is a sensitive cognitive marker for early-stage AD, into a functional assessment tool can reveal the cognitive underpinnings of daily activities. The Details of Function of Everyday Life (DoFEL) scale was revised, and its latent structure was explored through principal axis factoring in a nonclinical sample (n = 559). Dementia professionals subsequently reviewed the revised DoFEL for content validity, followed by confirmatory factor analysis in another nonclinical sample (n = 135). Additionally, 49 participants with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and 33 healthy controls completed the DoFEL, Addenbrooke's Cognitive Examination-Revised (ACE-R) and a Visual Short-Term Memory Binding Task (VSTMBT). Correlation analysis and binomial regression were used to examine the relationship between DoFEL scores and cognitive measures and to assess its ability to differentiate between healthy controls and MCI patients. The revised DoFEL showed satisfactory structural and construct validity, although some items lacked content validity. Significant negative associations were found between DoFEL scores and ACE-R (r = -0.66, p < 0.001) as well as VSTMBT (r = -0.52, p=0.003) performances. Binomial regression demonstrated the DoFEL's effectiveness in distinguishing healthy controls from MCI patients (AUC = 0.95). These findings suggest that linking memory binding with functional performance could enhance functional assessment in early-stage AD.

Background: Sarcopenia is a geriatric condition marked by decreased muscle mass and function as people age. The SARC-F questionnaire is a simple and useful instrument for sarcopenia screening but it is not available in the Arabic language. This study aimed to translate the SARC-F into the Arabic language, validate it among Arabic-speaking older adults, and explore the association between SARC-F and fatigue, QOL, and cognitive impairment. Methods: SARC-F was translated into Arabic according to WHO guidelines, and older adults aged 60 years and older were recruited. Test-retest reliability of SARC-F was examined over a 2-week period. SARC-F was validated based on the revised European Working Group on Sarcopenia in Older People criteria. Sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive values were assessed against bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA). The association between the Arabic SARC-F and Modified Fatigue Impact Scale, Medical Outcomes Study Short Form 12, and Montreal Cognitive Assessment was investigated too. Results: Eighty-six older adults participated in this study (59.3% females). The Arabic SARC-F showed an intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) of 0.926 (95% CI = 0.88-0.95) and Cronbach's alpha of 0.81. Sensitivity, specificity, and positive predictive value and negative predictive value were 36.4%, 78.7%, 20%, and 89.3%, respectively. The Arabic version of SARC-F showed good reliability and validity. Conclusion: The Arabic SARC-F is a valid and reliable tool for sarcopenia screening, showing a good ability to identify individuals with sarcopenia and predict the absence of the condition. The Arabic SARC-F was associated with fatigue and QOL but not with cognitive impairment. These results support the use of the Arabic SARC-F as a useful questionnaire for sarcopenia screening in Arabic-speaking populations.

Background: Diabetes mellitus is linked to progressive cognitive decline and motor impairments, especially among the aging population, highlighting the importance of early detection through reliable neuronal biomarkers. Proteins such as neurofilament light chain (NFL), neurogranin (Ng), and visinin-like protein 1 (VILIP-1) have emerged as indicators of neurodegeneration and associated behavioral changes. This study examined the effects of combined endurance and resistance exercise, along with ursolic acid (UA) supplementation, on hippocampal neuronal biomarkers and exploratory-locomotor behavior in aged diabetic rats. Methods: In this experiment, 21-month-old male Wistar rats were assigned to seven groups. Diabetes was induced using a single intraperitoneal dose of streptozotocin (STZ) (30 mg/kg) in combination with a high-fat diet (55% fat, 31% carbohydrate, and 14% protein). Interventions included endurance training (60%-75% vVO_2max), resistance training (60% MVCC), and daily oral UA administration (250 mg/kg) over eight weeks. Neuronal biomarkers (NFL, Ng, and VILIP-1) were measured in hippocampal tissue via western blot, and exploratory and locomotor behavior was assessed using the open-field test. Results: The results showed that UA supplementation combined with resistance training significantly reduced the levels of neuronal biomarkers NFL (p < 0.001), Ng (p < 0.01), and VILIP-1 (p < 0.001) in diabetic rats compared to untreated diabetic controls. Conclusion: The study demonstrated that diabetes leads to a marked elevation in NFL, Ng, and VILIP-1 protein levels, while a combined intervention of exercise and UA mitigated neurodegenerative changes and improved exploratory-locomotor outcomes.