Advances in Gerontology最新文献

This article presents materials of an empirical study of the peculiarities of the way of life of visually impaired older people in a social rehabilitation context. In comparison with older people without disabling visual impairments, the older blind and visually impaired, according to the results of this questionnaire survey, are characterized in terms of their position in society, the preservation of the “inner core” of the personality, involvement in social and cultural life, the need for novelty and expansion of “spiritual and cultural spaces,” creative activity, and social and cultural communication.

Cognitive impairment is one of the most common causes of reduced quality of life in elderly people. The aim of the study was to evaluate the impact of functional status, physical health, and cognitive functions in 55–64 year old women. The study included 250 women at ages of 55–64 years (mean age 59.3 ± 2.9 years). The study analyzed socio-demographic and economic factors, as well as functional and cognitive status and looked into the presence and prevalence of geriatric syndromes and their association with social, demographic, and economic characteristics and risk factors for the development of chronic noncommunicable diseases. The prevalence of cognitive impairments was independently associated with education level, low income of patients, diabetes mellitus, glomerular filtration rate, and vertebral artery diameter. Among these parameters, the level of education was a protective factor.

This research offers a method of estimating human biological age based on the spectral analysis of the bioelectric activity of the brain for the first time. We have developed an IDC decentralization index, which is calculated by taking the total reduction of the background neurotrophic influences of the brain activating system on the peripheral tissues and organs into account. The obtained dependence of the IDC index on the age of healthy people at ages of 10 to 90, as well as on the degree of differentiation G1–G4 of cancer cells, was close to linear. The accumulation of cell malfunctions and mutations with age could be detected by the growth in the IDC index from 100 to 900 units. An even greater number of cell mutations in cancer patients with the G1 to G4 degree of cell differentiation resulted in the IDC index increasing to 3000 units or more. These data allowed us to estimate a person’s biological age after a 10-minute registration of the bioelectric activity of the brain. The estimation accuracy increased when averaged data were obtained for several trials of each subject. The technology is applicable in scientific research in the field of gerontology, monitoring healthy people, revealing risk groups, and controlling treatment process in cancer patients.

This article examines the prevalence of the main geriatric syndromes in elderly people at ages of 65–74 years at a social welfare institution. The subjects of the study were 77 patients, 51 (66.2%) were men, 26 (33.7%) were women. The average age of the patients was 68.3 ± 7.2 years. The Optimization of care in geriatrics depending on the degree of senile asthenia computer program was used to identify geriatric syndromes. Among the main geriatric syndromes, patients were found to have a high risk of falls, deterioration of spiritual welfare, the risk of developing depression, and cognitive impairment. All identified syndromes caused a high dependence on outside help: 87% of the patients were dependent on various degrees of support. When organizing medical care in a social welfare institution, it is advisable to carry out a comprehensive geriatric assessment in patients at ages of 65 and over aimed at solving and improving medical care for these patients.

In the aging world population, inpatient services for elderly patients have become an increasingly important issue. These patients may have accompanying psychological problems and mental disorders. Psychological evaluations of the patients, in which situations psychiatric consultation should be requested and the principles of psychiatric approach should be determined. This study aimed to determine the risk factors leading to psychiatric consultation in elderly hospitalized patients, determine psychiatric comorbidities, and determine the role of psychiatric consultations in psychopharmacological treatment. All psychiatric consultations requested from patients over 65 years of age hospitalized patients in University of Health Sciences Ankara City Hospital from September 2019 to March 2020 (189 male and 137 female, in total 326) were evaluated. The files of the patients were examined retrospectively through the hospital system, and the information was recorded in the data collection form. This form includes the following information: sociodemographic characteristics, hospitalization service, the reason for hospitalization, additional diseases other than hospitalization diagnosis, duration of hospitalization, the reason for requesting psychiatric consultation, diagnosis after psychiatric consultation, psychotropic drugs used before the consultation, psychotropic drugs recommended after consultation, the total number of drugs used. While agitation is the most common reason for psychiatry consultation in elderly patients, the most common psychiatric disease diagnosis is delirium. Drug treatment was not recommended to almost one-third of the patients, and recommendations were made to increase psychosocial and treatment compliance regarding their complaints. Patients diagnosed with delirium have higher re-consultation rates. Haloperidol and quetiapine are the most commonly recommended psychotropic. Sertraline and escitalopram are the most commonly recommended antidepressants in elderly hospitalized patients. Psychiatric consultations should be planned without workforce loss, and in a more qualified way, pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions should be appropriately performed.

As people get older, they perceive old age as starting later. Such phenomenon is explained by the so-called “age-group dissociation effect.” Since old people (as a part of society) and old age (as a stage of life) are the source of negative connotations, people tend to mentally distance from them in order to avoid stigma and to improve personal well-being. This study aims to investigate the impact of the attitude towards old people on the mental distance separating from the old-age threshold. Using data from European Social Survey (round 4), two measurement tools were developed: Ageism Index (AI) and Modified Mental Distance (MMD). The obtained results indicated no linear relationship between these two parameters. As so, no empirical evidence that supports the “age-group dissociation effect” hypothesis was found.

This study was aimed at assessing the negative impact of an acquired single-sided deafness on quality of life of the elderly. Prospective analysis of outpatient records was carried out to identify elderly patients with single-sided deafness using pure tone audiometry. The main inclusion criteria were age over 60, a 90 dB or higher threshold of an affected ear, a 30 dB or less threshold of an intact ear, and an acquired single-sided hearing loss with sudden onset and a deafness duration of less than 5 years. Taking the inclusion criteria into account, two groups were formed: the main group with single-sided deaf patients (n = 25) and the control group of patients with normal hearing (n = 25). All participants were surveyed with the PSQ, HHIE, and THI questionnaires. Some changes in psychological status in the group of patients with single-sided deafness in comparison with the group of normal hearing participants were revealed. The scores of the questionnaires showed increased stress and anxiety levels and deterioration in their quality of life. Patients with single-sided deafness complained about severe tinnitus in an affected ear, worse intelligibility of speech in a noisy environment and a constant need to adapt to the different acoustic situations that in turn affected psychoemotional homeostasis badly, intensifying the severity of stress, and their quality of life.

The features and severity of anxiety-depressive disorders and cognitive dysfunction in elderly people living in different social conditions have been studied. According to the HADS scale, anxiety disorders of a high degree were established in 60% of the clients of a nursing home and 19.7% who live in their own homes. Clinical severity of depression was noted in 58.2% of cases in the nursing home and in 11.5% in their own homes. High and moderate levels of state and trait anxiety also prevailed among the clients of the nursing home. This was accompanied by an increased risk of signs of cognitive deficit and manifestations of dementia, which is confirmed by the correlation between the degree of severity of anxiety–depressive disorders and the indicators of psychological status on the MMSE scale.

Our study was design to determine the association between depressive symptoms and mortality in adults over 60 years old Navy Peruvian Veterans. We performed a retrospective cohort study based on a previous cohort study. A total of 1681 patients over 60 years old were included between 2010–2015. Demographic information, self-reported information about falls, physical frailty assessment, tobacco consumption, hypertension, Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and was collected. Depression was assessed by the short form of the Geriatric Depression Scale. We found that depressive symptoms were present in 24.9% of the participants and 40.5% of them died. Mortality risk in patients with depressive symptoms, physical frailty, and male sex was: RR of 23.1 (95% CI: 11.7–45.7), 3.84 (95% CI: 2.16–6.82), and 1.37 (95% CI: 1.07–1.75) respectively. We concluded that depressive symptoms in Peruvian retired military personnel and their immediate relatives are high and are significatively associated with mortality. Also, being male and frail was associated with an increased risk of death. This reinforces that early detection and assessment of depressive symptoms could be an opportunity to improve the health status of older adults.

The incidence of cardiovascular and kidney disease with age is growing steadily worldwide. The factors for cardiovascular and kidney diseases are similar at elderly ages. Left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) in chronic kidney disease (CKD) at an elderly age is not well understood. The goal of this study was to examine changes in a structural state of the left ventricular myocardium depending on the severity of clinical and laboratory manifestations of CKD in elderly patients. Clinical, laboratory, and instrumental examination of 62 patients at ages of 60 to 74 years (the young old) was carried out; the average age was 63.7 ± 3.66 years. The study involved the analysis of parameters of red blood, lipid spectrum, creatinine, daily proteinuria, C-reactive protein, and blood electrolytes. Glomerular filtration rate (GFR) was assessed using the CKD-EPI formula. The eccentric type was found to be the predominant variant of LVH at the early stages of CKD (S1, S2, and S3) at elderly ages. In the presence of renal failure (S4 and S5 of CKD), changes in the structure of the myocardium are characterized by a predominantly concentric type of left ventricular remodeling in the elderly. The factors associated with the development of left ventricular remodeling in elderly patients with CKD included age, arterial hypertension, anemia, dyslipidemia, and proteinuria, as well as an appreciable decline in the level of GFR.