European Journal of Ageing最新文献

This study aims to contribute to the growing interest in the consequences of migration for loneliness by investigating the role of generational status across various age groups in countries with differing integration policies and attitudes towards immigrants. Using data from rounds 5, 6 and 7 of the European Social Survey, I conducted logistic multilevel models on a sample of 121,835 respondents aged 18 years and older, residing in 26 countries. Loneliness was assessed based on a single-item item question from the Center for Epidemiologic Studies of Depression scale. The findings suggest that individuals with a migration background are more likely to experience loneliness than those without. Within this group, I found that first-generation immigrants who arrived after the age of 18 are more vulnerable to loneliness than those who arrived earlier, although the latter still reported more loneliness than second-generation immigrants. Furthermore, migration-related inequalities in loneliness were greater among the youngest age group (18-34 years) and in countries with a more positive public stance towards immigrants. In sum, this study highlights the persistent challenges that migration poses for loneliness across generations and age groups, and emphasizes the need to extend research in this area beyond older adults. Moreover, it suggests that promoting a welcoming culture towards immigrants may have unintended consequences for loneliness gaps, but further research is needed to explain this observation.

Some studies show that the protective effect of higher income on health weakens with old age (age-as-leveller pattern), whereas others show that it strengthens with old age (cumulative advantage/disadvantage pattern). Many existing studies are limited in that they use single-country and/or single-timepoint designs. To overcome these limitations and better understand how the income-health gradient evolves in older age, we used cross-national and longitudinal data of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (2004-2019, N = 73,407) and the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (2011-2018, N = 10,067). We operationalised health using multimorbidity and three alternative indicators (functional disability, mobility disability, and memory). We performed Poisson growth curve modelling to capture the between-participant effects of age and the within-participant effects of aging. We obtained three consistent and robust findings for Europe (patterns were observed in most countries) and China. First, the protective effect of higher income on multimorbidity, functional disability, and mobility disability was weaker for older than for younger adults (between-participant age-as-leveller pattern). Second, only the protective effect of higher income on mobility disability weakened over the later life course (within-participant age-as-leveller pattern). Third, the protective effect of higher income on memory was stronger for older than for younger adults and strengthened over the later life course (between-participant and within-participant cumulative advantage/disadvantage pattern). Longitudinal data, growth curve modelling distinguishing the between-participant from within-participant effect, and adjustments for potential confounders based on the hypothesised causal structure enabled us to better navigate the landscape of causal inference. Findings suggest that the income-related gap in physical health but not in cognitive health narrows in old age for both Europe and China.

Object: The cognitive complaints encountered in late-life depression (LLD) make it difficult to distinguish from amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) based on an analysis of neurocognitive disorders. The hypothesis of the early impairment of semantic memory in AD and aMCI is considered a potential differential cognitive clue, but the absence of this impairment has not yet been confirmed in  LLD.

Method: Based on the PRISMA method, we systematically seek neuropsychological assessments of individuals with LLD, the present study included 31 studies representing 3291 controls and 2820 people with LLD. Wherever possible, studies that tested simultaneously groups with LLD, AD (or aMCI) were also included. The results of the group of neuropsychological tasks relying on semantic memory were analyzed in two groups of tasks with high- or low-executive demand. The mean average effect of LLD was calculated and compared to the incremental effect of aMCI or AD on the scores. Linear regressions including education, age, and severity and type of depression were run to seek their power of prediction for the mean average effects.

Results: LLD has a medium effect on scores at semantic and phonemic fluency and naming and a small average effect on the low-executive demand tasks. Differences in education is a predictor of the effect of LLD on phonemic fluency and naming but not on semantic fluency or on low-executive demand tasks. Except for semantic fluency, aMCI did not demonstrate an incremental effect on the scores compared to LLD, while AD did, for all the tasks except phonemic fluency.

Conclusion: Assessment of semantic memory can be a discriminating clue for the distinction between depression and Alzheimer's disease but some methodological variables are highly influential to the scores, especially education. However, high-executive semantic tasks alone do not allow us to clearly distinguish LLD from AD or aMCI, as both pathologies seem to have a largely dialectical influential relationship, but low-executive semantic tasks appear as more sensible to this pathological distinction.

Study objectives: Sleep duration has been shown to associate with cognitive function, but little is known about the short-term effect of sleep duration on the previous night. This study examines how usual sleep duration and previous night's sleep duration are associated with cognitive function in older adults.

Methods: The study population consisted of 2949 adults aged 59-92 years (mean 72.6, SD 5.7) derived from three Finnish cohorts. Participants' self-reported usual sleep duration was categorized into short (< 7 h, 19%), mid-range (7- < 9 h, 64%), and long (≥ 9 h, 17%). Self-reported sleep duration on the night prior to cognitive testing was categorized into shorter (59%), same (35%), and longer (5.9%) than usual sleep duration. Computerized Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB®) was used to assess: (1) learning and memory, (2) working memory, (3) information processing, and (4) reaction time.

Results: Participants with self-reported long, but not short, usual sleep duration had poorer learning and memory (p = .004), information processing (p = .003), and reaction time (p = .006) when compared to those with mid-range sleep duration. Those who slept more than usually the night prior to cognitive testing had poorer information processing (p = .019) than those sleeping the same as usually, while sleeping less than usually was not associated with cognitive function.

Conclusions: This study suggests that while long sleep duration was associated with worse cognitive function, sleeping more than usually the night prior to cognitive testing was only associated with information processing, and sleeping less than usually is not associated with cognitive function.

Early labour market exit of large birth cohorts will put pressure on the social security systems of many European countries, especially Germany. Despite political efforts, many people retire before the statutory retirement age. A well-known predictor of retirement is health, which, in turn, is influenced by psychosocial working conditions such as work-related stress. This study examined whether work stress is associated with early labour market exit. In addition, we investigated whether health mediates this association. Survey data of the German Cohort Study on Work, Age, Health and Work Participation (lidA study) were linked to register data from the Federal Employment Agency, from which information on labour market exit was obtained (n = 3636). During a 6-year follow-up period, Cox proportional hazard models were used to investigate the influence of work-related stress and health on early labour market exit, adjusting for sex, age, education, occupational status, income and supervisor behaviour. Work-related stress was measured by effort-reward imbalance (ERI). Additionally, a mediation analysis was conducted to investigate a possible mediation of the association between ERI and early labour market exit by self-rated health. Higher work-related stress increased the likelihood of early labour market exit (HR 1.86; 95% CI 1.19-2.92). However, when including health in the Cox regression, the significant effect of work-related stress disappeared. Poor health was a risk factor for early labour market exit (HR 1.49; 95% CI 1.26-1.76) independent of all confounders. The results of the mediation analysis showed that self-rated health mediated the association between ERI and early labour market exit. The balance between effort and reward at work plays a major role in improving the self-rated health of workers. Interventions that reduce work-related stress can help to improve health and thus to maintain older employees in the German labour market.

There is a gap in knowledge about factors associated with the duration of late life dependency. In this study, we measured how the age at onset of late life dependency relates to the time spent with late life dependency. Using Swedish register data, we identified people 70 + who entered the period of late life dependency (measured by entering long-term care for help with PADLs) between June and December 2008. We followed this cohort (n = 17,515) for 7 years, or until death. We used Laplace regression models to estimate the median number of months with late life dependency by age group, gender, level of education and country of birth. We also calculated the crude percentiles (p10, p25, p50, p75 and p90) of month with late life dependency, by age group, gender and cohabitation status. Results show that the majority spent a rather long period with dependency, the median number of months were 40.0 (3.3 years) for women and 22.6 (1.9 year) for men. A higher age at entry was associated with a shorter duration of dependency, an association that was robust to adjustment for cohabiting at baseline, gender, education and country of birth. Our results suggest that older adults who postpone the start of dependency also compress the time with dependency, this lends support to the ambitions of public health initiatives and interventions targeting maintained independence in older adults.

Background: Detecting impaired naming capacity contributes to the detection of mild (MildND) and major (MajorND) neurocognitive disorder due to Alzheimer's disease (AD). The Test for Finding Word retrieval deficits (WoFi) is a new, 50-item, auditory stimuli-based instrument.

Objective: The study aimed to adapt WoFi to the Greek language, to develop a short version of WoFi (WoFi-brief), to compare the item frequency and the utility of both instruments with the naming subtest of the widely used Addenbrooke's cognitive examination III (ACEIIINaming) in detecting MildND and MajorND due to AD.

Methods: This cross-sectional, validation study included 99 individuals without neurocognitive disorder, as well as 114 and 49 patients with MildND and MajorND due to AD, respectively. The analyses included categorical principal components analysis using Cramer's V, assessment of the frequency of test items based on corpora of television subtitles, comparison analyses, Kernel Fisher discriminant analysis models, proportional odds logistic regression (POLR) models and stratified repeated random subsampling used to recursive partitioning to training and validation set (70/30 ratio).

Results: WoFi and WoFi-brief, which consists of 16 items, have comparable item frequency and utility and outperform ACEIIINaming. According to the results of the discriminant analysis, the misclassification error was 30.9%, 33.6% and 42.4% for WoFi, WoFi-brief and ACEIIINaming, respectively. In the validation regression model including WoFi the mean misclassification error was 33%, while in those including WoFi-brief and ACEIIINaming it was 31% and 34%, respectively.

Conclusions: WoFi and WoFi-brief are more effective in detecting MildND and MajorND due to AD than ACEIIINaming.

This research aims to better understand the association of personality traits (PT)-Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism-with health literacy (HL) skills of adults aged 58 years and older in a nationally representative sample from Switzerland. Analyses were conducted on a subsample (n = 1546) of respondents living in Switzerland from wave 8 (2019/2020) of the Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). PT were assessed with the Big-Five inventory ten (BFI-10). HL was measured using the short version of the European Health Literacy Survey questionnaire (HLS-EU-Q16). We used multivariable regressions to explore how respondents' PT are independently associated with (1) the HLS-EU-Q16 and (2) seven sub-indices derived from this HL scale. Results demonstrated that even when controlling for social, regional, and health characteristics, PT were significantly associated with HL among older adults in Switzerland. More open individuals showed better HL competencies. By contrast, individuals who scored higher on neuroticism expressed more difficulties regarding concrete health-relevant tasks or situations. These findings call for public health policies targeting older adults with lower levels of openness who are less likely to engage in self-examination, and individuals with higher levels of neuroticism who tend to experience more negative emotions. Moreover, health information and communication strategies content development that accounts for different personality types and addresses the needs of individuals with low levels of openness and high neuroticism may help improve HL among older adults whose personalities may otherwise put them at a disadvantage in handling health information.

Gerontechnology as multidisciplinary research has expanded in recent years due to its significant role in ensuring better care and improved quality of life for older adults and their caregivers. With a substantial increase in studies on reasons behind less inclination of older individuals to accept gerontechnology, barriers to its non-acceptance appear to be persistent. In addition, there is a dearth of research on the adoption of gerontechnology from the perspectives of social caregivers, given that caregivers bear a substantial burden in the form of chronic stress, which adversely affects their health and that of older people. Therefore, the aim of this study is to present a holistic perspective of older adults and their caregivers by systematically reviewing literature on gerontechnology acceptance. Adopting the preferred reported items for systematic and meta-analysis (PRISMA) framework, publications specifically on gerontechnology from 2002 to 2022 in Scopus, Web of Science and PubMed, that focused on older people (50 years and above) and caregivers (informal and formal) were reviewed. We critically evaluated 25 publications and synthesised them thematically. The results highlight that gerontechnology acceptance by older adults and their social caregivers is highly contingent on certain personal, physical, socio-cultural and technological indicators. However, this paper concludes that a generalised policy approach for gerontechnology and a better quality of life may be ineffective, considering that older adults and social caregivers constitute two heterogeneous groups.