Ageing International最新文献

Background: Being a chronic and prevalent disease in older adults, Alzheimer’s disease requires extensive and long-term care from caregivers. The disease significantly increases the burden on family caregivers and can cause physical and mental disorders for them, ultimately hindering their ability to provide adequate care for the patients. Objectives: The aim of the present study was to determine the relationship between care burden and health anxiety among the family caregivers of the older adults with Alzheimer’s disease. Materials and Methods: A correlational cross-sectional study enrolled 150 family caregivers who had been providing direct care to older adults with Alzheimer’s disease for at least six months, chosen by continuous sampling. The study collected data using the Caregiver Burden Inventory (CBI) and Health Anxiety Inventory (HAI-18) at the Iranian Alzheimer’s Association in 2021. Data analysis was performed using SPSS software version 25, employing independent t-tests, analysis of variance, and regression analysis. Results: The results indicated that 75 (50%) caregivers had a moderate level of health anxiety, while 43.3% of them reported being anxious about their health to a poor degree. Additionally, 46.6% and 43.3% of caregivers experienced moderate and intense care burden, respectively. Among the other variables studied such as age, sex, level of education, marital status, and economic status, only health anxiety was found to predict the care burden in caregivers of patients with Alzheimer’s disease (P < 0.001). (CI95% Health anxiety: 52.80–58.81, CI95% Care burden: 71.89–79.90, R2: 11.9%). Conclusion: Since there is a significant relationship observed between health anxiety and care burden, it is important for health professionals and caregivers of older adults with Alzheimer’s disease to prioritize the health of the caregivers. This requires special attention from healthcare providers.

Access to social protection in old age is crucial and yet contingent upon negotiations between the social structures of the welfare states and the personal networks within which individuals are embedded. International migration, changing family dynamics, and the transformation of care and other welfare policies in the global North make it challenging for older migrants to negotiate social protection. Drawing on 45 semi-structured interviews with first-generation older Turkish migrants in London and 13 semi-structured interviews with professional service providers for the community, the paper aims to investigate the assemblages of formal and informal social protection in the lives of older migrants. Findings indicate the complexity in accessing informal social protection and the navigation of formal care support in the UK for first generation older Turkish migrants and the contingency of access to formal care services on informal support networks for participants. It has been demonstrated that built infrastructure and policies aimed at older adults have great influence on assemblages of care, highlighting the need for more age-friendly and integrated policies to facilitate access to social protection for diverse groups of older adults.

Salivary alpha-amylase (sAA) is known as a stress indicator for the general adult population. However, its clinical significance has not been established in patients with neurodegenerative diseases. The subjects consisted of the PD group (n = 146), the control (C) group (n = 109) and the age-matched control (AC) group (n = 79). We explored what clinical indicators are associated with sAA in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD). Results of factor analysis and stepwise multiple linear regression analysis demonstrated that NRS remained as the only factor related to sAA (p < 0.05). However, sAA was strictly related to age in the two control groups (p < 0.01). There was no significant difference in sAA between the PD and AC groups (p < 0.05). The results indicated that sAA could be an indicator of mental stress in patients with PD. In contrast, in the C group, sAA seemed to be mainly influenced by sympathetic tone associated with ageing.

Background

Men and women lose muscle and function as they age, yet not always at the same rate.

Aims

The aim of this study was to identify any gender-based differences in muscle quality of adults over 55 years.

Methods

Nineteen men [mean ± SD: age (years): 69.3 ± 6.3; height (cm): 176.6 ± 7.5; mass (kg): 82.0 ± 15.0] and 19 age-matched women [age (years): 69.3 ± 6.2; height (cm): 160.2 ± 7.8; mass (kg): 71.0 ± 11.9] completed strength, functional assessments, and dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry. Independent t-tests between gender, and correlations between muscle quality and functional assessments were performed.

Results

Gender-based differences in absolute arm (2.7 kg, p < 0.01) and leg lean mass (7.3 kg, p < 0.01) and absolute upper (22.7 kg, p < 0.01) and lower body strength (76.9 kg, p < 0.01) existed. However, these differences disappeared when upper and lower body relative strength or muscle quality was addressed (p > 0.05). Additionally, there were weak yet significant correlations between muscle quality and respective function of the upper and lower body for both men and women (r = -0.181 to -0.437, p < 0.05).

Conclusion

Strength measurement should be consistently monitored in this population as these data suggest the evaluation of these muscular similarities can provide useful insight to age-related functional deficits, such as indication of sarcopenia onset.

Traditionally, in the patriarchal and patrilineal context of South Asian countries, there is a preference for older persons to coreside with their children. Strong and enduring familial norms and filial values contribute to the trend of children continuing to live with their older parents. However, economic and social development has contributed to changes in Indian family structures. Given that the family is the main source of support for its members, the present study aims to understand the levels of coresidence among older persons in India. For this purpose, the study using data from the Building a Knowledge Base on Population Ageing in India (BKPAI) survey, has found that the levels of coresidence continue to be high in the regions of the country where the survey was conducted, with the exception of Tamil Nadu state. The analysis finds that demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of older persons such as sex, marital status, number of children, education, disability and household wealth are important factors associated with intergenerational coresidence.

Despite the growing relevance of business corporations to the lives of older persons, gerontology has given very little, if any, attention to this field. Further, it seems that both the conceptual and the empirical study of what we firstly term “corporate gerontology”—the rich and diverse ways that corporations interact with, influence, and are influenced by older persons and the aging of society—are quite rare.

This systematic literature review was designed and executed to explore and present the current state of academic research in the multidisciplinary realm of aging and the business corporation.

Of the 46 papers surveyed, the majority belong to the category in which aging is an independent variable that influences the performance of business corporations. Only 27% belong to the second category, which explores how the conduct of corporations can influence various aspects of aging.

In light of the retreat of the welfare state and the rising neoliberal system, the lack of adequate governmental responses to aging has paved the way for profit-guided business corporations to enter the field. Their conduct should not be overlooked, and in establishing a new theoretical framework of corporate gerontology, we hope it will draw future research and public attention and raise awareness of this phenomenon.

Previous studies revealed conflicting findings of prior research on whether older adults living in the community or nursing homes have better health outcomes. Moreover, there is an imperative need for similar studies to assess the associations between emotional closeness, positive and negative affections, and agitation in older adults with dementia. This descriptive correlational study was conducted on a convenience sample of 102 older adults with dementia in Jordan. This study used multiple observational and self-report questionnaires to achieve the study objectives. The results indicated that PWD residing in community settings measured statistically significantly lower mean physical non-aggressive behaviors scores than those living in NHs. Also, physical, aggressive, and verbal non-aggressive behaviors were significantly associated with emotional closeness and negative affection, respectively, among PWD. Moreover, physical, non-aggressive behaviors were significantly associated with living in NHs and the cognitive function of PWD. Future research would consider exploring further potential factors related to agitated behavior and affection among older PWDs. Experimental studies that intend to increase social support and emotional closeness levels thus alleviating negative affection and agitation, are recommended in the future.

Traditionally, the well-being and living standards of an individual were measured by the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Later, a gradual shift was noticed from economic to socio-economic measures leading to prioritization of the Human Development Index (HDI). However, to overcome certain limitations in the HDI, a detailed analysis of its sub-indices is necessitated. Thus, the contextualization of Living Standards (LS) one of the sub-factors of HDI may be introduced applied to broaden the domain of human well-being. Since then, living standards have expanded from economic indicators to that of non-econometric factors such as family concern, occupational status, personality etc. Despite this, there is hardly any indicator measuring the Living Standard Index (LSI) in the Indian context, especially for the older adults in India. Here, the study is conducted amongst 390 older adults’ respondents of a peri-urban region of India through a multi-stage cluster sampling. This study outcome reveals that the LSI of the Indian older adults is dependent on the region-specific amenities, their age-groups, and living arrangement within their proximate networked members. Thus, the LSI may be influential in implementing policies for the older adults in the Indian context and that may be replicated across the globe.

Obesity significantly contributes to morbidity burden as compared to other nutritional deficiencies. However, beyond its health implications obesity is closely linked to economic and labour market repercussions, especially in informal labour market where the costs can be manifold. Therefore, to investigate the obesity related risk factors and burden associated with it, we analysed the impact of obesity on India’s elderly labour market given its expanding size and predominantly informal in nature using the latest round of LASI data on older adults. By employing marginal effects to study the difference in probabilities and population attributed risk to measure the burden associated with obesity. Our results showed some considerable impact of obesity on both work status and health burden associated with obesity among non-working older adults in India. Therefore strong policy measures are required to lower this obesity burden and minimise its associated health risks in India.

The inability of the older adults to perform daily life activities leads to a transition from independent life to a dependent life. This study was conducted to determine the daily life activities of the older adults and the associated factors by multivariable analysis method. This study is a cross-sectional search. The study was conducted by examining n = 1114 registration forms of older adults people aged 65 and over who applied to primary healthcare institutions in a city center in 2017. Daily basic and instrumental life activities of the older adults were examined. It was found that 91.4% of the older adults were independent in terms of basic life activities and 78.7% were independent in terms of instrumental life activities. According to the c analysis, the odds of being independent in terms of daily basic and instrumental life activities as the age gets smaller, or the number of falls decreases, or the level of education increases, or the neighborhood relations improve, and it is higher in those who live alone, those who live with their spouses, those who are occupied, who do exercises, and who perform regular prayers. Furthermore, being married, decreased number of medicines taken and having a higher income level increase the odds of being independent for instrumental life activities. It was found that the majority of the older adults are independent in their life activities, especially in instrumental life activities.