Journals of Gerontology Series B-Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences最新文献

Objectives: Although research has shown that higher levels of within-person variability across cognitive tasks (dispersion) are associated with cognitive decline in clinical samples, little is known about dispersion in comparatively younger, nonclinical, and national samples. A better understanding of dispersion is needed to elucidate for whom and under what circumstances dispersion can be used as a reliable indicator of cognitive health.

Method: We used data from the Midlife in the United States Study (MIDUS; n = 2,229; Mage = 56 years, range = 33-83; 56% female) to: (a) characterize dispersion and its cross-sectional correlates in a nonclinical, adult lifespan sample and (b) examine changes in dispersion over time to determine for whom changes in dispersion may reflect better or worse cognitive aging.

Results: Correlations showed higher levels of dispersion were associated with higher levels of mean performance at both waves (rs = 0.28-0.29). Autoregressive main effect models showed that increases in dispersion were associated with less decline in mean performance over the 2-wave, 9-year follow-up period (β = 0.17, p < .001). Moderation models showed that the link between change in dispersion and change in mean performance was pronounced in comparatively older adults (β = 0.28), women (β = 0.27), individuals with less education (β = 0.23), and those with lower income (β = 0.23; all ps < .001).

Discussion: Findings suggest that increases in dispersion may not always be maladaptive in normative, adult lifespan samples and may reflect healthier cognitive profiles in individuals who are at greater risk for cognitive impairment.

Objectives: Studies using ecological momentary assessment (EMA) of activity participation rely on items tapping domains informed by factor analyses based on single time points. Analyses from a single time point focus on differences between participants and provide little insight into how activities cluster together within a person across moments or days. The present study compared the factor structure in activity participation between- and within-persons using an expanded set of momentary activity items in middle and older adulthood.

Methods: Using tablets, 81 adults aged 41 to 94 years reported activities completed in the past 3-4 hr 5 times per day for 14 days.

Results: The most common activities during the day involved social interactions, reading, and computer work. Watching TV or videos was the most common evening activity. Multilevel factor analysis simultaneously computed both intra-individual factors (within-person) and inter-individual factors (between-person). Four within-person and 4 between-person factors provided the best model fit, with 3 common factors: cognitive (read, computer); social (events, mentoring, providing care); and passive (TV, games). There were notable differences in the fourth factor.

Discussion: Although three common activity factors were found between individuals and within persons from day to day, the divergence between the fourth intra- and inter-individual factors provides insight into how activity engagement operates at different timescales and likely reflects daily demands versus long-term goals. EMA provides a window into engagement throughout and across days, but researchers who commonly use retrospective reports of between-person activity engagement may find distinctly different results from factor analyses.

Objectives: Older people are increasingly entering their later years in stepfamilies. Because adult children play a central role in older parents' support networks, there is concern that the generally weaker intergenerational ties found in stepfamilies may imply an impending deficit in the care available to stepparents. It is currently unclear whether there are differences across stepfamily types including stepfamilies with only biological children. The aim of the study is to examine whether there are differences in contact frequency with and care receipt from adult biological and stepchildren in biological and different types of stepfamilies.

Methods: Data are from the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam (1992-2022; 10 observations); respondents' ages varied between 54 and 101. An average of 3.7 observations are available from 2,761 parents in biological families and 647 parents in stepfamilies.

Results: Parents in biological families and in stepfamilies with joint children had more contact than in other stepfamily types. There was less contact in stepfamilies with biological and stepchildren formed in midlife and in families with only stepchildren. There were small differences in care receipt; the lowest likelihood was in composite families.

Discussion: Our study challenges the idea that the relationships of the adult child to older parents in all stepfamilies are weaker than in biological families and points to the importance of considering that only some stepfamilies are vulnerable in terms of contact frequency. We query whether stepfamilies are resilient, for example, to greater pressures from a sharp increase in care needs for one or both parents.

Objectives: Vietnamese Americans are the fourth largest Asian subgroup in the United States, but little qualitative work has been done on their war and migration experiences. In this study, we delineated the war-related traumas and strength in participants of the Vietnamese Insights into Cognitive Aging Program (VIP).

Methods: VIP is a longitudinal study of 548 Vietnamese Americans aged 65+ years living in Northern California. During Visit 1, a semi-structured interview was conducted on participants' life and experiences in Vietnam and immigration to the United States. Using data at one of the recruitment sites, interviews of participants having the highest total self-reported traumas were transcribed in Vietnamese (n = 43) for coding and analysis following a thematic approach.

Results: Participants were 73.2 years old on average (SD = 5.48). Most were male (67.4%) and had attempted to escape Vietnam by boat at least once (67%). Two major themes were found: (1) experiences of adversity and suffering, which included subthemes on tough life experiences during the war, imprisonment and hard life after the war, escaping by boat and living in the refugee camps, witnessing or hearing about others' traumas during the war and escape, and experiences of loss, and (2) personal fortitude and gratitude, which included subthemes on fortitude and endurance, personal skills to cope and navigate, and perceived "luck and blessings."

Discussion: Results from this study revealed various traumas and aspects of strength. These findings can contribute to future VIP research on cognitive aging and inform research and practice on health disparities.

Objectives: The extent to which lifestyle shapes trajectories of normal cognitive aging, and the factors with highest potential for mitigating cognitive decline, remain poorly characterized.

Methods: Participants of the Rancho Bernardo Study underwent demographic, health, and behavioral characterization at baseline, along with up to 7 cognitive assessments over a 27-year follow-up period. Factor analysis of 24 baseline risk variables identified 9 composite factors. Mixed effects models on data from 1,489 participants (aged 45-95 years at baseline) assessed prediction of cognitive change by baseline factor scores. Models were repeated stratified by sex and APOE4 status.

Results: Factors of hyperlipidemia and obesity; marriage and depression; occupation and education; and physical activity and subjective health best predicted rates of decline across multiple cognitive domains. Distinct risk profiles were identified for women and men, and for APOE4 carriers and non-carriers. Models of composite risk estimated that potential savings could amount to 7-9.5 years of preserved cognitive health span for low- versus high-risk profiles. Magnitudes of aggregate risk effects were greater among women across cognitive domains, and for APOE4 carriers for memory and verbal fluency.

Discussion: Multifactorial life-course approaches to manage cardiometabolic health and promote physical, cognitive, and social engagement may help to mitigate cognitive decline with age, with composite risk associated with up to a decade of preserved cognitive health span. Differences by sex and APOE4 in risk profiles and their potential for risk reduction, highlight the importance of developing personalized recommendations for multidomain approaches to cognitive health maintenance throughout the life-course.

Objectives: A growing body of research has identified associations between family size and cognition in older adults. These studies largely focus on older adults' own fertility history instead of sibship size, defined as one's number of siblings. Sibship size may affect cognitive development during early childhood, creating differences that may persist into late life. Using a gendered life course framework, this study evaluates how family size across the life course (both sibship size and number of children) relates to cognitive aging among older Mexican adults.

Methods: Data come from the 2012, 2015, 2018, and 2021 waves of the Mexican Health and Aging Study (n = 14,872 adults age 50+). We use latent growth curve models to evaluate how family size (sibship size and fertility history) relates with levels of latent general cognitive ability and 9-year cognitive decline and variation across gender.

Results: Small sibship size related to higher levels of cognitive ability among men, but not women. This benefit was somewhat reduced when educational attainment was accounted for. Regarding fertility history, we observed an inverse U-shaped relationship with the level of cognitive ability, regardless of gender, that remained significant even after accounting for sibship size and other confounders. Neither family size measure predicted the rate of cognitive decline.

Discussion: This research broadens our understanding of family size and cognition associations in the context of Mexico's changing demographics that challenge the reliance on family support in late life and highlights potential gender differences.

Objectives: Aging populations will increasingly need care, much of this provided informally particularly in rural areas and in low and middle-income countries. In rural South Africa, formal support is severely limited, and adult children are frequently unavailable due to morbidity, early mortality, employment, and migration. We describe how care is shared within and between households.

Methods: We conducted quantitative interviews with 1,012 household members and nonhousehold caregivers of 106 older adults (age ≥54) living with or at risk of cognitive decline in rural Mpumalanga, South Africa. Using descriptive statistics and regression analysis, we described how care is shared, with particular attention to generational patterns of care.

Results: Spouses, the majority women, commonly considered themselves primary caregivers. informal care was spread among family, friends, and neighbors, most commonly by unemployed female relatives 1 or 2 generations younger than the recipient. A small number of paid caregivers, also mostly female, provided the most intensive care.

Discussion: Informal care for older adults was spread widely, predominantly from coresident family but with important contributions from others. Family commitment to care reflected shared history, reciprocal relationships, and easy access to care tasks within the household. A deeper understanding of how informal care for older adults is shared is essential for developing targeted interventions.

Objectives: Subthreshold depression (SD) is common in the older population, more so in females than males, and can lead to serious physical and mental ill-health. However, the underlying neurobiology remains unclear. This study used multimodal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to investigate the topological organization and coupling of the structural and functional brain networks in older women with SD.

Methods: We constructed the structural network from diffusion MRI and the functional network from resting-state functional MRI in 50 older women with SD and 52 demographically matched older women healthy controls (HC). We used graph theory analysis to examine the topological properties of functional and structural networks, and structural-functional connectivity (SC-FC) coupling, and their potential relationship to depressive symptoms.

Results: Globally, compared with older women HC, the older women with SD showed lower local efficiency in the structural network but not the functional network. Locally, older women with SD showed altered convergent nodal metrics in the default mode, salience, and sensorimotor network regions in both structural and functional networks. Moreover, SC-FC coupling reduced in older women with SD compared to older women HC. These network metric alterations were correlated with depressive symptoms.

Discussion: Older women with SD showed alterations in both structural and functional networks, and in their coupling, which throw light on the role of large-scale brain networks in older female SD.

Objectives: As Mexico rapidly ages, population-level cognitive issues and Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementia are projected to increase. Limited social welfare positions family members-especially spouses-as the main support resource. Although past research suggests marital power imbalances relate with increased depression among Mexican older adults, how marital power imbalance relates with cognition and gender differences therein remains understudied. Accordingly, we investigate how perceived marital power relates with cognitive ability with attention to depression and gender.

Methods: We use the 2012, 2015, and 2018 (n = 2,643 heterosexual dyads) waves of the Mexican Health and Aging Study and Actor Partner Interdependence Models (APIM). The APIM allows the cognitive function of each partner to be predicted by their own (actor effects) and partner's (partner effects) perceived marital power imbalance, evaluates gender differences, and the mediating role of depression.

Results: Own reports of lower baseline marital power were directly negatively associated with subsequent cognition only among husbands. Partners' baseline reports of marital power showed mixed direct associations with future cognition: husbands' higher marital power negatively related with wives' cognition, whereas wives' lower marital power positively related with husbands' cognition. Wives' marital power imbalance predicted higher depression in each partner, and both own and partner's depression related with lower cognition, regardless of gender, suggesting that wives' marital power imbalance affects cognition indirectly through depression.

Discussion: Our findings suggest that gendered marital power relations is a novel area for future research in the context of Mexico's aging population, enduring marriages, and entrenched patriarchal structures.

Objectives: The rise in gray divorce has catalyzed repartnering in later life. However, the antecedents of older adult repartnering remain poorly understood, particularly the potential role of adult children. A form of ambiguous loss, marital disruption often leads to family boundary ambiguity, thereby weakening family ties. We investigated whether co-residence and proximity of, frequent contact with, and downward transfers to adult children were negatively associated with repartnering after gray divorce.

Methods: Data from the 1998 to 2018 Health and Retirement Study were used to estimate discrete-time event history models using logistic regression to predict repartnering after gray divorce among parents of adult children (N = 1,359).

Results: As expected, adult child co-residence as well as having a child who lived nearby and had frequent contact diminished the likelihood of repartnering. Parents whose children either did not live nearby or were nearby but did not have frequent contact were more likely to repartner than those with children nearby and in frequent contact or co-residing, signaling that both proximity and frequency of contact are related to repartnering. Additionally, the provision of financial support to adult children was associated with a lower risk of repartnering.

Discussion: Relationships with adult children shape parental repartnering behaviors. Echoing the concept of boundary ambiguity, our findings indicate that stronger family ties, as signaled by child co-residence or proximity and frequent contact as well as economic provision, tend to deter repartnering. These findings also indicate that absent strong family ties, older adults are more likely to form a new union.