Growing old, frailty, and care of the elderly.
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Qurʾān
القرآن6 shownVerses named for this subject by hand come first. The rest are found by the subject’s own Arabic and English senses and are shown as lexical matches, not as anchors anyone has confirmed.
Qur'ān 16:70English sense: old age | Arabic sense: ارذل العمر
وَٱللَّهُ خَلَقَكُمۡ ثُمَّ يَتَوَفَّىٰكُمۡۚ وَمِنكُم مَّن يُرَدُّ إِلَىٰٓ أَرۡذَلِ ٱلۡعُمُرِ لِكَيۡ لَا يَعۡلَمَ بَعۡدَ عِلۡمࣲ شَيۡـًٔاۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ عَلِيمࣱ قَدِيرࣱ
It is God who has created you and in time will cause you to die. Some of you will be reduced, in old age, to a most abject state, so that, after having knowledge, they will know nothing at all: God is truly all knowing and all powerful
Qur'ān 30:54Arabic sense: شيب | English sense: grey hair
۞ٱللَّهُ ٱلَّذِي خَلَقَكُم مِّن ضَعۡفࣲ ثُمَّ جَعَلَ مِنۢ بَعۡدِ ضَعۡفࣲ قُوَّةࣰ ثُمَّ جَعَلَ مِنۢ بَعۡدِ قُوَّةࣲ ضَعۡفࣰ ا وَشَيۡبَةࣰۚ يَخۡلُقُ مَا يَشَآءُۚ وَهُوَ ٱلۡعَلِيمُ ٱلۡقَدِيرُ
It is God who creates you weak, then gives you strength, then weakness after strength, together with your grey hair: He creates what He will; He is the All Knowing, the All Powerful
Qur'ān 22:5Arabic sense: ارذل العمر
يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلنَّاسُ إِن كُنتُمۡ فِي رَيۡبࣲ مِّنَ ٱلۡبَعۡثِ فَإِنَّا خَلَقۡنَٰكُم مِّن تُرَابࣲ ثُمَّ مِن نُّطۡفَةࣲ ثُمَّ مِنۡ عَلَقَةࣲ ثُمَّ مِن مُّضۡغَةࣲ مُّخَلَّقَةࣲ وَغَيۡرِ مُخَلَّقَةࣲ لِّنُبَيِّنَ لَكُمۡۚ وَنُقِرُّ فِي ٱلۡأَرۡحَامِ مَا نَشَآءُ إِلَىٰٓ أَجَلࣲ مُّسَمࣰّ ى ثُمَّ نُخۡرِجُكُمۡ طِفۡلࣰ ا ثُمَّ لِتَبۡلُغُوٓاْ أَشُدَّكُمۡۖ وَمِنكُم مَّن يُتَوَفَّىٰ وَمِنكُم مَّن يُرَدُّ إِلَىٰٓ أَرۡذَلِ ٱلۡعُمُرِ لِكَيۡلَا يَعۡلَمَ مِنۢ بَعۡدِ عِلۡمࣲ شَيۡـࣰٔ اۚ وَتَرَى ٱلۡأَرۡضَ هَامِدَةࣰ فَإِذَآ أَنزَلۡنَا عَلَيۡهَا ٱلۡمَآءَ ٱهۡتَزَّتۡ وَرَبَتۡ وَأَنۢبَتَتۡ مِن كُلِّ زَوۡجِۭ بَهِيجࣲ
People, [remember,] if you doubt the Resurrection, that We created you from dust, then a drop of fluid, then a clinging form, then a lump of flesh, both shaped and unshaped: We mean to make Our power clear to you. Whatever We choose We cause to remain in the womb for an appointed time, then We bring you forth as infants and then you grow and reach maturity. Some die young and some are left to live on to such an age that they forget all they once knew. You sometimes see the earth lifeless, yet when We send down water it stirs and swells and produces every kind of joyous growth
Qur'ān 14:39English sense: old age
ٱلۡحَمۡدُ لِلَّهِ ٱلَّذِي وَهَبَ لِي عَلَى ٱلۡكِبَرِ إِسۡمَٰعِيلَ وَإِسۡحَٰقَۚ إِنَّ رَبِّي لَسَمِيعُ ٱلدُّعَآءِ
Praise be to God, who has granted me Ishmael and Isaac in my old age: my Lord hears all requests
Qur'ān 15:54English sense: old age
قَالَ أَبَشَّرۡتُمُونِي عَلَىٰٓ أَن مَّسَّنِيَ ٱلۡكِبَرُ فَبِمَ تُبَشِّرُونَ
He said, ‘How can you give me such news when old age has come to me? What sort of news is this?’
Qur'ān 2:266English sense: old age
أَيَوَدُّ أَحَدُكُمۡ أَن تَكُونَ لَهُۥ جَنَّةࣱ مِّن نَّخِيلࣲ وَأَعۡنَابࣲ تَجۡرِي مِن تَحۡتِهَا ٱلۡأَنۡهَٰرُ لَهُۥ فِيهَا مِن كُلِّ ٱلثَّمَرَٰتِ وَأَصَابَهُ ٱلۡكِبَرُ وَلَهُۥ ذُرِّيَّةࣱ ضُعَفَآءُ فَأَصَابَهَآ إِعۡصَارࣱ فِيهِ نَارࣱ فَٱحۡتَرَقَتۡۗ كَذَٰلِكَ يُبَيِّنُ ٱللَّهُ لَكُمُ ٱلۡأٓيَٰتِ لَعَلَّكُمۡ تَتَفَكَّرُونَ
Would any of you like to have a garden of palm trees and vines, graced with flowing streams and all kinds of produce, which, when you are afflicted with old age and feeble offspring, is struck by a fiery whirlwind and burnt down? In this way God makes His messages clear to you, so that you may reflect on them
Tafsīr
التفسير6 shownCommentary on the verses above, at most two editions per verse.
en-al-jalalayn on 16:70en-al-jalalayncommentary on an ayah this subject surfaced
And God has created you when you were nothing then He takes you in death when your terms of life are concluded; and there are some among you who are relegated to the most abject stage of life that is the most diminished because of old-age and senility so that he knows nothing after having possessed some knowledge. ‘Ikrima said ‘Whoever recites the Qur’ān will not come to such a predicament’. God is Knowing of how to manage the affairs of His creation Powerful in doing what He will.
en-tafisr-ibn-kathir on 16:70en-tafisr-ibn-kathircommentary on an ayah this subject surfaced
And Allah created you and then He will cause you to die; and among you there are some who are sent back to senility, so that they know nothing after having known (much). Truly, Allah is Knowing, capable of all things (70)
In Man there is a Lesson
Allah tells us that He is controlling the affairs of His servants. He is the One Who created them out of nothing, then He will cause them to die. But there are some of them that He allows to grow old, which is a physical weakness, as Allah says:
اللَّهُ الَّذِي خَلَقَكُم مِّن ضَعْفٍ ثُمَّ جَعَلَ مِن بَعْدِ ضَعْفٍ قُوَّةً
(Allah is He Who created you in (a state of) weakness, then gave you strength after weakness, then after strength gave (you) weakness)(30:54)
لِكَيْ لَا يَعْلَمَ بَعْدَ عِلْمٍ شَيْئًا
(so that they know nothing after having known.) meaning, after he knew things, he will reach a stage where he knows nothing because of weakn
en-asbab-al-nuzul-by-al-wahidi on 22:5en-asbab-al-nuzul-by-al-wahidicommentary on an ayah this subject surfaced
O people, if you are in doubt about the Uprising, surely We created you of dust, then of a sperm drop, then of a blood clot, then of a lump of flesh, fully created and not fully created, that We might make clear to you. The composition of the Adamic body in the first creation is a clear argument against the deniers of the Uprising. He is saying, “I am the Lord who created a body and figure with such comeliness, a stature and form with such beauty, from that feeble sperm drop in that firm settledness. He says, “Did We not create you of feeble water, then put it in a firm settledness?” [77:20-21]. If you ponder this body, you will find an exemplar of all the created and newly arrived things in the celestial and terrestrial worlds. Just as He arranged the seven spheres in heaven, so also He composed seven parts in this body-water and dust, and then flesh, skin, veins, sinews, and bones. Jus
en-al-jalalayn on 30:54en-al-jalalayncommentary on an ayah this subject surfaced
God is the One Who created you from a state of weakness from a ‘base fluid’ cf. Q. 328 then He ordained after a second weakness which is the weakness of the period of childhood strength that is the strength of youth then after strength He appointed weakness again and grey hair the weakness of old age and the grey hairs of decrepitude read vocalised as du‘f ‘weakness’ in all three places. He creates what He will of weakness and strength youth and grey hairs and He is the Knower of how to manage His creatures the Omnipotent.
en-tafisr-ibn-kathir on 30:54en-tafisr-ibn-kathircommentary on an ayah this subject surfaced
Allah is He Who created you in weakness, then gave you strength after weakness, then after strength gave (you) weakness and grey hair. He creates what He wills. And He is the All-Knowing, the All-Powerful (54)
The Different Stages of Man
Here Allah points out how man passes through different stages of creation, one phase after another. He is originally created from dust, then from a Nutfah, then from a clot, then from a lump of flesh. Then he becomes bones, then the bones are clothed with flesh, then the soul is breathed into him. Then he emerges from his mother's womb, weak and thin and powerless. Then he grows up little by little, until he becomes a child, then he reaches the stage of puberty, then he becomes a young man, which is strength after weakness. Then he starts to get older, reaching middle age, then old age and senility, weakness after strength, so he loses his resolve, pow
en-al-jalalayn on 22:5en-al-jalalayncommentary on an ayah this subject surfaced
O mankind in other words O people of Mecca if you are in doubt about the Resurrection then lo! consider that We have created you that is We have created your origin — Adam — from dust then We created his progeny from a drop a sperm-drop then from a clot congealed blood then from a little lump of flesh mudgha a piece of flesh the size of what one would be able to chew mā yumdagh partly formed shaped complete in form and partly unformed that is uncomplete in form that We may make clear to you the perfect nature of Our power that you might then infer from this initial act of creation the reality of its future restoration. And We establish nuqirru marks a new grammatically independent sentence in the wombs whatever We will for a specified time that is until the time for it to come out then We bring you forth from the bellies of your mothers as infants and then We extend your life that you ma
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226 to 250 of 1,184Bioindicators in the MIDUS national study: protocol, measures, sample, and comparative context.
Objectives: Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) is a national study of health and aging among individuals aged 25 to 74 at baseline (1995-1996). Longitudinal survey assessments (2004-2005), were followed by biological assessments on a subsample (aged 35-85).To facilitate public use, we describe the protocol, measures, and sample.
Method: Respondents traveled to clinics for a 2-day data-collection protocol that included fasting blood specimens, 12-hr urine specimen, medical history, physical exam, bone densitometry, and a laboratory challenge (heart rate variability, blood pressure, respiration, salivary cortisol).
Results: Response rates for the biological protocol (N = 1,255) were 39.3% or 43.1% (adjusting for those who could not be located or contacted). Reasons for nonparticipation were travel, family obligations, and being too busy. Respondents were comparable to the recruitment poo…
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Alone? Perceived social support and chronic interpersonal difficulties in suicidal elders.
Background: Social networks may protect depressed elders against suicidal behavior. However, conflict in important relationships may undermine the sense of social support, potentially negating the protective effects. Thus, we investigated the role of chronic interpersonal difficulties and perceived social support in depressed elders with and without suicidal thoughts and attempts.
Methods: 106 individuals aged 60 years and older participated in this cross-sectional, case-control study. They were placed in three groups: suicidal depressed, non-suicidal depressed and non-depressed. Following a detailed clinical characterization, we assessed perceived social support (Interpersonal Support Evaluation List), and chronic interpersonal difficulties (Inventory of Interpersonal Problems). Using general linear models, we explored the relationship between suicidal thoughts/attempts, social support,…
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The day-to-day impact of urogenital aging: perspectives from racially/ethnically diverse women.
Background: Urogenital symptoms affect up to half of women after menopause, but their impact on women's day-to-day functioning and wellbeing is poorly understood.
Methods: Postmenopausal women aged 45 to 80 years reporting urogenital dryness, soreness, itching, or pain during sex were recruited to participate in in-depth focus groups to discuss the impact of their symptoms. Focus groups were homogenous with respect to race/ethnicity and stratified by age (for White or Black women) or language (for Latina women). Transcripts of sessions were analyzed according to grounded theory.
Results: Six focus groups were conducted, involving 44 women (16 White, 14 Black, 14 Latina). Five domains of functioning and wellbeing affected by symptoms were identified: sexual functioning, everyday activities, emotional wellbeing, body image, and interpersonal relations. For some participants, symptoms prima…
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Orexins/hypocretins control bistability of hippocampal long-term synaptic plasticity through co-activation of multiple kinases.
Aim: Orexins/hypocretins (OX/Hcrt) are hypothalamic neuropeptides linking sleep-wakefulness, appetite and neuroendocrine control. Their role and mechanisms of action on higher brain functions, such as learning and memory, are not clear.
Methods: We used field recordings of excitatory post-synaptic potentials (fEPSP) in acute mouse brain slice preparations to study the effects of orexins and pharmacological inhibitors of multiple kinases on long-term synaptic plasticity in the hippocampus.
Results: Orexin-A (OX-A) but not orexin-B (OX-B) induces a state-dependent long-term potentiation of synaptic transmission (LTP(OX)) at Schaffer collateral-CA1 synapses in hippocampal slices from adult (8- to 12-week-old) mice. In contrast, OX-A applied to slices from juvenile (3- to 4-week-old) animals causes a long-term depression (LTD(OX)) in the same pathway. LTP(OX) is blocked by pharmacological in…
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Longitudinal changes in sexual functioning as women transition through menopause: results from the Study of Women's Health Across the Nation.
Objective: Sexual functioning is an important component of women's lives. The extent to which the menopausal transition is associated with decreased sexual functioning remains inconclusive. This study seeks to determine if advancing through the menopausal transition is associated with changes in sexual functioning.
Methods: This was a prospective, longitudinal cohort study of women aged 42 to 52 years at baseline recruited at seven US sites (N = 3,302) in the Study of Women's Health Across the Nation (SWAN). Cohort-eligible women had an intact uterus, had at least one ovary, were not currently using exogenous hormones, were either premenopausal or early perimenopausal, and self-identified as one of the study's designated racial/ethnic groups. Data from the baseline interview and six annual follow-up visits are reported. Outcomes are self-reported ratings of importance of sex; frequency o…
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Sachdev PS, Lammel A, Trollor JN, Lee T, Wright MJ, Ames D, Wen W, Martin NG, Brodaty H, Schofield PR, OATS research team (2009)cohort or longitudinalMEDLINE-indexed journal, not yet read by usTwin research and human genetics : the official journal of the International Society for Twin Studies70 citations A comprehensive neuropsychiatric study of elderly twins: the Older Australian Twins Study.
The Older Australian Twins Study (OATS) was recently initiated to investigate genetic and environmental factors and their associations and interactions in healthy brain ageing and ageing-related neurocognitive disorders. The study extends the classic MZ-DZ design to include one or two equivalently aged siblings for each twin pair and utilizes the rich resources of the Australian Twin Registry. The study has a number of distinguishing features including comprehensive psychiatric, neuropsychological, cardiovascular, metabolic, and neuroimaging assessments, a longitudinal design and links with a brain donor program. The study measures many behavioral and environmental factors, but in particular lifetime physical and mental activity, physical and psychological trauma, loss of parent early in life, later losses and life events, early-life socioeconomic environment, alcohol and drug use, occup…
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Purpose in life is associated with mortality among community-dwelling older persons.
Objective: To assess the association between purpose in life and all-cause mortality in community-dwelling elderly persons.
Methods: We used data from 1238 older persons without dementia from two longitudinal cohort studies (Rush Memory and Aging Project and Minority Aging Research Study) with baseline evaluations of purpose in life and up to 5 years of follow-up to test the hypothesis that greater purpose in life is associated with a reduced risk of mortality among community-dwelling older persons.
Results: The mean +/- standard deviation score on the purpose in life measure at baseline was 3.7 +/- 0.5 (range = 2-5), with higher scores indicating greater purpose in life. During the 5-year follow-up (mean = 2.7 years), 151 of 1238 persons (12.2%) died. In a proportional hazards model adjusted for age, sex, education, and race, a higher level of purpose in life was associated with a subst…
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Body size at birth and socio-economic status in childhood: implications for Cloninger's psychobiological model of temperament at age 60.
Small birth size predicts various psychiatric outcomes, including depression. While biologically based temperamental traits may constitute a vulnerability factor for depression, the extent to which birth size predicts these traits in adulthood is not known. We studied, in 1369 women and men identified from a cohort born in 1934-44 in Helsinki, Finland, whether birth size predicts the temperamental traits measured with Cloninger's Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire at an average age of 63 years. Moreover, we examined whether socio-economic status (SES) in childhood modified the associations. Data on birth size were obtained from birth records, and SES in childhood was obtained from school records. Weight and length at birth showed curvilinear, reverse J-shaped effects on harm avoidance (HA), such that the highest HA scores were most characteristic of those born small. Furthermore, h…
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Reduced resting-state brain activity in the "default network" in normal aging.
Normal aging is associated with cognitive decline. Functions such as attention, information processing, and working memory are compromised. It has been hypothesized that not only regional changes, but also alterations in the integration of regional brain activity (functional brain connectivity) underlie the observed age-related deficits. Here, we examined the functional properties of brain networks based on spontaneous fluctuations within brain systems using functional magnetic resonance imaging. We hypothesized that functional connectivity of intrinsic brain activity in the "default-mode" network (DMN) is affected by normal aging and that this relates to cognitive function. Ten younger and 22 older subjects were scanned at "rest," that is, lying awake with eyes closed. Our results show decreased activity in older versus younger subjects in 2 resting-state networks (RSNs) resembling the …
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Prospective study of posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms and coronary heart disease in the Normative Aging Study.
Context: Various correlates of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), such as high levels of sympathetic activation and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis dysregulation, have been linked to arterial damage and coronary heart disease (CHD) risk. While psychological disturbance is frequently found among patients with cardiac disease, whether psychological problems precede or occur as a result of having a potentially fatal disease is not clear. To our knowledge, no prospective studies to date have evaluated whether PTSD is associated with increased risk of CHD.
Objective: To test the hypothesis that high levels of PTSD symptoms may increase CHD risk, using 2 different measures of PTSD.
Design: Prospective cohort study.
Setting: Community-dwelling men from the Greater Boston, Mass, area who served in the military.
Participants: Data are from the Veterans Affairs Normative Aging Study. Men wh…
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Telomere shortening and mood disorders: preliminary support for a chronic stress model of accelerated aging.
Background: Little is known about the biological mechanisms underlying the excess medical morbidity and mortality associated with mood disorders. Substantial evidence supports abnormalities in stress-related biological systems in depression. Accelerated telomere shortening may reflect stress-related oxidative damage to cells and accelerated aging, and severe psychosocial stress has been linked to telomere shortening. We propose that chronic stress associated with mood disorders may contribute to excess vulnerability for diseases of aging such as cardiovascular disease and possibly some cancers through accelerated organismal aging.
Methods: Telomere length was measured by Southern Analysis in 44 individuals with chronic mood disorders and 44 nonpsychiatrically ill age-matched control subjects.
Results: Telomere length was significantly shorter in those with mood disorders, representing as…
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The mellow years?: neural basis of improving emotional stability over age.
Contrary to the pervasive negative stereotypes of human aging, emotional functions may improve with advancing age. However, the brain mechanisms underlying changes in emotional function over age remain unknown. Here, we demonstrate that emotional stability improves linearly over seven decades (12-79 years) of the human lifespan. We used both functional magnetic resonance imaging and event-related potential recording to examine the neural basis of this improvement. With these multimodal techniques, we show that better stability is predicted by a shift toward greater medial prefrontal control over negative emotional input associated with increased activity later in the processing sequence (beyond 200 ms after stimulus) and less control over positive input, related to a decrease in early activity (within 150 ms). This shift was independent from gray matter loss, indexed by structural magnet…
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Reduction of leucocyte telomere length in radiographic hand osteoarthritis: a population-based study.
Background: Although age is the strongest predictor of osteoarthritis, the exact mechanism underlying this disorder remains elusive.
Objective: To examine the association between leucocyte telomere length (LTL), a bio-indicator of ageing, and radiographic hand osteoarthritis.
Methods: An unselected, predominantly female sample from the TwinsUK Adult Twin Registry (Twin Research and Genetic Epidemiology Unit, St Thomas Hospital, London, UK) was studied. Radiographs of both hands were obtained with a standard posteroanterior view and assessed for radiographic osteoarthritis according to the Kellgren/Lawrence (K/L) score. Individual radiographic features including osteophytes and joint space narrowing (JSN) were also assessed on a four-point scale using a standard atlas. Hand osteoarthritis was defined radiographically as having >or=3 osteoarthritis-affected joints of both hands (K/L score>…
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Aging, longevity, and healthy aging: the public health approach.
Background: Population aging is one of the most significant global demographic changes of the 21st century, driven by increased life expectancy and declining fertility rates. This phenomenon presents both achievements and challenges for public health systems worldwide.
Aims: On the one hand, advances in healthcare and socio-economic conditions have contributed to longer lives and improved quality of life for older adults. On the other hand, aging populations are increasingly affected by chronic diseases, greriatric syndromes, and multimorbidity, leading to greater healthcare demands and higher associated costs.
Methods: This manuscript explores evidence on regards of the impact of aging on healthcare and economic systems, emphasizing the need for a paradigm shift toward healthy aging.
Results: Healthy aging, as defined by the World Health Organization, focuses on the maintenance of intri…
matched on Aging (mesh), healthy ageing (text), older adults (text)
Biological factors influencing depression in later life: role of aging processes and treatment implications.
Late-life depression occurring in older adults is common, recurrent, and malignant. It is characterized by affective symptoms, but also cognitive decline, medical comorbidity, and physical disability. This behavioral and cognitive presentation results from altered function of discrete functional brain networks and circuits. A wide range of factors across the lifespan contributes to fragility and vulnerability of those networks to dysfunction. In many cases, these factors occur earlier in life and contribute to adolescent or earlier adulthood depressive episodes, where the onset was related to adverse childhood events, maladaptive personality traits, reproductive events, or other factors. Other individuals exhibit a later-life onset characterized by medical comorbidity, pro-inflammatory processes, cerebrovascular disease, or developing neurodegenerative processes. These later-life process…
matched on Aging (mesh), later life (text), older adults (text)
Biological aging processes underlying cognitive decline and neurodegenerative disease.
Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD) are among the top contributors to disability and mortality in later life. As with many chronic conditions, aging is the single most influential factor in the development of ADRD. Even among older adults who remain free of dementia throughout their lives, cognitive decline and neurodegenerative changes are appreciable with advancing age, suggesting shared pathophysiological mechanisms. In this Review, we provide an overview of changes in cognition, brain morphology, and neuropathological protein accumulation across the lifespan in humans, with complementary and mechanistic evidence from animal models. Next, we highlight selected aging processes that are differentially regulated in neurodegenerative disease, including aberrant autophagy, mitochondrial dysfunction, cellular senescence, epigenetic changes, cerebrovascular dysfunction, inflamma…
matched on Aging (mesh), later life (text), older adults (text)
'An invisible human rights crisis': The marginalization of older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic - An advocacy review.
The world has endured over six months of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Older adults are at disproportionate risk of severe infection and mortality. They are also vulnerable to loneliness and social exclusion during the pandemic. Age and ageism both can act as significant risk factors during this pandemic, increasing the physical as well as psychosocial burden on the elderly. A review was performed in relation to the psychosocial vulnerabilities of the older adults during the pandemic, with insights from the similar biological disasters in the past. Besides the physiological risk, morbidities, polypharmacy and increased case fatality rates, various social factors like lack of security, loneliness, isolation, ageism, sexism, dependency, stigma, abuse and restriction to health care access were identified as crucial in pandemic situation. Frailty, cognitive and sensory impairments…
matched on Aging (mesh), healthy ageing (text), older adults (text)
Swallowing Disorders in the Older Population.
Swallowing problems, or dysphagia, are common as people age, and are associated with significant negative outcomes, including weight loss, pneumonia, dehydration, shortened life expectancy, reduced quality of life, and increased caregiver burden. In this article, we will discuss the complex process of swallowing in normal circumstances and with healthy aging, then review etiologies that contribute to dysphagia. We will discuss approaches to evaluating and treating dysphagia, providing relevant data where they are available. We highlight the desperate need for high-quality research to guide best practices in treating dysphagia in older adults. J Am Geriatr Soc 67:2643-2649, 2019.
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Copeland JL, Ashe MC, Biddle SJ, Brown WJ, Buman MP, Chastin S, Gardiner PA, Inoue S, Jefferis BJ, Oka K, Owen N, Sardinha LB, Skelton DA, Sugiyama T, Dogra S (2017)reviewMEDLINE-indexed journal, not yet read by usBritish journal of sports medicine171 citations Sedentary time in older adults: a critical review of measurement, associations with health, and interventions.
Sedentary time (ST) is an important risk factor for a variety of health outcomes in older adults. Consensus is needed on future research directions so that collaborative and timely efforts can be made globally to address this modifiable risk factor. In this review, we examined current literature to identify gaps and inform future research priorities on ST and healthy ageing. We reviewed three primary topics:(1) the validity/reliability of self-report measurement tools, (2) the consequences of prolonged ST on geriatric-relevant health outcomes (physical function, cognitive function, mental health, incontinence and quality of life) and(3) the effectiveness of interventions to reduce ST in older adults.
Methods: A trained librarian created a search strategy that was peer reviewed for completeness.
Results: Self-report assessment of the context and type of ST is important but the tools tend …
matched on Aging (mesh), healthy ageing (text), older adults (text)
Loneliness and Health in Older Adults: A Mini-Review and Synthesis.
Increasing evidence suggests that perceived social isolation or loneliness is a major risk factor for physical and mental illness in later life. This review assesses the status of research on loneliness and health in older adults. Key concepts and definitions of loneliness are identified, and the prevalence, correlates, and health effects of loneliness in older individuals are reviewed. Theoretical mechanisms that underlie the association between loneliness and health are also described, and illustrative studies examining these mechanisms are summarized. Intervention approaches to reduce loneliness in old age are highlighted, and priority recommendations for future research are presented.
matched on Aging (mesh), later life (text), older adults (text)
Health anxiety disorders in older adults: conceptualizing complex conditions in late life.
Health anxiety disorders (e.g., hypochondriasis) are prevalent but understudied in older adults. Existing research suggests that severe health anxiety has a late age of onset, perhaps because of comorbidity with physical health conditions that are more likely to occur with aging. Despite being under diagnosed in later life due to a lack of age-appropriate diagnostic criteria, significant positive associations with age suggest that health anxiety disorders are more prevalent in older than younger adults. Preliminary research also highlights the complexity of these disorders in older adults and the potential importance of medical morbidity as a risk factor. This review explores the complexities of health anxiety disorders in later life with a focus on understanding defining features, prevalence rates, correlates, assessment, diagnosis, and treatment. We offer a theoretical model of the dev…
matched on Aging (mesh), later life (text), older adults (text)
Age-related changes in the cognitive function of sleep.
Healthy aging is characterized by a diminished quality of sleep with decreased sleep duration and increased time awake after sleep onset. Older adults awaken more frequently and tend to awaken less from rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and more from non-REM (nREM) sleep than young adults. Sleep architecture also begins changing in middle age leading to a dramatic decrease in the deepest stage of nREM-slow wave sleep (SWS)-as aging progresses. Other less marked nREM changes include reduced numbers of sleep spindles and K-complexes. In contrast, the amount of REM diminishes only slightly. Both circadian and homeostatic sleep-regulatory processes are affected by aging. Circadian rhythms of temperature, melatonin, and cortisol are phase advanced and their amplitude diminished. An increased number of nocturnal awakenings and diminished daytime sleepiness suggest diminished homeostatic sleep pre…
matched on Aging (mesh), healthy ageing (text), older adults (text)
Assessing life-space mobility for a more holistic view on wellbeing in geriatric research and clinical practice.
Life-space mobility (LSM) is a holistic measure of resilience to physical decline and social isolation in later life. To promote its use as an outcome in geriatric studies and in clinical practice, this review paper explains the concept of LSM; outlines available questionnaires for LSM assessment, provides an overview of associations between LSM and other outcomes, and discusses emerging methods to measure LSM using wearable sensors. Based on performed activity around a central geographical anchor, LSM aims to quantify the observed contraction of daily activities associated with ageing. Several questionnaires are available to assess LSM in different contexts: the University of Alabama Life-Space Assessment and the Life-Space Questionnaire (community settings), the Nursing Home Life-Space Diameter (nursing home settings) and Life Space at Home (for house-bound populations). Some studies u…
matched on Homes for the Aged (mesh), Geriatric Assessment (mesh), later life (text)
Receptivity of Hospitalized Older Adults and Family Caregivers to Prognostic Information about Aging, Injury, and Frailty: A Qualitative Study.
Background: Frailty is the leading prognosticator for poor outcomes and palliative care among older adults. Delivery of negative prognostic information entails potentially difficult conversations about decline and death.
Objective: The study aims were to: 1) examine hospitalized older adults' and family caregivers' receptivity to general (vs. individualized) prognostic information about frailty, injury, and one-year outcomes; and 2) determine information needs based on prognostic information.
Design: Provision of general prognostic information followed by semi-structured interview questions. We deductively analyzed qualitative data within the context of problematic integration theory.
Setting: An academic medical center in the Southeast region of the U.S.
Participants: Purposive sampling was utilized to obtain a distribution of patients across the frailty continuum (non-frail [N=10], pre…
matched on Frail Elderly (mesh), Aging (mesh), Frailty (mesh), older adults (text)
Watanabe Y, Hirano H, Arai H, Morishita S, Ohara Y, Edahiro A, Murakami M, Shimada H, Kikutani T, Suzuki T (2017)MEDLINE-indexed journal, not yet read by usJournal of the American Geriatrics Society235 citations Relationship Between Frailty and Oral Function in Community-Dwelling Elderly Adults.
Objectives: To determine the standard values of and age-related changes in objective oral function of healthy older people; compare oral function of robust, prefrail, and frail older people; and determine the association between oral function and frailty.
Design: Cross-sectional analysis.
Setting: General community.
Participants: Elderly adults (≥65) from the Obu Study of Health Promotion for the Elderly were included and assigned to the robust, prefrail, and frail groups (N = 4,720).
Measurements: Each participant underwent detailed physical testing to assess frailty. The frailty phenotype was defined according to the presence of limitations in three or more of the following five domains: mobility, strength, endurance, physical activity, and nutrition. The numbers of present teeth and functional teeth were counted, and occlusal force, masseter muscle thickness, and oral diadochokinesis …
matched on Frail Elderly (mesh), Aging (mesh), Geriatric Assessment (mesh), older adults (text)