Considering Financial Assets When Promoting Sense of Purpose in Older Adulthood

Sense of purpose, a consistent promoter of successful aging across the lifespan, has been shown in previous research to decline during older adulthood. As such, research is needed to understand how to inform policies around promoting a sense of purpose for older adults, and which adults may need more assistance on this front. One potential mechanism for lower purpose in older adulthood could be due to the more limited financial assets many face following retirement. As such, the current study investigated the cross-sectional associations between different kinds of financial assets and sense of purpose among older adults from the 2006 and 2008 waves of the Health and Retirement Study (n = 9,380). Sense of purpose as well as four financial assets were assessed: physical assets, retirement account assets, investment account assets, and debts. Findings indicated that greater physical assets and retirement account assets predicted a higher sense of purpose, while debt and investment account assets did not. Furthermore, there were no moderating effects of different grouping variables, such as retirement status, race, marital status, subjective health, or wave, on the associations between total net worth and sense of purpose. Findings are discussed regarding why net worth matters for all, and why certain assets may be more important than others when promoting a sense of purpose.

Identity Development and Disruption in Older Adults During COVID-19: A Longitudinal, Mixed-Methods Study

OBJECTIVES

Disruptive life events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, may trigger adjustment and revision of older adults' identities. This mixed-methods study explored how older adults perceived their identities changing as a result of the pandemic, and how such identity dynamics related to pandemic-related events and well-being.

METHOD

Participants included 2248 older adults who participated in the longitudinal COVID-19 Coping Study spanning from April/May 2020 to April/May 2021. Mean age was 67.8 years, 70% were women, and 93% were white. We used qualitative thematic analysis to identify the ways the pandemic affected participants' identities. We then investigated the association between identity themes and testing positive for COVID-19, having a friend or family member hospitalized or die due to COVID-19, or being vaccinated. Finally, we tested whether identity disruption was associated with 12-month trajectories of well-being (including life satisfaction, loneliness, depressive symptoms, anxiety, and self-rated health) using latent growth curve models.

RESULTS

Some participants reported positive identity themes, such as rethinking and revising priorities and realization of strength and resilience. Others indicated harmful effects, including identity disruption. Individuals reporting identity disruption had worse well-being at baseline and remained consistently worse over time.

DISCUSSION

Findings highlight that identity remains malleable in later-life, and that stressful events like the COVID-19 pandemic may trigger positive adaptive identity processes, but can also cause identity disruption that is associated with persistently worse well-being over time.

Correlated Change Between Personality Traits and Perceived Social Support in Old Age

This study investigated correlated change between the Big Five personality traits and perceived social support in old age. Two data waves with an 8-year span from the Interdisciplinary Longitudinal Study on Adult Development (ILSE) were utilized. The longitudinal sample for this study consisted of 491 older adults (aged 64-68 years at T1). Four different aspects of perceived availability of social support were assessed (emotional support, practical support, social integration, and social strain). The Big Five personality traits were assessed with the Neuroticism-Extraversion-Openness Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI). Results show significant latent concurrent correlations and correlated changes between personality traits and social support. Notably, correlated change with social support types differed depending on the Big Five traits being evaluated, with changes in extraversion, neuroticism, and agreeableness being the traits most associated with changes in social support types, and openness being least associated. Results are discussed through a life span development lens in light of past research.

Age-related positivity effect in emotional memory consolidation from middle age to late adulthood

Background

While younger adults are more likely to attend to, process, and remember negative relative to positive information, healthy older adults show the opposite pattern. The current study evaluates when, exactly, this positivity shift begins, and how it influences memory performance for positive, negative, and neutral information.

Methods

A total of 274 healthy early middle-aged (35-47), late middle-aged (48-59), and older adults (>59) viewed scenes consisting of a negative, positive, or a neutral object placed on a plausible neutral background, and rated each scene for its valence and arousal. After 12 h spanning a night of sleep (n = 137) or a day of wakefulness (n = 137), participants completed an unexpected memory test during which they were shown objects and backgrounds separately and indicated whether the scene component was the "same," "similar," or "new" to what they viewed during the study session.

Results and conclusions

We found that both late middle-aged and older adults rated positive and neutral scenes more positively compared to early middle-aged adults. However, only older adults showed better memory for positive objects relative to negative objects, and a greater positive memory trade-off magnitude (i.e., remembering positive objects at the cost of their associated neutral backgrounds) than negative memory trade-off magnitude (i.e., remembering negative objects at the cost of their associated neutral backgrounds). Our findings suggest that while the positivity bias may not emerge in memory until older adulthood, a shift toward positivity in terms of processing may begin in middle age.

Reminiscing and intergenerational advice giving during the COVID-19 pandemic

OBJECTIVES

Given that types of reminiscing consistently predict psychological well-being, the current study investigated how older adults' reminiscing related to their appraisal of the COVID-19 pandemic and to the advice letters they wrote for younger adults.

METHODS

The sample of 107 community-dwelling older adults (Mage = 74.55, SDage = 5.89) completed self-report questionnaires to report (a) level of life-disruption experienced due to the pandemic, (b) type and frequency of reminiscing during the pandemic, and (c) current positive and negative appraisals of the pandemic. Forty participants also produced essays providing advice to younger people about how to overcome a life challenge such as the pandemic.

RESULTS

Correlational analyses revealed that positive reminiscence functions positively correlated with both positive (mean r(105) = .42, p < .006) and negative pandemic appraisals (mean r(105) = .44, p < .006), whereas negative reminiscence functions correlated with negative pandemic appraisals (mean r(105) = .31, p < .006) but not with positive pandemic appraisals (mean r(105) = .15, p > .006). Individuals who reminisced more tended to produce advice that was more positively (r(38) =.36, p = .02) and negatively (r(38) = .34, p = .03) valanced; and those who reminisced more with the function of identity development also gave advice that focused on this issue (r(38) = .44, p = .004).

CONCLUSION

Overall, these results suggest that positive reminiscing is linked to older adults' capacity to view both positive and negative facets of challenging life situations.

Cumulative Unionization and Physical Health Disparities among Older Adults

Whereas previous research shows that union membership is associated with improved health, static measurements have been used to test dynamic theories linking the two. We construct a novel measure of cumulative unionization, tracking individuals across their entire careers, to examine health consequences in older adulthood. We use data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (1970-2019) and predict self-rated health, functional limitations, and chronic health conditions in ages 60 to 79 using cumulative unionization measured during respondents' careers. Results from growth models show that unionized careers are associated with .25 SD to .30 SD improvements in health among older adults across all measures. Analyses of life course mechanisms reveal heterogeneous effects across unionization timing, age in older adulthood, and birth cohort. Moreover, subgroup analyses reveal unionization to partially, but not fully, ameliorate disparities based on privileged social positions. Our findings reveal a substantial and novel mechanism driving older adulthood health disparities.

Late Onset Personality Disorders in Mid-Life and Older Adults

There is little research on personality disorder (PD) onset in older age. Many studies have shown that normative personality traits change across the life span, even into later life. This study aimed to investigate the onset of PDs in later adulthood (>age 55), and the possible influence of major life events on predicting this late onset. The current analysis was conducted with data from the St. Louis Personality and Aging Network (SPAN). Structured diagnostic interviews were administered three times over five years. Logistic regressions were conducted predicting late onset PD from baseline to FU5 and from FU5 to FU10 as a function of each major life event. 75 PD onsets occurred from baseline to FU5, and 39 PD onsets occurred from FU5 to FU10. Personal illness predicted the onset of PDs from FU5 to FU10.

Revisiting a Time of Study: Older Adults Learning Through Grieving

A brief reflection of encountering four older adult women who claimed self-transformation through learning in late life grief.

Loneliness and Off-Topic Verbosity Among Young Adults and Older Adults

OBJECTIVES

Off-topic verbosity (OTV) refers to prolonged speech that derails from the initial conversational topic by including more loosely associated speech and becoming increasingly more unfocused and distant from the initial topic. Previous research has suggested that, among older adults, loneliness may be associated with greater OTV. The purpose of this study was to investigate the nature of the relationship between loneliness and OTV among young adults (n = 62) and older adults (n = 80).

METHODS

Participants completed a measure of loneliness and provided speech samples, which were transcribed and rated for OTV.

RESULTS

Results indicated some relationship between loneliness and tangentiality of speech, particularly among older adults.

DISCUSSION

Overall, loneliness may be associated with greater OTV in older adults, which could further explain the connection between increased loneliness and worse health outcomes in older adulthood.

Psychometric Properties of and Measurement Invariance in the Questionnaire of Stereotypes Toward Older Adulthood in Health Care College Students and Health Professionals of Colombia: Psychometric Study

BACKGROUND

In health professionals, negative stereotypes toward older adulthood have been associated with the difficulty in recognizing pathological processes and the refusal to care for older patients because of assuming that communication with them will be uncomfortable and frustrating. For these reasons, research on stereotypes in these groups has acquired growing importance. The usual strategy to identify and evaluate agist stereotypes is to use scales and questionnaires. Although multiple scales are currently used, in Latin America, the Questionnaire for the Evaluation of Negative Stereotypes Toward Older Adulthood (Cuestionario de Estereotipos Negativos sobre la Vejez [CENVE]), developed in Spain, is widely used but without evidence of construct validity in our context. In addition, although in the original version, a factorial structure of 3 factors was found, in later studies, a unifactorial structure was obtained.

OBJECTIVE

The objective is to study the construct validity of the CENVE in a sample of Colombian health personnel to clarify its factorial structure and concurrent validity. Likewise, the measurement invariance according to gender and age was studied.

METHODS

A nonprobabilistic sample of 877 Colombian health professionals and intern health students was obtained. The data were collected online using the LimeSurvey tool. To study the factor structure of the CENVE, 2 confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) models were carried out, one to test a single factor and the other to test the 3-related-factor structure. The factor measurement reliability was evaluated with the composite reliability index (CRI) and the average variance extracted (AVE). The measurement invariance was studied according to gender (men and women) and age (emerging adults, 18-29 years old, and adults, 30 years old or older). Using a structural equation model, the relationship between age and the latent CENVE total score was studied to obtain evidence of concurrent validity, since studies indicate that the younger the age, the greater the number of stereotypes.

RESULTS

The 1-factor structure was confirmed. The reliability results indicated that both indices show adequate values. Likewise, the existence of a strong invariance in measurement by gender and age group was verified. After contrasting the means of the groups, the results showed that men show more negative stereotypes toward old age than women. Likewise, emerging adults also showed more stereotypes than adults. We also verified that age is inversely related to the latent score of the questionnaire, such that the younger the age, the greater the stereotype. These results are in agreement with those obtained by other authors.

CONCLUSIONS

The CENVE shows good construct and concurrent validity, as well as good reliability, and it can be used to assess stereotypes toward older adulthood in Colombian health professionals and health sciences college students. This will allow us to better understand the effect of stereotypes on agism.

Mortality rate and age of death among Medicare-enrolled autistic older adults

Background

An emerging body of evidence suggests that autistic people are at greater risk for mortality than non-autistic people. Yet, relatively little is known about mortality rates among autistic people during older adulthood (i.e., age 65 or older).

Methods

We examined 5-year mortality among a national US sample of Medicare-enrolled autistic (n=3,308) and non-autistic (n=33,080) adults aged 65 or older.

Results

Autistic older adults had 2.87 times greater rate of mortality (95% CI=2.61-3.07) than non-autistic older adults. Among decedents (39.6% of autistic and 15.1% of non-autistic older adults), the median age of death was 72 years (IQR=69-78) for autistic and 75 years (IQR=70-83) for non-autistic older adults. Among autistic older adults, those with intellectual disability had 1.57 times greater rate of mortality (95% CI=1.41-1.76) than those without, and males had 1.27 times greater rate of mortality (95% CI=1.12-1.43) than females.

Conclusions

Many trends regarding mortality observed in younger samples of autistic people were also observed in our study. However, we found only a three-year difference in median age at death between autistic and non-autistic decedents, which is a much smaller disparity than reported in some other studies. This potentially suggests that when autistic people live to the age of 65, they may live to a more similar age as non-autistic peers.

Brief Report: Child Sexual Abuse and Somatic Symptoms in Older Adulthood for Men

Somatic symptom disorders are often misdiagnosed or minimized among men, especially in middle and older adulthood. Previous research investigating links between somatic disorders and early trauma, such as childhood sexual abuse (CSA), have mostly been based on small, non-representative, female samples using cross-sectional designs. The current study used data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study to assess associations between CSA and somatic symptom severity among men in middle- and late-adulthood (mid-50s to early 70s) with histories of CSA (n = 129) and a matched, non-abused comparison group (n = 2,322). Childhood (e.g., co-occurring adversities and parental education) and demographic background variables (e.g., marital status, self-rated health, and income) were controlled. Growth curve modeling was used to explore trajectories of somatic symptoms over time. Results indicated that the CSA group had higher somatic symptom severity than the non-abused group (γ01 = .10, p < .05); symptoms decreased over time for both groups with no significant differences in the rate of change. Healthcare providers should include CSA in assessments for men. Because contemporary somatic symptoms may represent unresolved early life course trauma, mental health support services should be expanded for this population. Future research should explore gender-appropriate treatment modalities for older men with histories of CSA.

Being Social May Be Purposeful in Older Adulthood: A Measurement Burst Design

OBJECTIVE

Sense of purpose predicts a wide array of positive health, cognitive, and well-being outcomes during older adulthood. However, work is limited regarding how social relations correspond to purposefulness in daily life. The current study explored daily social interactions as a route to daily purposefulness in older adults, using a measurement burst design.

METHODS

Older adults completed surveys for three 5-day bursts each spread 6 months apart (M_age = 70.75, SD = 7.23; N = 104).

RESULTS

Multilevel models demonstrated that on days when individuals reported more positive social interactions, they reported feeling more purposeful (est. = 0.39, 95% CI [0.28, 0.51]) when accounting for health, employment, and relationship status. Employment status moderated this association, as daily social interactions were more strongly associated with daily purpose for unemployed/retired individuals (est. = -0.23, 95% CI [-0.38, -0.08]).

CONCLUSION

Positive social interactions thus may help older adults maintain purposefulness, particularly after retirement.

Women Gerontologists' Personal Experiences with Aging: Results From the Women in Gerontology Legacy Project

The Women in Gerontology Legacy (WIGL) Project involved interviewing 46 older women gerontologists between 2014 and 2015. The current study focuses on the WIGL interview questions regarding the interactions between participants' experiences as gerontologists and their own aging. Emergent themes focus on the direction of influence: professional lives influencing personal lives, personal lives informing professional lives and mutuality between personal and professional lives. Thematic findings expand our current understanding of how professional knowledge and experiences contribute to personal aging experiences and the role personal aging experiences can have on the professional lives of women gerontologists. There is a potential for disconnect to occur between our personal experiences and the experiences of others. The current study contributes to our understanding of when and how this occurs, so we can then ensure our messages fall on receptive ears by overcoming the natural tendency to distort or ignore messages that may create anxiety.

Physiological bases of secure base support provision in a longitudinal study of married older adult couples

Close others often serve as a source of support for our pursuit of personal goals. Although social psychological research indicates that individuals and relationships benefit when couple members provide each other with secure base support for personal goals, few studies have investigated the physiological bases of these types of support interactions. This study of married older adults examined support providers' cardiovascular challenge‐threat responses while they engaged in a laboratory social interaction about the most important goal that their partner (the target) wanted to make progress toward during the next year. Consistent with our hypothesis, support providers' cardiovascular challenge responses were positively associated with targets' ratings of their secure base support provision during the discussion. This study also used structural equation modeling to test a theoretical model of support providers' cardiovascular challenge responses as a physiological basis of secure base support provision that promotes targets' goal progress and thriving over time. Consistent with our theory, support providers' cardiovascular challenge responses were positively associated with targets' goal progress at Year 2 follow‐up. In turn, targets' goal progress at Year 2 predicted increases in targets' overall thriving from Year 1 to Year 3. This investigation provides novel evidence for attachment theory's assertion that biobehavioral caregiving system activation facilitates the provision of secure base support that promotes close others' goal progress and thriving over time. Results of this study also contribute to recent evidence that cardiovascular challenge responses are associated with social behaviors during dyadic interactions.

Our investigation implicates cardiovascular challenge‐threat responses as underlying the provision of secure base support. We advance earlier research on attachment theory by providing longitudinal evidence that support providers‘ cardiovascular challenge responses during a laboratory goal discussion represent activation of the biobehavioral caregiving system, which theoretically facilitates partners‘ goal progress (exploration) and thriving over time. These findings contribute to scarce research examining cardiovascular challenge‐threat response during social interactions and scarce research on attachment relationships and physiology in older adulthood.

Religious Transitions Among Baby Boomers From Young Adulthood to Later Life: Associations with Psychological Well-Being Over 45 Years

We used classification analysis to examine change in religiosity among baby boomers from young adulthood to early old age and how religiosity transition patterns are associated with psychological well-being in later life. In addition, we tested the gender difference in the above association. We applied latent class and latent transition analysis to 392 baby boomers who participated in the Longitudinal Study of Generations in Wave-1 (1971) and Wave-9 (2016). We identified three classes describing religiosity at each wave (strongly religious, doctrinally religious, and weakly religious), and considered five types of change or stability in religious class membership from Wave-1 to Wave-9. Multiple regression with gender interactions revealed that men who stayed strongly religious over the period reported better psychological well-being compared to men who declined in their religiosity; no such pattern was found for women. Our findings suggest that maintaining strong religiosity over the life course was beneficial for baby boom men in later life.

Testing the Foreign Language Effect on Cognitive Reflection in Older Adults

An increasing number of people around the world communicate in more than one language, resulting in them having to make decisions in a foreign language on a daily basis. Interestingly, a burgeoning body of literature suggests that people’s decision-making is affected by whether they are reasoning in their native language (NL) or their foreign language (FL). According to the foreign language effect (FLe), people are less susceptible to bias in many decision-making tasks and more likely to display utilitarian cost-benefit analysis in moral decision-making when reasoning in a FL. While these differences have often been attributed to a reduced emotionality in the FL, an emerging body of literature has started to test the extent to which these could be attributable to increased deliberation in the FL. The present study tests whether increased deliberation leads to a FLe on cognitive reflection in a population of older adults (M_age = 65.1), from the successful aging project in Umeå, Sweden. We explored whether performance on a 6-item version of the cognitive reflection test (CRT) adapted to Swedish would differ between participants for whom Swedish was their NL and those for whom Swedish was their FL. The CRT is a task designed to elicit an incorrect, intuitive answer. In order to override the intuitive answer, one requires engaging in deliberative, analytical thinking to determine the correct answer. Therefore, we hypothesized that if thinking in a FL increases deliberation, then those performing the task in their FL would exhibit higher accuracy rates than those performing in their NL. Our results showed that age and level of education predicted performance on the task but performance on the CRT did not differ between the NL and the FL groups. In addition, in the FL group, proficiency in the FL was not related to performance in the CRT. Our results, therefore, do not provide evidence that thinking in a FL increases deliberation in a group of older adults performing a logical reasoning task that is not typically associated with an emotional connotation.

Sense of Purpose Promotes Resilience to Cognitive Deficits Attributable to Depressive Symptoms

Objective

Individuals higher in depressive symptoms commonly present with neuropsychological deficits including poorer memory performance. Sense of purpose in life has been shown to promote resilience to cognitive impairment in older adulthood, but it is unclear whether it may also protect against cognitive deficits associated with higher depressive symptoms.

Method

Cognitive functioning among 4599 older American adults (M_age = 74.33 years, range = 65–104 years, 56.84% female) was examined across a 12-year follow-up period. Depressive symptomatology was assessed at each wave using the 8-item Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale. Multilevel models assessed the influence of depressive symptoms and the interaction with sense of purpose in life on changes in memory performance and mental status.

Results

Higher depressive symptoms were associated with poorer memory performance at baseline, but did not predict rate of change over time. A negative interaction was observed between sense of purpose in life and depressive symptoms such that individuals higher in purpose experienced a less negative association between depressive symptoms and baseline memory performance. No significant interaction of sense of purpose and depressive symptoms was observed on mental status.

Conclusion

Having a sense of purpose in life may help protect older adults from memory deficits associated with higher depressive symptoms. The present findings underscore the potential for sense of purpose to promote cognitive reserve in older adulthood, allowing individuals to maintain cognitive performance in the face of accruing neurological insults.

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Buffers Glucocorticoid Resistance Among Older Adults: A Randomized Controlled Trial

OBJECTIVE

Mindfulness interventions have been effective for improving a range of health outcomes; however, pathways underlying these effects remain unclear. Inflammatory processes may play a role, possibly through increased resistance of immune cells to the anti-inflammatory effects of glucocorticoids (i.e., glucocorticoid resistance, or GCR). Here, we conducted an initial examination of whether mindfulness training mitigates GCR among lonely older adults.

METHODS

Lonely older adults (65-85 years; n = 190) were randomly assigned to an 8-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) or a matched Health Enhancement Program (HEP). Whole blood drawn before and after the intervention and at 3-month follow-up was incubated with endotoxin and varying concentrations of dexamethasone, and interleukin-6 production was assessed using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. GCR was assessed as the concentration of dexamethasone required to decrease the stimulated interleukin-6 response by 50% (half maximal inhibitory concentration), with higher concentrations indicating greater GCR. Mixed-effects linear models tested time (pre, post, follow-up) by condition (MBSR versus HEP) effects.

RESULTS

There was no overall time by condition effect on GCR across all time points. However, a significant time by condition effect was observed from preintervention to postintervention (d = 0.29), such that MBSR buffered increases in GCR observed in the HEP group. Although MBSR showed small, nonsignificant reductions in GCR from preintervention to 3-month follow-up, group differences were not maintained at the 3-month follow-up (d = 0.10).

CONCLUSIONS

Results suggest that MBSR may protect against declines in the sensitivity of immune cells to the anti-inflammatory effects of glucocorticoids among at-risk lonely older adults and show value in studying this biological mechanism in future trials.Trial Registration: Clinical Trials identifier NCT02888600.

Senescent Decline in Verbal-Emotion Identification by Older Hearing-Impaired Listeners - Do Hearing Aids Help?

Purpose

To assess the ability of older-adult hearing-impaired (OHI) listeners to identify verbal expressions of emotions, and to evaluate whether hearing-aid (HA) use improves identification performance in those listeners.

Methods

Twenty-nine OHI listeners, who were experienced bilateral-HA users, participated in the study. They listened to a 20-sentence-long speech passage rendered with six different emotional expressions (“happiness”, “pleasant surprise”, “sadness”, “anger”, “fear”, and “neutral”). The task was to identify the emotion portrayed in each version of the passage. Listeners completed the task twice in random order, once unaided, and once wearing their own bilateral HAs. Seventeen young-adult normal-hearing (YNH) listeners were also tested unaided as controls.

Results

Most YNH listeners (89.2%) correctly identified emotions compared to just over half of the OHI listeners (58.7%). Within the OHI group, verbal emotion identification was significantly correlated with age, but not with audibility-related factors. The number of OHI listeners who were able to correctly identify the different emotions did not significantly change when HAs were worn (54.8%).

Conclusion

In line with previous investigations using shorter speech stimuli, there were clear age differences in the recognition of verbal emotions, with OHI listeners showing a significant reduction in unaided verbal-emotion identification performance that progressively declined with age across older adulthood. Rehabilitation through HAs did not provide compensation for the impaired ability to perceive emotions carried by speech sounds.

If He Is in Shape, So Is the Marriage: Perceptions of Physical Fitness and Exercise and Older Couples' Marital Functioning

The current study explored concordance in spouses' perceptions about exercise and how these perceptions predicted observed and self-reported marital functioning using a sample of 64 older married couples. Although couples were similarly motivated to exercise, their views on their physical fitness and potential barriers to exercise were uncorrelated. Dyadic analyses suggested that spouses' exercise perceptions, particularly husbands', were associated with how spouses treated each other during a marital problem-solving task and with their concurrent and future marital satisfaction. Exploring how spouses' views of exercise are related to their marital functioning and for whom these links are most salient may highlight potential opportunities and challenges for those wishing to strengthen couples' individual and relational well-being through exercise.

Stigma, Treatment, and Health among Stimulant Users: Life Stage as a Moderator

This 3-year study examined associations among drug use stigma, life stage, treatment utilization and health among 710 US adults using stimulants. Consistent with substance use developmental frameworks, life stage was represented by Emerging adulthood (18-25 years old, n=223), Earlymid adulthood (26-44 years old; n=384), and Older adulthood (45-61 years old; n=103). Emerging adults experienced less enacted stigma (i.e., experiences of discrimination) and perceived less public stigma (i.e., unjust treatment) over the course of the study than other life stage groups. More baseline enacted stigma was associated with more mental health and substance use treatment, whereas more baseline self stigma (i.e., negative thoughts about the self) was associated with less treatment utilization. Life stage moderated stigma-outcome associations such that substance use outcomes were worse for Emerging adults reporting more enacted stigma. Although emerging adults experienced less drug use stigma, stigma had a more negative impact on adults in this life stage.

Age Differences in Age Perceptions and Developmental Transitions

Is 50 considered “old”? When do we stop being considered “young”? If individuals could choose to be any age, what would it be? In a sample of 502,548 internet respondents ranging in age from 10 to 89, we examined age differences in aging perceptions (e.g., how old do you feel?) and estimates of the timing of developmental transitions (e.g., when does someone become an older adult?). We found that older adults reported older perceptions of aging (e.g., choosing to be older, feeling older, being perceived as older), but that these perceptions were increasingly younger than their current age. The age to which individuals hope to live dramatically increased after age 40. We also found that older adults placed the age at which developmental transitions occurred later in the life course. This latter effect was stronger for transitions involving middle-age and older adulthood compared to transitions involving young adulthood. The current study constitutes the largest study to date of age differences in age perceptions and developmental timing estimates and yielded novel insights into how the aging process may affect judgments about the self and others.

A qualitative description of successful aging through different decades of older adulthood

OBJECTIVE

To qualitatively examine factors that contribute to successful aging during different decades of older adulthood.

METHODS

Fundamental qualitative description was adopted as the methodological framework. Through purposeful sampling, 42 community dwelling older adults (mean age = 79.6 years, age range = 65-97 years; 19 males) were recruited. Focus groups (6) segmented by decade of life were conducted with participants 65-74 (n = 17) and 75-84 (n = 17) years of age. Semi-structured interviews (16) were conducted with four participants from each decade, as well as participants 85 years of age and older (n = 8). Data analyses were conducted independently for each decade of life and included inductive analysis of textual data through continuous comparisons of meaning units.

RESULTS

Three primary themes related to successful aging were identified across all decades of older adulthood: (1) staying healthy (secondary themes: genetics and lifestyle choices), (2) maintaining an active engagement in life (secondary themes: social engagement and cognitive engagement), and (3) keeping a positive outlook on life. Participants in specific decades of older adulthood identified three additional secondary themes related to maintaining an active engagement in life: finances (65-74 and 85+ years), social support (75+ years), and successful marriage (75+ years). Similarly, only adults 65-84 years of age identified a secondary theme for keeping a positive outlook on life: acceptance and adaptation.

CONCLUSION

Primary themes related to successful aging were agreed upon by participants in all decades of older adulthood, while age-based differences existed among secondary themes. Thus, what it means to age successfully may be age-dependent.

The experience of high-frequency gambling behavior of older adult females in the United Kingdom: An interpretative phenomenological analysis

The prevalence of older adult female gambling participation and gambling disorder is increasing in the UK, and there is a paucity of published research available to understand possible risk factors for frequent gambling in this demographic. The aim of the current study was to identify and explore motivations and patterns of gambling behavior in high-frequency older adult female gamblers in the UK, from the perspective of the individual and in the context of their experience of aging. Ten UK older adult female high-frequency gamblers were recruited via stratified purposive sampling, with a mean age of 70.4 years. Data was collected via semistructured interviews and analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Three core themes representative of the experience of this phenomenon emerged from the transcripts, including: Filling voids, emotional escape, and overspending. The present study has provided a contextualized understanding of motivating factors and several age-related vulnerabilities that may account for high gambling frequency in this population.

Social Support and Cognition: Early Childhood Versus Older Adulthood

Cognitive development in early childhood and cognitive preservation in older adulthood are critical for leading healthy life. Social engagement can significantly affect cognition, but their relationships are unclear. The purpose of this review was to synthesize current findings on the relationship between social engagement and cognition in early childhood and older adulthood. PubMed, Web of Science, Ovid Medline, and PsycINFO were searched for studies published in 1995-2015 for a comprehensive review. Included in this review were 42 articles written in English, published in peer-reviewed journals with participants' age being 2 to 6 or ≥65 years, and measurement of social engagement and cognition. Overall, greater social engagement was associated with higher levels of cognition across the life span, association of which seemed more prominent in populations at risk of cognitive impairment. Additional research is needed to elucidate biobehavioral mechanisms underlying these relationships and to test the efficacy of new interventions.

Dental health among older Israeli adults: is this a reflection of a medical care model inadequately addressing oral health?

OBJECTIVES

Israel's health-care system is considered as one of the most efficient worldwide. The purpose of the present study was to assess oral health outcomes, dental care use and respective social inequalities among the older segment of the Israeli population.

METHODS

Secondary analyses were conducted of recently available data from the Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE Israel, wave 2), which specifically includes information on chewing ability, denture wearing and dental care use obtained from more than 2,400 Israeli people, 50+ years of age. Multivariate logistic regressions and concentration indices were used to analyse determinants of oral health and dental care use.

RESULTS

Seventy per cent of respondents reported being able to bite/chew on hard foods and 49% of respondents reported wearing dentures. Forty-three per cent of respondents had visited a dentist within the past 12 months, with about half of all dental visits being made for solely nonpreventive reasons. Significant income-related inequalities were identified, with higher income being associated with greater dental care use (particularly preventive dental visits), better chewing ability and less denture wearing.

CONCLUSIONS

For the older segment of the Israeli population and compared with other countries, the findings of the present study suggest a relatively low level of chewing ability, a high extent of nonpreventive dental visiting, as well as considerable inequalities in oral health and care. It seems that the Israeli health-care system may be improved even further by more comprehensive inclusion of dental care into universal health coverage.

The Frequency and Impact of Exposure to Potentially Traumatic Events Over the Life Course

We examined the frequency and impact of exposure to potentially traumatic events among a nonclinical sample of older adults (n = 3,575), a population typically underrepresented in epidemiological research concerning the prevalence of traumatic events. Current PTSD symptom severity and the centrality of events to identity were assessed for events nominated as currently most distressing. Approximately 90% of participants experienced one or more potentially traumatic events. Events that occurred with greater frequency early in the life course were associated with more severe PTSD symptoms compared to events that occurred with greater frequency during later decades. Early life traumas, however, were not more central to identity. Results underscore the differential impact of traumatic events experienced throughout the life course. We conclude with suggestions for further research concerning mechanisms that promote the persistence of post-traumatic stress related to early life traumas and empirical evaluation of psychotherapeutic treatments for older adults with PTSD.

Social inequalities in depression and suicidal ideation among older primary care patients

PURPOSE

Depression and suicide are major public health concerns, and are often unrecognized among the elderly. This study investigated social inequalities in depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation among older adults.

METHODS

Data come from 1,226 participants in PROSPECT (Prevention of Suicide in Primary Care Elderly: Collaborative Trial), a large primary care-based intervention trial for late-life depression. Linear and logistic regressions were used to analyze depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation over the 2-year follow-up period.

RESULTS

Mean Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS) scores were significantly higher among participants in financial strain [regression coefficient (b) = 1.78, 95 % confidence interval (CI) = 0.67-2.89] and with annual incomes below $20,000 (b = 1.67, CI = 0.34-3.00). Financial strain was also associated with a higher risk of suicidal ideation (odds ratio = 2.35, CI = 1.38-3.98).

CONCLUSIONS

There exist marked social inequalities in depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation among older adults attending primary care practices, the setting in which depression is most commonly treated. Our results justify continued efforts to understand the mechanisms generating such inequalities and to recognize and provide effective treatments for depression among high-risk populations.

[Experience with the management of subtalar dislocation]

In 10 and 3 years resp., material of two surgical departments - with great material - 10 cases of luxation - without fracture - occurred in the subtaler joint have been treated. All 10 patients suffered covered, subtaler dislocations. After conservative treatment all 10 patients recovered and are back at work.