Elderly Health Journal
Volume:6 Issue: 2, Dec 2020

Quality of life of older adults is one of the most important issues in their health care. The aim of this study was to investigate the power of health literacy and general literacy in predicting quality of life among older adults in Bojnurd, Iran.

This cross-sectional study was conducted on 180 older adults in Bojnurd city in 2016. The participants were selected by multi-stage cluster sampling method. The instruments used in this study included the demographic variables questionnaire, 12-Item Short Form Health Survey  and Health Literacy for Iranian Adults. To describe and analyze the data, SPSS software was used. Descriptive statistics, Kolmogorov-Smirnov, Mann-Whitney U, ANOVA, Spearman correlation coefficient, and multifactorial regression analysis were run to analyze the data.

The mean health literacy score was 69.76 ± 15.05 (score range from 0 to 100) and the mean score of quality of life was 26.2 ± 6.12 (score range from 12 to 48). The level of health literacy was insufficient in 32.2% of the participants and about half of them lacked general literacy. The relationship between health literacy and quality of life was statistically significant (p < 0.001) (r = 0.54). A significant difference was observed between the illiterate and literate seniors with regard to their quality of life scores (p < 0.001). The predictive power of health literacy and general literacy was statistically significant in obtaining a higher score in quality of life with Beta coefficients of 0.65 and 0.25, respectively (p < 0.001).

Although health literacy and general literacy affect the elderlies’ quality of life positively, health literacy is more effective. Therefore, authorities are suggested to increase their quality of health literacy to improve the seniors’ quality of life.

This study aims to compare the effectiveness of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy and meta-cognitive therapy based on training on emotion regulation and anxiety sensitivity in elderly with precedent heart disease in Tehran city.

This was an experimental study with pre-test & post-test and statistical population consisted of all elderly with precedent heart disease living in Tehran 2018, among whom 50 people with precedent heart disease were selected and randomly divided into two groups of equally 25 people. The first group received eight sessions of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, and the second group was presented with eight sessions of meta-cognitive therapy based on training. Research tools were Emotion Regulation Questionnaire of Gross & John and Anxiety Sensitivity Index of Taylor & Coax (1998). Finally, data analysis was done by multivariate covariance.

The results showed significant effectiveness of independent variables (mindfulness-based cognitive therapy and meta-cognitive therapy based on training) on emotion regulation and anxiety sensitivity (p < 0.001). However, the results showed that metacognitive education had a more significant effect on anxiety fear control than mindful cognitive therapy.

Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy and meta-cognitive therapy based on training on emotion regulation and anxiety sensitivity had different effectiveness. So, experts should pay attention to this issue.

One of the main problems facing different societies in the world, including Iran, is population aging and its consequences. With individuals entering old age, the possibility of being afflicted with one or more chronic diseases increases, which in turn results in more use of medications and medication adherence. This study has examined medication adherence status and its related factors among older adults in Yazd, Iran.

Totally 196 individuals aged 60 years old and higher in Yazd were entered randomly in this cross-sectional study. The data were collected using Morisky Medication Adherence Scale. Chi-square and Gamma tests were used for data analysis.

The medication adherence was weak in 79.1%, average in 19.9%, and high in only 1% of the participants. There was not a significant relationship between demographic variables and medication adherence.

As most of the participants were weak in medication adherence, the necessary actions for the identification of other factors that lead to the reduction of medication adherence can pave the way for providing solutions for increasing medication adherence in this age group.

The present study aims to examine challenges encountered by elderly people in Quetta city of Balochistan. The socio-economic problems faced by elderly and the attitude of family members towards them were explored in this study.

A random sample of 200 respondents comprising both women and men of age 60 years and above was selected and data was collected through semi-structured interview schedule. The data collected has been processed through SPSS and simple frequency designed tables.

The results show several problems were encountered by elderly including discrimination (65%), limited decision making power (44%), acts of neglect and maltreatment from families (42%), verbal and physical abuse (41%), reduced social interaction (68%) and economic dependency (55.5%). These challenges were reported to have serious implications on the lives of elderly.

The findings of this study imply that the majority of problems faced by elderly were largely due to breakdown of traditional family system of the country. To address these issues the attention of the state is needed especially in providing alternative means of living for the elderly who spend their lives in serving the nation. This may include setting up elderly homes, introducing elderly allowances and increasing pension amounts.

Place attachment is a sense of comfort of people in their neighborhood. Aged people are sensitive to changes in their environment. This study aimed to find the reliability and validity of the Place Attachment Scale (PAS) among Iranian older adults.

This was a methodological study in which the study population consisted of 550 elderly people living in Tehran. Data were collected through PAS. Data analysis was performed using IBM SPSS statistics v.22 and LISREL v.20 software via Pearson correlation test, independent t-test, Cronbach’s alpha, exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis.

Face validity of the PAS was confirmed by a panel of experts. Internal consistency of PAS was 0.95. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the construct validity of the PAS (CFI= 1.00, GFI= 0.98, RMSEA= 0.05) . The mean score of the participantschr('39') PAS was 23.78 ± 7.58 that was indicative of a moderate level of place attachment. 

PAS is a suitable tool for assessing Place Attachment among Iranian older adults.

The possibility of depression is common in the elderly. Novel technologies allow us to monitor people related to depression. Hence, a model was provided to detect depression in elderly based on artificial neural network (ANN).

The present study is an applied descriptive-survey research. Forty elderly people were randomly selected from the Elderly Care Center in Gonbad Kavous, Golestan, Iran in 2019. Data were obtained through interview. The data were randomly divided in to two groups of training and testing. In training phase by using first dataset (70%), three layers network is considered. Interrelation weights between variables, optimum transfer function and optimum number of hidden layer were obtained. The sum of squared errors, receiver operating characteristic curve criterion and accuracy were used to select the optimum ANN. The optimum model tested and validated (p < 0.001) with second dataset (30%).

The sigmoid transfer function in hidden and output layers with 5 nods (SSE = 131), one hidden layer with 15 neurons was considered as optimum model. Receiver operating characteristic curve criterion and accuracy were obtained equal to 0.913 and 94.79% respectively. The confusion matrix was showed high sensitivity (97.45%) and specificity (99.25%) in the diagnosis of depression. Age, gender, income, polarity outgoing messages to family, incoming calls, time active in the day, polarity incoming messages from family, time sleep in the day were obtained as a significant set for input layer of the optimum model. In addition, the optimum model has been quite successful in identifying normal and depressed elderly.

This research applied an ANN model for detection of depression in the elderly. ANN can be used as a computational tools for early diagnosis of depression in the elderly People.

Age-related cognitive decline or cognitive aging is largely the result of structural and functional decline in specific areas of the brain, but lifestyle also contributes to this cognitive decline. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of working memory rehabilitation on visual memory and memory span in ageing.

This was a quasi-experimental study with pretest-posttest design and a control group. The study population included all elderly people who lived in Bukan Nursing Home from April to July 2019 (N = 120). Among these individuals, 30 elderly people were selected by convenience sampling method and then randomly assigned to two experimental and control groups (two groups of 15 people). Kim Karad Visual Memory Test and Wechsler Memory Span Test were taken from the groups in pretest. The working memory rehabilitation was performed in 18 sessions (each sessions 60-minute) and after which the test was performed again. The data were analyzed by multivariate covariance test according to its assumptions.

The results showed that after the rehabilitation of working memory, in the experimental group, the mean of short, medium and long components of visual memory were 12.00, 10.8 and 12.33, respectively, and the direct and inverse of memory span were 11.66 and 9.66, respectively. In the control group, the average of short, medium and long components of visual memory is 7.00, 6.70 and 9.00, respectively, and direct and inverse of memory span is 8.33 and 6.46, respectively. The difference in the mean scores between the two groups in the components of visual memory and memory span after the intervention was significant (p < 0.001).

The results showed that working memory rehabilitation can improve visual memory and memory span, and it is recommended that this rehabilitation method be used to improve the cognitive functions of the elderly.

India ranks 4th in the elderly population. Ageing play an important role in the well being and associated factors. The present study was conducted to understand the feeling of the elderly residing in urban and rural areas of Shivamogga, Karnataka southern India. 

The study was conducted on 200 elderly by a questionnaire on their socio- demographic profile, health, residing place, lifestyle, life satisfaction, dissatisfaction, culture, tradition, the role of technology and government. Data were analyzed with Pearson correlation coefficient.

For most of the analysed factors rural elders had shown strong positive correlation compared to urban elders. Health condition is positively significant in rural elders (rs = 0.76, p > 0.05), when compared to urban elders (rs = 0.67, p > 0.05), the place of residing is having strong correlation with rural (rs = 0.97, p > 0.05), because they reside in their own home then urban (rs = 0.56, p > 0.05), as they reside in rented house hence their attachment to rented house is less than own home. 

The elders of rural-urban areas of shivamogga had shown positive significance with the selected factors, but the strong inclination is towards rural elders. The rural-urban divide and emotional psychological behaviours need further investigation

Dementia Care Mapping (DCM) was originally developed as an observation tool to examine person-centered care in long-term care facilities and to evaluate the quality of life and well-being of people with dementia (PwD). However, the effects of a music intervention using this tool have not been investigated so far. This leads to the following research question: How does a music intervention which involves music therapy and other music-based interventions affect the observed well-being and behavior of PwD living in nursing homes?

In this 14-week, non-controlled music intervention study, data from 30 PwD aged between 52 and 97 (M = 81.4 years) were analyzed. DCM coding involves continuous observation for five hours on four days in the baseline and intervention phase. In the follow-up phase PwD were mapped on two days for five hours. The DCM method were used to measure well-being and certain behaviors of PwD.

The well-being during the observation remained almost constant and corresponds to a neutral state of affect and focused contact, with no indication of positive or negative sensations. Significant improvements in certain behaviors were observed in the course from baseline to intervention phase. For example, it was shown that physical activities of the participants, such as (instructed) sports exercises, strengthening or physically challenging exercises in the intervention phase were significantly higher (M = 0.99, SD = 1.82) than at baseline phase (M = 0.00, SD = 0.00) (z = -2.37, p = .02, n = 26). Similar results were shown for expressive/creative activities or work-related activities (e.g. washing dishes).

In summary, it can be stated that music interventions can promote communication and movement. However, musical stimulation is not one of the essential components of improving behavioral and psychological symptoms or well-being for PwD in nursing homes.

Changing lifestyle, physical inactivity, and obesity lead to increased diabetes prevalence in the elderly. Diabetes management involves self-care activities, such as medical nutrition therapy, physical activity, use of pharmacologic agent, self-monitoring of blood glucose, foot care, and smoking cessation. Physiological, biological, mental changes that show up with aging and the physiological profile of the elderly individuals can increase care dependency. This study aimed to evaluate the level of care dependency in elderly individuals with diabetes and their diabetes self-care activities and to determine the adaptable factors related to care. 

This descriptive study sampled 136 elderly individuals aged over 65 who presented to the outpatient diabetes center of a hospital in Turkey during 2019. The data were collected using an "Introductory Information Form", the "Diabetes Self-Care Activities Questionnaire", and the "Nursing Care Dependency Scale". The data were analyzed on SPSS software package using descriptive statistics, the Spearman correlation test, student T-test, and one way ANOVA.

The mean age of the participants was 71.9 ± 5.652. Regarding the self-care activities of the participants, the lowest mean score was in the exercise domain (2.15 ± 2.01), and the highest mean score was in the foot care domain (6.03 ± 2.02). The mean care dependency score of the participants was 84.6 ± 1.26, which meant slight dependency. As for the mean care dependency score of the participants, the lowest mean score belonged to memory (4.91 ± 0.43) and mobility (4.91 ± 0.28) domains. The mean care dependency score of the participants who did not receive diabetes training (84.86 ± 0.59) was higher than those who did (84.22 ± 1.90) (p < 0.05). The increase in the care dependency scores of the participants also increased their general diet, special diet and foot care scores.

Assessment of diabetes self-care activities together with care dependence in elderly people can be used to plan personalized diabetes management.

Old age is one of the most crucial stages of human development that encompasses the dynamics of biological processes, perception, growth and development and maturity, as a natural process of life. The elderly as one of the vulnerable groups, they face different biological, psychological and social needs. As the population gets older, the elderly will need more support in their daily activities, and these will put more pressure on family members. Failure of families to take care of the elderly as well as specific social conditions such as urbanization, modernization, change in traditional values, contradiction of the new and old generation value system, and failure to accept care of an elderly family enables the family to fulfill its role and duties. In such circumstances, the elderly may be at risk of domestic elder abuse. Elder abuse is in fact the intentional or unintentional behavior of the elderly, which may be of a physical, emotional or psychological nature and may cause complications such as unnecessary suffering, injury or physical pain, violating the human rights and impairing the quality of life of the elderly person. The present study aimed to provide definitions and theories of elder abuse.