نشریه سالمندشناسی
سال هفتم شماره 2 (پیاپی 25، تابستان 1401)

One of the expected consequences of population aging is the increased prevalence of frailty. Various factors can affect the quality of life and frailty is probably one of them. Therefore, the present study was conducted with the aim of determining the relationship between frailty and quality of life in hospitalized old patients.

This is a cross-sectional descriptive study conducted on 120 old patients hospitalized in selected hospitals of Iran University of Medical Sciences who were included in the study using convenience methods. Data were collected through a Tilburg Frailty Index (TFI) and a 12-item quality of life questionnaire (SF-12). The data were analyzed with independent t-tests, analysis of variance, and Pearson's correlation coefficient using SPSS v.22.

64.2% of the old patients were men. The average age of the participants was 68.3 ± 8.11 years in the study. 62.5% of participants were frail. Quality of life had a negative and significant correlation with frailty (r= -0.72, P<0.001).

According to the findings, most of the old patients in the study were frail. Frailty had an inverse relationship with the quality of life, which means that with the increase of frailty, the quality of life decreases, and therefore, investigating and trying to reduce it can improve the quality of life of old patients.

Self-medication is one of the serious health problems in different communities and its risk is much higher in the elderly. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of self-medication in the elderly and its related factors in Quchan city, 2019.

The current research is a cross-sectional descriptive study, the samples of which were 570 elderly people of Qochan city. The participants of the study were selected using random cluster sampling. Research data were collected by a researcher-made questionnaire. Data were analyzed in SPSS version 19 by independent t-test and ANOVA.

The mean age of the elderly was 69.1± 8.1 years. The prevalence of self-medication among the elderly was 94.4%. There was a significant association between the variables of gender, level of education and occupation and self-medication (P <0.001). Factors such as the high cost of doctor visits and medications, the belief that disease is not important, the satisfaction of previous self-medication, the belief that herbal medicines and traditional treatments are safe, were the main factors of self-medication.

The findings of this study showed that self-medication is highly prevalent among Iranian elderly, and providing awareness about the dangers of self-medication seems essential.

Vitamin D deficiency and increased lipid profile are risk factors in old age. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of eight weeks of high intensity interval training (HIIT) on serum levels of vitamin D, lipid profile of elderly men.

Twenty elderly men aged 60-75 years were randomly divided into two groups, including aerobic exercise (n=10) and control (n=10). The aerobic exercise program was performed for eight weeks and three days a week. Blood samples are taken at rest 48 hours before the start of training and 48 hours after the last training session. Dependent t-test and analysis of covariance were used for intragroup and intergroup comparison. All statistical analyzes were performed by SPSS version 24 software at a significance level of 0.05.

Vitamin D levels (21.88±3.06 before training to 25.3±1.34 after training, P=0.000) and HDL (53.6±8.9 before training, 57.9±10.01 After the training, P = 0.016) in the HIIT group had a significant increase compared to the control group (P ≤ 0.05), but LDL levels (116±23.5 before the training, 101.6±16.8 after the training), P=0.014) and triglyceride (162±29.6 before training, 143±10.07 after training, P=0.000) had a significant decrease compared to the control group (P≤0.05).

based on the findings; In order to increase the serum levels of vitamin D and modify and adjust the lipid profile of serum vitamin D in elderly men, it is useful to use high intensity interval training (HIIT).

Surgery is very sensitive in the elderly and more important than the surgery itself is the quality of its recovery, which is very important in determining its predictors in geriatric nursing. The aim of this study was to determine the quality of recovery after surgery and its predictors in the elderly undergoing surgery at Imam Hossein Hospital in Tehran in 1400.

The present study was a descriptive-analytical study in which the research community consisted of the elderly candidates for surgery at Imam Hossein Hospital in Tehran in the first half of 1400. 250 eligible elderly were included in the study through available sampling and for data collection, the elderly demographic information questionnaire and the 40-item QOR questionnaire were used. Data were analyzed using SPSS software version 20 using descriptive and inferential statistical tests.

Most of the elderly participants were male, married, illiterate and with a mean age of 67.94±7.05 years. 88.4% had a history of previous hospitalization and 64.8% had a history of previous surgery. 72% had at least one underlying disease, the most common disease being diabetes (36%). The mean score of the total quality of recovery was 104.39 ±18.16 (Moderate). Among the dimensions, physical independence with a score of 2.84 was the highest and emotional status with a score of 2.29 and pain with a score of 2.61 received the lowest score of 5. Multiple linear regressions showed that age, number of surgeries, delirium, marital status, housing status, cohabitation status, education and type of surgery are the most important factors affecting the quality of postoperative recovery.

It is very important to pay attention to the quality of recovery after surgery, especially in the elderly. Maintaining and improving the status quo in the present study by focusing on the predictive factors obtained can be helpful.

The aim of this research was to investigate the effect of multilingualism on Alzheimer's patients' cognitive function.

The present research is practical considering goals, retrospective considering time and belongs to casual-comparative studies considering data collection method; which have been collected with field research approach. The statistical population consisted of Alzheimer's patients (monolingual, bilingual) who were living in nursing homes or centers working with keeping of Alzheimer's patients in Shiraz (2018), among them a sample of 90 people were selected including 60 Alzheimer's patients (monolingual, bilingual) and 30 normal people as the control group. The participants' age ranged from 45 to 75 years. Sampling was based on available random. Measuring instruments of the research were psychological status questionnaire, the MMSE test and the Working Memory Digit Backward Test which were spread among the sample population.

In order to analyze the data, based on the research questions and hypotheses, descriptive statistics analyses were used such as mean and min/max standard deviation. Also, in inferential level, single-variable variance test was used. Results of the data analyses showed that there is a significant difference between cognitive function and its components in three groups of the study. Also, the findings indicated that there is a significant difference between all groups regarding working memory.

Generally, the mean for the normal people is higher than the mean for the bilingual Alzheimer's patients, and the mean for the bilingual Alzheimer's patients is higher than the mean for the monolingual Alzheimer's patients. Mental activities have positive effect on Alzheimer's disease. Including, learning second language can reduce Alzheimer's disease in bilingual or multilingual people

Aging along with hope to life, is the basis for improving the well-being and quality of life in the elderly people. Therefore, the aim of this research was to comparing of the effectiveness of spirituality based existentialism therapy and healthy aging training model on hope to life of elderly people.

The study was a semi-experimental type with a pre-test and post-test design with a control group. The statistical population were the elderly people living in elderly care centers in Isfahan city in the spring of 2022, and the sample group was 58 of these elderly people who were purposefully selected and then randomly assigned into two experimental groups and one control group (The control group and the spirituality-based existential therapy group have 20 people in each group and the healthy aging training group has 18 people). Each of the spirituality-based existential therapy and healthy aging training model was carried out in 12 sessions of 90 minutes. Data were collected through the demographic information form and the hope to life scale and were analyzed by the methods of chi-square analysis, covariance analysis and Bonferroni post hoc test in SPSS version 26 software.

Findings of the research have demonstrated that the experimental and control groups did not have significant differences with each other in the variables of age, gender, education, number of children, physical illness and marital status (P>0.05). Also, the findings indicated that only the healthy aging training model is effective in improving hope to life in the elderly (P<0.01) and the spirituality based existentialism therapy does not have a significant effect on increasing this variable (P>0.05).  

It is concluded that, the healthy aging traing model as an effective approach can be used in care and education centers for the aging people to increase the hope of life, which plays a important role in improving their quality of life.

 Apathy is the most common behavioral symptom in Alzheimer's disease, which occurs in most patients and appears in behaviors such as reduced onset, poor persistence, lack of interest, low social participation, weak emotional response, and despite its prevalence in Alzheimer's disease and its serious impact on families, is not yet well understood. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to compare the level of apathy in patients with mild, moderate and severe Alzheimer's disease.

 The current research was descriptive and causal-comparative. The population of the current study was all Alzheimer's patients in Alzheimer's treatment centers in Tabriz city in 2022 years. According to the purpose of the research, the sample size was 90 people, and according to the entry criteria, 30 people were determined for each group (mild, moderate and severe). The sampling method was non-random and Convenience Sampling. Radakovic and Abraham's dimensional apathy scale (27) was used to collect data. To analyze the data, univariate analysis of variance was used using SPSS version 23 software.

 The results showed that all three types of apathy subscales (executive, emotional and behavioral/cognitive initiative) were higher in the severe and advanced stages of the disease compared to the mild and moderate stages. In severe Alzheimer's group, executive apathy subscale (F=121/537, P=0.001), emotional (F=140/761, P=0.001) and behavioral/cognitive initiative (F=124/362, P=0.001) P=0) was different from the mild and moderate groups. In other words, the group with severe Alzheimer's experiences more apathy compared to the other two groups, and it seems that the more severe the Alzheimer's is, the greater the apathy.

 Apathy increases with the progress of Alzheimer's disease and acceleration of cognitive deficits. These findings show that apathy is a behavioral marker of "malignant Alzheimer's" and is associated with more severe behavioral problems and faster progression of cognitive, functional and emotional deficits.

Frailty syndrome and low quality of sleep are common problems in the elderly that can have a significant effect on their quality of life. Therefore, this study was conducted with the aim of determining the relationship between frailty syndrome and sleep quality in the community dwelling elderly.

This is a descriptive analytical-cross-sectional study. The inclusion criteria in this study was people 70 years old and older with written consent. 140 elderly people were selected by available sampling method. The data collection tool was a standard questionnaire that used three demographic questionnaires, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Questionnaire and Freud Vulnerability Questionnaire. Statistical analysis was done with SPSS software through Spearman's correlation coefficient tests.

The results indicated that there was a significant and positive correlation between frailty and sleep quality in the elderly (correlation coefficient= 0.260, significance level= 0.002). It was also found a significant and positive correlation between Frailty and poly-pharmacy, Sleep latency, Total sleep time, Sleep efficiency and adequacy, the amount of sleep medications and poor performance during the day due to insomnia in the elderly (sig≤0.05). However, the results showed that there is no correlation between frailty and objective quality of sleep in the elderly (sig = 0.522).

Results of the present study showed the relationship between frailty and sleep quality in the elderly. Therefore, due to this close relationship, the sleep quality of the frail elderly should be taken into consideration.