Congregations and Older Adult Resources

This article defines ways in which a community can honor older adults as an invaluable resource to community life. A biographical study of a particular community is undertaken in order to extricate its theological convictions and ethical values. This study underscores the pivotal role of older adults in community function. Moreover, this article challenges scholars, caregivers, congregations to develop theories and strategies of care efficacious for healing.     

Empowering the Older Adult Through Folklore

An opportunity exists for those working with older adults in nursing homes to significantly encourage independence in the older adult using a creative approach. The use of folklore is suggested as a means for assisting the older adult toward a reconnection with the individuation process.     

Treatment of Depression and Suicide in Older Adults

This article describes a cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) intervention for suicide prevention in older adults. Although many studies have found that CBT interventions are efficacious for reducing depressive symptoms in the elderly, researchers have yet to evaluate the efficacy of such interventions for preventing suicide or reducing suicide risk in older adults. In this article we describe a 12-session CBT protocol for reducing depression, suicide ideation, and other risk factors of late-life suicide. The following aspects of the treatment are described: assessing suicide risk, conceptualizing the problem through a cognitive behavioral framework, developing a safety plan, increasing hope and reasons for living, improving social resources, improving problem-solving skills and efficacy, improving adherence to medical regimen, and relapse prevention. In addition, we review other behavioral and cognitive strategies such as activity scheduling and cognitive restructuring that are commonly associated with CBT interventions for depression. We illustrate the application of these strategies through the use of case examples.     

Building Blocks for Older Adult Ministry

SUMMARY

The final building block is deciding what program fits ministry goals, congregational resources and skills, and the needs of the older adults who will benefit from this ministry. A final form is used to choose, from the many options gathered in the previous steps, which ministries to begin, at this time, for this group of people, with these specific resources, be they congregational resources or those from community collaboration. Choosing target dates for specific tasks and assigning those tasks to specific committee member is crucial for success. The place of attendance in declaring success or failure is discussed. Using the OAM mission statement as a basis for continuing evaluation is suggested.     

Stereotype Threat Impairs Older Adult Driving

Stereotypes can harm human performance, especially when activated in individuals with diminished working memory capacity (WMC). Performance implications for the stereotype of poor driving in older adults were investigated. Using a sample of older adults, WMC (the ability to maintain task goals and ignore distractions) and driving performance [brake reaction time (RT), following distance, and crashes] were assessed, the latter using a high‐fidelity simulator. Elderly participants under stereotype threat with reduced WMC exhibited slower brake RTs and longer following distances compared with a control condition that was not threatened. This driving profile was characteristic of cognitive distraction. Stereotype threat has clear consequences for human performance in a common real‐world task—driving—that is critical to public safety. Furthermore, these findings suggest caution in how the media and public policy communicate information about older adult driving.Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Acceptance of Conditional Suicide and Euthanasia among Adult Americans

ABSTRACT: Analysis of the attitudes of a 1977 cross-sectional sample of 1,530 American adults concerning euthanasia and suicide indicates that sex, age, and education are significant variables. Males, those who are younger and those who are better educated, are more likely to approve of euthanasia and suicide when a person has an incurable disease. Religious affiliation was not an important variable, although those who were frequent church-service attenders or who were high on religiosity were highly likely to reject euthanasia and suicide.     

Spiritual Need Two: Continued Learning for Older Adults and Older Adult Organizations

SUMMARY

Age provides opportunity not only for a person to grow spiritually, but also for people to enlarge their understandings of the world about them, including God, and connect them to previous learnings and life-experiences. In older age, learning is not merely an affirmation of what has been, but a re-creation of the self in relation to everything that surrounds the person. The theories of James Fowler, Malcom Knowles, Peter Senge, and Erik Erikson provide insight as to the purpose of older adult education. The goal is for churchs to encourage and assist in each person's re-construction of their lives as they view life from the perspective of length of years. Concrete examples of re-constructive learning are provided.     

Applying Continuity Theory to Older Adult Friendships

Continuity theory provides a rationalization for understanding older adult friendships. Older adults do not have to anticipate disengagement but can exercise their choice to actively participate in establishing and maintaining friendship structures. The role of friend is one a person can choose to maintain. Friendships are dynamic and progress on a continuum with beginnings, periods of endurance and change, and endings. Continuity theory provides ways to understand why particular people have developed and adapted distinct friendship and social support networks. This insight provides social service professionals, gerontologists, and family members ways to enable older adults to remain in their communities longer and maintain support stability.     

Enhancing Older Adult Eyewitness Memory with the Cognitive Interview

Thirty older (m age=71.73 years) and 20 young adults (m age=21.60 years) viewed a videotape of a simulated crime and were then interviewed with either a Cognitive Interview (CI) or a standard police interview (SI). The older participants were interviewed with either an SI, CI, or CI that was modified for older people (CI–M). No differences were found between the CI and CI–M. The CI elicited more information than the SI, without a reduction in accuracy rate. Moreover, the advantage of the CI over the SI was greater for the older than for the young participants. There were no overall age-related differences. Results are discussed in terms of performance of older witnesses and implications for understanding how the CI functions.     

3 Culture and Ego-Ideal in Suicide: An Adult Case

A case is presented in which the patient's self-expectations, arising from his ego ideal, were violated by a conflict with his wife, who came from a different culture and did not share his marital and family values. When she left him he was devastated, not only by the loss of his family, but by the destruction of his ideal vision of himself as a husband and father. A dangerous suicide attempt followed. The psychodynamic formulation of the case and the treatment that followed from it are discussed.     

2 Rick: A Suicide of a Young Adult

A small but concerning percentage of completed suicides are seen as having left no clues. The classical case, albeit a literary one, is Robinson's Richard Cory. These people often dissemble, even about their suicide risk. An even smaller group of these individuals present themselves in therapy without communicating a sign of suicide risk. Utilizing an idiographic approach, the case of a young adult male (Rick) is presented. The narrative reconstruction gives voice behind the man's mask. The autopsy reveals a young man who was in deep pain and unable to adjust to life's demands. Rick lacked ego strength, being overly narcissistic and having deeply troubled, symbiotic attachments to his family in a world of interpersonal isolation. In the end, even the help of his therapist, who tried to reach through the mask, was not enough and Rick killed himself. The pain had become unbearable. A few guiding remarks for such cases are offered, noting that therapists must constantly address the dissembling in some suicidal patients.     

Adult ADHD: Associations with Personality and Other Psychopathology

The goals of this study were to explicate adult ADHD’s relations with personality at both the domain and facet levels and to examine its associations with other psychological symptoms. Community members (N?=?294) completed measures assessing ADHD inattentive and hyperactive/impulsive symptoms, five-factor model personality domains and facets, and other internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Inattentiveness showed strong negative relations with conscientiousness and extraversion and strong positive relations with neuroticism; in contrast, hyperactivity/impulsivity related negatively to agreeableness, positively to extraversion, and weakly to neuroticism. Whereas inattentiveness emerged as a positive predictor of internalizing psychopathology—and depression in particular—hyperactivity/impulsivity related weakly to internalizing but more strongly to externalizing psychopathology. Thus, inattentive and hyperactive/impulsive symptoms showed differential relations with personality—at both the domain and facet levels—and with other psychological symptoms. These results demonstrate the value in examining ADHD’s relations with personality facets and with a wide range of psychopathology within the same study.