Aging,Agency, and Activism: Older Women as Social Change Agents

Current cohorts of older women are potential social activists, and their potential to contribute to social change is examined. It is argued that engagement in social action is positive and empowering for aging women. Older women both contribute to and benefit from social capital, connections among individuals in social networks, and norms of reciprocity (Putnam, 2000 Putnam , R. ( 2000 ). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community . New York : Simon & Schuster .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). Recommendations are offered for organizations that wish to recruit and engage older women as members. A feminist therapy perspective is consistent with the empowerment of older women as social agents.     

Toynbee's Frantic Quest for Survival

ABSTRACT

Data from life review interviews with elder Catholic women religious show that through prayer they are able to experience solitude and to feel connected with others. Their experience is not completely explained by either the disengagement theory nor by the newer theory of gerotranscendence. Because prayer connects them to others, they do not experience complete social withdrawal; rather, prayer functions as a modified social activity connecting them to their past, to God, to the community in which they live, as well as to the wider world. They also do not develop a new transcendent meta-perspective, but deepen into cherished life beliefs and practices, accepting and becoming more fully who they are as individuals and as older women.     

Exploitation in Older Adults: Personal Competence Correlates of Social Vulnerability

ABSTRACT

Clinical assessment of older people at heightened risk of financial exploitation (also termed social vulnerability) is a difficult task. There are a number of previously untested domains of personal competence which could influence social vulnerability in later life. In this study, intellectual, cognitive, and social-cognitive functioning was assessed in a combined sample of dementia patients (n = 31) and neurologically healthy individuals (n = 68) aged 50 years or over. Informants provided assessments of participants' social functioning, personality, and social vulnerability. In the combined sample, multiple regression analyses revealed significant relationships between each personal competence domain and (lower) social vulnerability, apart from personality which was non-significant. General cognitive functioning and, in particular, executive functioning showed significant overlap with social vulnerability after controlling for memory and age. Social measures were also important correlates of vulnerability, indicating that both neurocognitive and social cognitive deficits may contribute to financial exploitation in later life.     

Older adults demonstrate greater accuracy in joint position matching using self-guided movements

Greater proprioceptive accuracy has been found with active compared to passive movement. Therapeutic approaches in rehabilitation include varying levels of assistance with arm movements. This assistance may impact proprioceptive acuity. Eighteen older adults participated in a joint repositioning study. The ability to independently reproduce a shoulder flexion angle was investigated when the reference angle was set under the following conditions: (1) the examiner actively assisted participant’s motion to the reference angle chosen by the examiner, (2) the participant moved independently, but the examiner provided tactile cueing to stop at the reference angle chosen by the examiner, and (3) the participant independently moved to a self-selected reference angle. Participants were most accurate in the self-guided condition compared to the active assisted or tactile cueing conditions. Both the self-guided and tactilely cued conditions involved active movement, yet accuracy differed. In contrast, there was no difference in accuracy between the active assisted and tactile cueing conditions despite one involving more active movement. The results demonstrate active movement alone does not determine accuracy. External stimuli, either tactile input and/or a reference angle chosen by the examiner may diminish accuracy. This can be clinically relevant as proprioceptive performance has been linked to improved motor performance.     

Does age matter? Examining age-dependent differences in at-fault collisions after attending a refresher course for older drivers

The “Driver 65+” course is a voluntary refresher course offered to all drivers aged 65 years or older in Norway. The current study estimated differences in at-fault motor vehicle collisions (MVCs) between older drivers who had attended in the course and older drivers who had not attended the course.MethodsTwo samples of drivers were selected from the database of an insurance company and were sent a questionnaire in the mail. The first sample consisted of 2039 car owners aged 70 years or older who had reported a collision to the insurance company during the last 24 months. The second sample consisted of 1569 drivers aged 70 or older who had not reported any collisions during the last 24 months.ResultsThe results indicated an age-dependent effect; drivers attending the course before 75 years of age had a significantly lower risk of being the at-fault driver in a multi-MVC than older drivers who did not attend the course.ConclusionThe results indicate that the refresher course had a beneficial effect on collision risk for drivers who attended the course before reaching 75 years of age. One possible explanation of this age-dependent effect is that a certain level of visual, cognitive, and motor functioning is needed to implement the strategies learned in the course. However, the design of the study makes it difficult to draw definite conclusions about the causal relationship between course attendance and later collision involvement.     

Experiences of older adults interacting with a shared autonomous vehicle and recommendations for future implementation

IntroductionA recognised potential benefit of autonomous vehicles is increased mobility for older adults. However, this group is more apprehensive about adoption, which may hinder uptake. Shared autonomous vehicles (SAVs) represent a use case that may be especially relevant for older people due to emerging applications in retirement villages and similar precincts. However, little research has examined the SAV-related concerns of older adults and strategies to address them. This study used an exploratory approach involving SAV exposure to identify strategies that may increase older people’s receptiveness to SAVs.MethodOlder adults living in retirement villages (n = 63) were interviewed while interacting with an SAV to examine their needs, expectations, and concerns regarding SAVs. The interview data were coded and thematically analysed.ResultsParticipants recommended the following approaches to ensuring SAVs are useful and acceptable to older adults: providing physical accessibility for those with mobility impairments, comfortable and practical internal layouts, and operating SAVs on convenient routes at useful speeds. Strategies such as exposing older adults to SAVs in operation to encourage uptake and initially ensuring a human assistant is present were suggested methods of increasing receptivity.DiscussionThe findings suggest older passengers are likely to share many of the same reactions to SAVs as the broader population, but with a stronger focus on issues relating to accessibility and the physical layout of the vehicles. The solutions to these issues suggested by the study participants may be useful for those designing SAVs for use in older people’s settings and beyond.     

Understanding action control of resistance training among adults

BackgroundRegular muscle and bone strengthening activities through resistance training (RT) have been associated with numerous health benefits, particularly as adults age, yet participation is low. Effective promotion is likely founded on an understanding of theory-based correlates, yet almost all RT research has focused on college-aged convenience samples and employed social cognition models, which do not consider the intention-behavior gap. The purpose of this study was to explore RT from the perspective of the multi-process action control (M-PAC) framework in a large Canadian adult sample.MethodCanadian adults (N = 1338) completed M-PAC measures of reflective (instrumental attitude, affective attitude, perceived capability and opportunity), regulatory (planning and self-monitoring), and reflexive (habit, identity) processes as well as intention to engage in RT at baseline and RT behavior two-weeks later.ResultsThree intention-behavior profiles emerged: a) non-intenders who were not active (41.4%), b) unsuccessful intenders who failed to enact their positive intentions (32.9%), and c) successful intenders who engaged in RT (23.5%). A discriminant function analysis (p < .01) showed that instrumental and affective attitude, perceived opportunity and planning/self-monitoring distinguished between all three intention-behavior profiles, while perceived capability predicted the intention-RT profiles of females but not males (p < .01). By comparison, identity was particularly important to younger/middle-aged adults than older females (p < .01), while habit was associated with the intention-RT profiles of older adults but not younger/middle-aged adults (p < .01).ConclusionsThe findings support the importance of considering both intention formation and translation in RT. Behavior change techniques aimed at reflective, regulatory, and reflexive processes appear necessary. Additional considerations of targeting specific constructs by age and sex may maximize the potential effectiveness of RT interventions.     

Distraction while driving: The case of older drivers

As the impairment of older drivers is especially found in perception and attention, one could assume that they are especially prone to distraction effects of secondary tasks performed while driving. The aim of the study was to examine the effect of age on driving performance as well as the compensation strategies of older drivers under distraction. 10 middle-aged and 10 older drivers drove in a simulator with and without a secondary task. To assess driving performance the Lane Change Task (Mattes, 2003) was used. This method aims at estimating driver demand while a secondary task is being performed, by measuring performance degradation on a primary driving-like task in a standardized manner. The secondary task – a self-developed computer-based version of “d2 Test of Attention” was presented both with and without time pressure. The results show that older participants’ overall driving performance (mean deviation from an ideal path) was worse in all conditions as compared to the younger ones. With regard to lane change reaction time both age groups were influenced by distraction in a comparable manner. However, when the lane keeping performance (standard deviation of the lateral position) was examined, the older participants were more affected than the younger ones. This pattern could be explained by compensation strategies of the older drivers. They focused on the most relevant part of the driving task, the lane change manoeuvres and were able to maintain their performance level in a similar way as did younger drivers. The driving performance of the older participants was not additionally impaired when the secondary task imposed time pressure. Overall, subjective rating of driving performance, perceived workload and perceived distraction was found to be similar for both age groups. The observed trends and patterns associated with distraction while driving should contribute to the further research or practical work regarding in-vehicle technologies and older drivers.     

Endogenous estradiol is associated with verbal memory in nondemented older men

This study examined the relationship between endogenous hormones and cognitive function in nondemented, ethnically-diverse community-dwelling older men enrolled in the Einstein Aging Study (EAS). All eligible participants (185 men, mean age=81 years) received neuropsychological assessment (Free and Cued Selective Reminding Test (FCSRT), Logical Memory (LM), Trail Making Test B (TMTB), block design (BD)) and provided blood samples for hormonal assays (total estradiol, total testosterone, calculated free testosterone index). Linear regression analysis adjusted for age, education, body mass index, and cardiovascular comorbidities indicated that men with high levels of total estradiol demonstrated better FCSRT verbal memory performance (β=0.17, p<0.02) compared to men with lower levels of total estradiol. The results remained unchanged when the model was further adjusted for ethnicity. We did not detect an association between testosterone and cognitive performance. These findings indicate that high levels of total estradiol in older men are associated with better performance on a cue-based, controlled learning test of verbal memory that is a sensitive predictor of dementia.     

Competitive Memory Training for treating depression and rumination in depressed older adults: a randomized controlled trial

Although rumination is an important mediator of depressive symptoms, there is insufficient proof that an intervention that specifically targets rumination ameliorates the clinical condition of, depressed patients. This study investigates whether a time-limited cognitive behavioral intervention (Competitive Memory Training, or COMET for depressive rumination) is an effective treatment for depression and rumination. This intervention was tested in older adult depressed outpatients. A total of 93 patients (aged ≥65 years with major depression and suffering from rumination) were treated in small groups according to the COMET protocol in addition to their regular treatment. Patients were randomized to two treatment conditions: 7 weeks of COMET + treatment-as-usual (TAU) versus TAU only. COMET + TAU showed a significant improvement in depression and rumination compared with TAU alone. This study shows that the transdiagnostic COMET protocol for depressive rumination might also be successful in treating depression and rumination in older adults.