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Some of the material in is restricted to members of the community. By logging in, you may be able to gain additional access to certain collections or items. If you have questions about access or logging in, please use the form on the Contact Page.
A MULTIPLE-CAUSE-OF-DEATH APPROACH TO CANCER MORTALITY DIFFERENTIALS AT THE OLDER AGES
Description:
This project proposes to develop a multiple-cause-of-death model of cancer mortality differentials at the older ages (45 and over), and to test its efficacy in comparison with the traditional model. The primary goal is to show that a... The specific objectives of the project are to (1) discuss previous research showing the relative importance of examining multiple causes of death in mortality analyses, (2) extend the current research by considering age-race-sex-specific... The first objective consists of a review of the literature on causes of death, the epidemiological transition, and mortality differentials. Following this review, an argument is given in support of a multiple cause-of-death conceptual... The fourth objective consists of constructing appropriate rates (i.e., underlying, total mention, and multiple cause rates by age, race, and sex), comparing the results, and interpreting the findings. Findings indicate that a multiple-cause-of-death approach to cancer mortality differentials at the older ages is an alternative to the underlying-cause-of-death approach. Even though cancer is the major cause of death most likely to be...
Personal control as a psychological mechanism responsible for the stress reducing effects of physical activity in the older adult
Description:
The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of physical activity on personal control beliefs and psychological stress in the older adult. Subjects were 29 females and 10 males between the ages of 68 and 89 years (mean = 79.8)... Aptitude by treatment interaction (ATI) regression models were used to examine treatment effects across different levels of the pretest scores. Results showed that: (a) walking was a more reliable stress frequency reducer than backgammon... Since psychological stress was found to decrease and personal control was found to increase for a majority of the walking subjects in this study, it appears that personal control as a psychological mechanism responsible for the stress...
A study of the satisfaction of participants in university-administered Elderhostel programs as related to selected personal variables
Description:
Elderhostel, a new phenomenon in adult and continuing education, is a non-profit residential program for adults over the age of 60 years. The program offers a variety of short courses on a subjects ranging from the natural sciences to... The survey questions were designed to provide data on the reasons for participation, the levels of satisfaction, and the expectations of the older adult participants. The results indicated that, for Elderhostel participants, intellectual... These results indicate that satisfaction of continuing higher education through Elderhostels can be maximized if Elderhostel hosts provide topics of intellectual interest. In addition, the course structure should also allow for plenty of...
Background. Considerable research has demonstrated the link between early life adversity (ELA) and the development of significant health problems in adulthood (Felitti et al., 1998; Gilbert et al., 2015). Regarding the specific...
The elderly consumer: Social integration, perceived adequacy of resources, and complaint behavior
Description:
The purpose of this study was to examine the elderly person's consumer complaint behavior and susceptibility to misleading and deceptive practices in the marketplace. The study was based on social integration theory, which concerns a... A mailing list was purchased from American List Counsel, Inc., Princeton, New Jersey, to obtain a nationwide random sample of persons age 65 and older. Respondents to the mailed questionnaires included 143 males (56.3%) and 107 females ... Results of this study indicated that social integration was not related to an elderly person's susceptibility to misleading/deceptive practices or his/her consumer complaint behaviors. An elderly person's perception of his/her resources... Analysis of the data revealed a weak but significant rank correlation existed between age and complaint behaviors. In regard to perceived adequacy of resources and age, only the financial resources category showed any significance.... Implications and suggestions for future research include continued emphasis on consumer education for elderly persons and assessing individual characteristics, particularly personality, as indicators of consumer complaint behaviors and...
Loneliness in older adults is a problem. Loneliness negatively impacts the physical, mental and social health of an individual leading to problems including increased risk of poor health, cognitive decline, and death. As older adults...
An examination of the communicator style of older instructors in the university classroom
Description:
This study examined various aspects of Communicator Style within a sample (n = 28) of college-level teachers aged 64 to 75. The purpose of the investigation was to generate descriptive data about the observed communication behaviors of... Impression Leaving subconstructs than those oriented toward research. Overall, the results suggest that there is more congruity than incongruity between the self-reported style ratings of older teachers and assessments given by their...
The relationship between preretirement preparation and leisure satisfaction in the early years of retirement
Description:
Research reveals that older workers would like some form of preretirement preparation to assist them in the transition from work to nonwork and that how to use their leisure is one of their greatest concerns. Leisure has been found to be... The relationship between preretirement preparation and the leisure satisfaction of retirees was examined. Unique to this study was the division of preretirement preparation into two levels of activity (preparation and planning), and... The 60 item questionnaire was sent to 132 retirees of a major city in Florida that offers a one day comprehensive preretirement program to all employees eligible for retirement. The 42% response rate consisted of 31 program participants... Preretirement preparation was shown to be significantly related to leisure satisfaction in retirement. Participation in the formal program did not significantly contribute to the relationship. It did, however, stimulate participants to...
The thesis of this study is that the ethical dimension of a discussion of aging and aging policy is framed by the moral norms of autonomy, dignity, distributive justice, and intergenerational reciprocity. This dissertation explicates and... There is some consensus of opinion among the discussants. Both autonomy and dignity are largely defined and used in Kantian terms. John Rawls' theory of justice, the basis of this examination of distributive justice, is explicitly... These four closely linked ideas form the conceptual web within which much of the consideration of aging issues takes place. A good understanding of these four ideas is necessary to adequately deal with the problems, issues, and policies...
A generic model of long-term care and a scale to measure caregiver attitude toward such care
Description:
The framework presented in this dissertation seeks to provide a comprehensive view of long-term care that can serve as a unifying structure. Under this framework, the context of long-term care is defined by the "reality structure, ... The reality structure includes those influences that may be conceptualized as values. These stem from the culture in which one lives, organizational structures, and the idiosyncratic experience of each individual. Client system... In order to operationalize a portion of the reality structure used in this framework, a scale was developed to assess one's Attitude Toward the Provision of Long-term Care (ATPLTC). The reliability of this scale was established to be.86... The ATPLTC was used to assess the relationship between caregiver attitude and several other characteristics. The relationships between attitude and caregiver status, educational level, race, employment status, subjective burden and...
AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF FILIAL SUPPORT AND THE USE OF FORMAL SERVICES AMONG THE KOREAN AGED IN NEW YORK CITY
Description:
This study investigated a sample of Korean elderly in the New York City area who migrated to the United States largely within the past ten years. The study focused on living arrangements of Korean elders, on the pattern of help between... Among major findings, the sample respondents expressed a strong preference for living apart from adult children who had brought them to the United States, mirroring a pattern of intergenerational living arrangements more characteristic...
Menopausal women receiving and not receiving hormone replacement therapy: Generalized contentment, marital satisfaction, sexual satisfaction, health locus of control, and sex-role identity self-reports
Description:
The purpose of this study was to explore whether or not there were common characteristics, including any differences among self-reports scores/classifications of women over 45 years of age, receiving and not receiving hormone replacement... As this was an exploratory study, the statistical procedure of cluster analysis was utilized to determine what homogeneous groupings emerged according to how the subjects self-reports corresponded to their HRT status. Four clusters were... For the married subjects, the clusters were significantly different on measures of depression, marital and sexual satisfaction, but not for health locus of control or sex-role identity. There was no differential effect on any of the... Despite the lack of statistical significance, this study supports previous research findings of a decrease in depression after administration of HRT (24% of the non-HRT subjects in this study are depressed compared to 12% depression...
A social ecological perspective is used to analyze county primary homicide rates for the elderly population, persons aged 55 or older. Structural, socioeconomic, medical resources, and demographic variables are analyzed in a regression...
Extending the human life span has long been a desire of human beings. It seems the wish has been actualized. However, simply living a long life does not always seem to be a blessing. Older adults report a lower level of psychological...
In the United States, the number of people in the over 65 year category will rise to 80 million, or 20% of the total population by 2040 (Palmore, 2009). This older group traditionally requires more services ranging from healthcare to...
The effectiveness of a nutrition education program designed for sodium reduction in an elderly population
Description:
The effectiveness of an eight-week nutrition education program on sodium and health in 41 elderly subjects was investigated. A four-group experimental design was used consisting of the following groups: hypertensive treatment (HT);... The program was effective in increasing knowledge with the HT and NT having a significant gain in pre- to posttest scores, (p $\leq$ 0.01 and p $\leq$ 0.05, respectively). A post-posttest, given six weeks after the nutrition classes, ... The education program was more effective in the HT group than the NT. This result indicated that elderly with a medical need for dietary modification, such as hypertension, are more likely than elderly without a medical need to change...
The role of informal social support networks in the life satisfaction of the Egyptian elderly
Description:
This dissertation examines the role of informal social support networks (family, friends, and mosque members) in the life satisfaction of the Egyptian elderly. Indicators of informal social support were frequency of interaction, and... Participants were 60 elderly Egyptians from a senior center in Cairo, Egypt. Personal interviews were used to collect data. The data collection instruments were the Informal Social Support Questionnaire (National Survey of Black... Data were analyzed with univariate, bivariate, and content analysis. The quantitative analysis indicates that monthly income had a significant association with the level of life satisfaction of the Egyptian elderly. The qualitative... Based on the findings, implications for social work practice and research with the elderly in Egypt are discussed.
Given the expanding role of today’s grandparent within the family, this dissertation seeks to explore the diverse range of grandparenting experiences outside of the commonly studied experience of the caregiving grandparent. Using the...
Universalism vs. targeting as the basis of social distribution: Gender, race and long-term care in the United States
Description:
When older Americans face a need for long term care, they face a crisis that is all but unresolvable. Long term care is specifically excluded under Medicare policy, and few insurance packages adequately protect the elderly from... What are the effects of a poverty-based long term care system? Class-based theories of the welfare state suggest that targeted benefits stratify society along class lines. This study suggests that the effects of targeted benefits can be... This dissertation examines Medicare and Medicaid policy, as well as the National Nursing Home Survey of 1985 and the National Long Term Care Survey of 1982-1984. Specific topics analyzed include spenddown, Medicaid use in nursing homes...
Consumer alienation from the marketplace: The case of the elderly
Description:
Older consumers in the United States are increasingly being recognized as one of the fastest growing and important market segments. While much is known about the size and income level of older consumers, very little is known about the...
The Effect of a Blended Movement Intervention Using Music, Imagery, and Relaxation on the Movement-Induced Pain, Mood, and Medication Usage of Women with Osteoarthritis Joint Pain
Osteoarthritis (OA) is a degenerative joint condition prevalent in older adults that causes pain, functional interference, affects mood, and contributes to use of scheduled as well as as- needed prn and extra over-the-counter (OTC)...
An investigation of perceived information needs and information-seeking behavior among the elderly Chinese immigrants in the Los Angeles area
Description:
This study was an attempt to contribute to a better understanding of elderly Chinese immigrants' information needs, their implications for improved information services, and for the purpose of collecting baseline data about elderly... The subjects for this study consisted of 180 foreign-born Chinese immigrants, aged 60 or over, living in Los Angeles Chinatown, Monterey Park and some cities in the San Gabriel Valley. Data was collected by means of personal interviews... The findings reveal that the information needs of elderly Chinese immigrants were diverse. News and information about health issues, hobbies or interests, cultural or religious activities were the most often identified information needs.... The information needs and information seeking behavior of the sample population as related to age, gender, educational level, language abilities, living arrangements, residential area, length of residence in L.A. and frequency of library...
College students' attitudes toward older adults, and the relationship of spiritual well-being, race, gender, and knowledge about aging
Description:
This study was designed to investigate and compare attitudes toward the elderly of African American freshman college students at a historically black college and white freshman college students at a predominantly white college. In... The students completed the Aging Semantic Differential Scale (ASD), the Facts on Aging Quiz (FAQ), and the Spiritual Well-Being Scale (SWB). The ASD Scale is an attitude assessment instrument consisting of a list of 32 bipolar adjective... Results showed that freshman college students overall maintained positive attitudes toward the elderly with white students reporting more positive attitudes. Also, both African American and white college students showed a consistent lack...
Senile Dementia of the Alzheimer's type and Multi-Infarct Dementia: A clinical comparison
Description:
The present study compared two groups of community-bound persons, over 55 years old, who had sustained deterioration of cognitive and behavioral skills for over 6 months. These changes had been medically diagnosed as either Senile... A profile of these groups' performance on physiological, behavioral, and psychometric measures was obtained. Physiological measures, EEG(P300) and CT Scan, confirmed the presence of neurological changes in 28 subjects; abnormal patterns... A linear discriminant analysis identified the psychometric and behavioral scales most sensitive to the differentiation of SDAT and MID conditions. The resulting brief but thorough screening scale showed a predictive and reliability...
An analysis of existing theory and research in the fields of anger and of the aged is presented in this study. Data on the variables of anger arousal, anger expression, physiological aspects of anger and social and cultural aspects of...
This study was an exploration into how seniors who participate in art workshops at the senior center experienced and made sense of their art museum visitations. In light of the rapidly increasing aging population in most countries around...
This qualitative case study of five couples in which one spouse has Alzheimer's disease in the early stage, and the other spouse is a caregiver, investigated including both spouses in couple interview sessions which included using...
FINANCIAL ADJUSTMENT AND SATISFACTION WITH LEVEL OF LIVING: A CROSS SECTIONAL VIEW OF FEMALE PENSIONERS
Description:
The purpose of the study was threefold: (1) to identify the standards or criteria that women hold for satisfaction with level of living; (2) to identify the financial adjustments that women make in retirement; and (3) to investigate... The sample consisted of 40 randomly selected female retirees whose names appeared on the State of Florida's retirement mailing list. Information was gathered by telephone utilizing the Information Inventory and Financial Adjustment... Retirees' criteria for a satisfying level of living varied by marital status. Current satisfaction for widows tended to be based on the relationship of pre-retirement satisfaction, i.e., if pre-retirement satisfaction was high then post... Financial adjustments also varied by marital status. In general, the non-marrieds reduced expenses on necessities more often than did the marrieds. Reasons for reduced spending also varied by marital status. More non-marrieds reduced...
The effects of structured music activities versus contingent music listening with verbal prompt on wandering behavior and cognition in geriatric patients with Alzheimer's disease
Description:
The present study examined the effects of structured music activities versus contingent music listening with verbal prompt for decreasing wandering behavior or off-task body movement while, improving or maintaining cognitive functioning...
The onset of dementia represents a major life stressor for the individual and for the family system. In each family there tends to be a primary caregiver who experiences significant challenges in this role, which may be physical or...
Aging and 'contemporary' ethical dilemmas in "Setting Limits"
Description:
One of the most important and controversial thinkers to explore the problems of aging and its diverse problems in our modern society, is Daniel Callahan. The central question raised by Callahan is whether the United States has sufficient... This author's dissertation explores the current problems in health care, recent public policies which have been formulated in response to the issues involved in health care for the elderly. The issue of ethics and justice is argued, as...
The value of literacy for the rural elderly: A naturalistic study
Description:
The purpose of this study was to develop an understanding of the contextual nature of literacy usage by a group of older adults living in rural North Florida. An attempt was made to determine what low-literate elderly persons perceive as... Ten retired persons who were at least sixty years old and had less than an elementary school education were recruited for this study. Six of the informants were currently participating in a literacy program; four were nonparticipants.... Grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) was used to explain the value literacy has to this group of older adults. Theory was discussed as it emerged from the analysis of these interviews along with recommendations for further research... Based on the data collected and the analysis completed, five assertions are made: (1) Participants in literacy programs change their views of literacy away from a schooling concept and begin to describe their roles as learners; (2) New...
Studies examining the link between older adults’ labor force participation and health frequently report that later life employment is health enhancing. However, few studies consider how these benefits could vary by socioeconomic status ...
The effects of aerobic exercise on cognitive ability and creativity in senior citizens
Description:
This study examined the physiological and cognitve ability effects of a 16 week aerobic exercise program on a sample of older (60-72) men (n = 7) and women (n = 37). The effect of hopefulness as described by Seligman (1990) was also...
As a low-impact activity that can cover longer distances than walking, cycling is not only good for older adult's health, but can also be a viable low-cost mode of transportation. Cycling can allow older adults to maintain mobility, ...
Evidence on the efficacy of music interventions for patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease (PD) is actively developing within and outside of the music therapy profession. The purpose of this study was to conduct a systematic review...
Some of the material in is restricted to members of the community. By logging in, you may be able to gain additional access to certain collections or items. If you have questions about access or logging in, please use the form on the Contact Page.
