Can the Paro be my Buddy? Meaningful experiences from the perspectives of older adults

Abstract Moving into a long-term care facility (LTCF) can alter the way older adults see themselves and reduce their ability to engage in meaningful experiences and roles. They experience a shrinkage in their social network when they move away from home, a reduction in the frequency of their social contacts and the number of people from whom they receive emotional support. These changes and losses can lead to feelings of loneliness. However, the loneliness these older adults experience may be more than having the difficulty with expressing the feelings of loneliness or the loss of social roles, as common examined in the loneliness literature. Rather, this loneliness stemmed from the intolerable emptiness and lack of meaningful existence attributed to all the losses they have experienced (i.e., existential loneliness (EL). The aim of this qualitative study was to describe the experience of EL in older adults from Eastern and Western cultures who were living in LTCFs and how they dealt with the experience. Methods: Open interviews were conducted with 13 Chinese and 9 Swedes living in the LTCF about the experience of EL. A qualitative study using Thorne’s (2004) interpretive description (ID) was conducted and data were analysed using thematic analysis. Results: The core theme “overcoming EL’ captures the participants’ experience of EL. It describes a combined process of “feeling EL” and “self-regulating”. The study affirms that EL, was triggered as a common human condition in our study when the Chinese in Hong Kong, China and Swedes in Malmo, Sweden faced with life boundaries and crisis such as losses, frailty and mortality. Conclusions: EL is a very stress-inducing human phenomenon. Our study demonstrates that EL experience affects the fundamental structure of the ‘self’ unfolded by the experience of loss of control, isolation and meaningless in life. However, being EL allows the older adults of these two ethnics groups reaping the benefits that a ‘clearer’ sense of self provides, ranging from spirit of contentment to decreased distress. Thus, early and clear counselling support addressing the searching and meaning ascribed to EL should facilitate overcoming and better coping with the experience.

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Opportunities and Challenges With Creative Community Partnerships

Innovation in Aging ◽

10.1093/geroni/igaa057.2962 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽

pp. 814-814

Author(s):

Melinda Heinz

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Fine Arts ◽

Lessons Learned ◽

Term Care ◽

Care Community ◽

The Arts ◽

Arts Programs ◽

Materials Used ◽

Meaningful Experiences ◽

The Impact

Abstract Arts programming can address chronic conditions prevalent among older adults. An overview of an implementation of the revised nationwide Opening Minds through Arts (OMA) program anchors the symposium. The paper reports an implementation by an area university and an eldercare facility to recruit and train student volunteers to collaborate with persons living with dementia, and create paintings for a public exhibition. The Arts for a Lifetime Program used bi-weekly student led programming in a long-term care community; the paper includes an overview of materials used throughout the program and reports resident preferences for materials. A report of results of an ethnographic investigation of the impact of creative aging fine arts programs on older adults adds information about how participation might influence the older person’s self-esteem or perceptions of aging. The presentation about creation of music modules investigates the potential of music therapy for the promotion of healing for older adults managing pain. The final paper describes the methodology lessons learned from ARTmail, a community engaged study of the benefits of a structured participatory arts program for older adults with memory symptoms or cognitive impairment. Presentations in this symposium inform identification and development of opportunities to create and engage in meaningful experiences with older adults.

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SENIOR MODELS: SUCCESSFUL AGING AND SERIOUS LEISURE

Innovation in Aging ◽

10.1093/geroni/igz038.2651 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 3 (Supplement_1) ◽

pp. S723-S723

Author(s):

Sanghee Lee ◽

Jaeyoon Bae ◽

Sua Im ◽

Jinmoo Heo

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Interpersonal Relationships ◽

Successful Aging ◽

Leisure Activities ◽

Health Benefits ◽

Later Life ◽

Serious Leisure ◽

Physical And Mental Health ◽

Selective Optimization With Compensation ◽

Meaningful Experiences

Abstract Serious leisure involves productive engagement and commitment in leisure activities. Literature shows that participating in serious leisure is associated with physical and mental health benefits of older adults. The behavior of senior modeling reflects serious leisure engagement that might offer a new insight useful in understanding successful aging. We explored the experience of senior models as a form of serious leisure. Using selective optimization with compensation as well as serious leisure framework, we attempted to identify how senior modeling activity contributes to successful aging. This study used in-depth interviews using purposeful sampling, and data were collected over two months in 2019. The participants were 31 senior models (average age = 67). The analysis resulted in three themes which contained characteristics of serious leisure as well as selective optimization with compensation: identifying new possibilities, serious engagement, and rewards from meaningful experiences. This study demonstrated various experiential characteristics associated with modeling as a form of serious leisure. Through selection, optimization, and compensation process, the participants seemed to achieve successful aging. We found that senior model experiences promoted active lifestyle, health benefits, and interpersonal relationships. To our knowledge, this is the first exploration of the experience of senior modeling activity. Consistent with existing literature, our study provides evidence of the significant role of serious leisure in later life. We suggest that senior modeling program holds promise as an effective way for older adults because it can be used as a self-care approach and community programs not only in Korea, but at various locations.

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Cognitive control constrains memory attributions

Behavioral and Brain Sciences ◽

10.1017/s0140525x19001869 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 42 ◽

Author(s):

Colleen M. Kelley ◽

Larry L. Jacoby

Keyword(s):

Alzheimer’S Disease ◽

Older Adults ◽

Alzheimer's Disease ◽

Traumatic Brain Injury ◽

Brain Injury ◽

Cognitive Control

Abstract Cognitive control constrains retrieval processing and so restricts what comes to mind as input to the attribution system. We review evidence that older adults, patients with Alzheimer's disease, and people with traumatic brain injury exert less cognitive control during retrieval, and so are susceptible to memory misattributions in the form of dramatic levels of false remembering.

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Cognitive Load Affects Speech Motor Performance Differently in Older and Younger Adults

Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research ◽

10.1044/2018_jslhr-s-17-0222 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 62 (5) ◽

pp. 1258-1277 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Megan K. MacPherson

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Cognitive Load ◽

Motor Performance ◽

Age Groups ◽

Incongruent Condition ◽

Sentence Production ◽

Movement Duration ◽

Production Task ◽

Younger Adults ◽

Speech Motor

PurposeThe aim of this study was to determine the impact of cognitive load imposed by a speech production task on the speech motor performance of healthy older and younger adults. Response inhibition, selective attention, and working memory were the primary cognitive processes of interest.MethodTwelve healthy older and 12 healthy younger adults produced multiple repetitions of 4 sentences containing an embedded Stroop task in 2 cognitive load conditions: congruent and incongruent. The incongruent condition, which required participants to suppress orthographic information to say the font colors in which color words were written, represented an increase in cognitive load relative to the congruent condition in which word text and font color matched. Kinematic measures of articulatory coordination variability and movement duration as well as a behavioral measure of sentence production accuracy were compared between groups and conditions and across 3 sentence segments (pre-, during-, and post-Stroop).ResultsIncreased cognitive load in the incongruent condition was associated with increased articulatory coordination variability and movement duration, compared to the congruent Stroop condition, for both age groups. Overall, the effect of increased cognitive load was greater for older adults than younger adults and was greatest in the portion of the sentence in which cognitive load was manipulated (during-Stroop), followed by the pre-Stroop segment. Sentence production accuracy was reduced for older adults in the incongruent condition.ConclusionsIncreased cognitive load involving response inhibition, selective attention, and working memory processes within a speech production task disrupted both the stability and timing with which speech was produced by both age groups. Older adults' speech motor performance may have been more affected due to age-related changes in cognitive and motoric functions that result in altered motor cognition.

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Effects of Aging on the Subcortical Encoding of Stop Consonants

American Journal of Audiology ◽

10.1044/2020_aja-19-00044 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 29 (3) ◽

pp. 391-403

Author(s):

Dania Rishiq ◽

Ashley Harkrider ◽

Cary Springer ◽

Mark Hedrick

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Repeated Measures ◽

Mixed Model ◽

Auditory Brainstem ◽

Auditory Brainstem Responses ◽

Aging Effects ◽

Formant Frequency ◽

Place Of Articulation ◽

Second Formant ◽

Effects Of Aging

Purpose The main purpose of this study was to evaluate aging effects on the predominantly subcortical (brainstem) encoding of the second-formant frequency transition, an essential acoustic cue for perceiving place of articulation. Method Synthetic consonant–vowel syllables varying in second-formant onset frequency (i.e., /ba/, /da/, and /ga/ stimuli) were used to elicit speech-evoked auditory brainstem responses (speech-ABRs) in 16 young adults ( M age = 21 years) and 11 older adults ( M age = 59 years). Repeated-measures mixed-model analyses of variance were performed on the latencies and amplitudes of the speech-ABR peaks. Fixed factors were phoneme (repeated measures on three levels: /b/ vs. /d/ vs. /g/) and age (two levels: young vs. older). Results Speech-ABR differences were observed between the two groups (young vs. older adults). Specifically, older listeners showed generalized amplitude reductions for onset and major peaks. Significant Phoneme × Group interactions were not observed. Conclusions Results showed aging effects in speech-ABR amplitudes that may reflect diminished subcortical encoding of consonants in older listeners. These aging effects were not phoneme dependent as observed using the statistical methods of this study.

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Partner-Specific Communication Deficits in Individuals With Alzheimer's Disease

American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology ◽

10.1044/2020_ajslp-19-00094 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 1-15

Author(s):

Eun Jin Paek ◽

Si On Yoon

Keyword(s):

Alzheimer’S Disease ◽

Older Adults ◽

Alzheimer's Disease ◽

Referential Communication ◽

Sorting Task ◽

Audience Design ◽

Healthy Older Adults ◽

Communication Task ◽

Design Skills ◽

Referential Expressions

Purpose Speakers adjust referential expressions to the listeners' knowledge while communicating, a phenomenon called “audience design.” While individuals with Alzheimer's disease (AD) show difficulties in discourse production, it is unclear whether they exhibit preserved partner-specific audience design. The current study examined if individuals with AD demonstrate partner-specific audience design skills. Method Ten adults with mild-to-moderate AD and 12 healthy older adults performed a referential communication task with two experimenters (E1 and E2). At first, E1 and participants completed an image-sorting task, allowing them to establish shared labels. Then, during testing, both experimenters were present in the room, and participants described images to either E1 or E2 (randomly alternating). Analyses focused on the number of words participants used to describe each image and whether they reused shared labels. Results During testing, participants in both groups produced shorter descriptions when describing familiar images versus new images, demonstrating their ability to learn novel knowledge. When they described familiar images, healthy older adults modified their expressions depending on the current partner's knowledge, producing shorter expressions and more established labels for the knowledgeable partner (E1) versus the naïve partner (E2), but individuals with AD were less likely to do so. Conclusions The current study revealed that both individuals with AD and the control participants were able to acquire novel knowledge, but individuals with AD tended not to flexibly adjust expressions depending on the partner's knowledge state. Conversational inefficiency and difficulties observed in AD may, in part, stem from disrupted audience design skills.

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The Impact of Subjective and Objective Hearing Loss on Cognition and Memory in Older Adults

Perspectives on Gerontology ◽

10.1044/gero20.2.49 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 20 (2) ◽

pp. 49-57 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Yvonne Rogalski ◽

Amy Rominger

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Hearing Loss ◽

Reading Aloud ◽

Cognitive Testing ◽

Professional Collaboration ◽

Cognitive Screening ◽

Speech Language Pathologist ◽

Text Passage ◽

The Impact ◽

Audiologic Evaluation

For this exploratory cross-disciplinary study, a speech-language pathologist and an audiologist collaborated to investigate the effects of objective and subjective hearing loss on cognition and memory in 11 older adults without hearing loss (OAs), 6 older adults with unaided hearing loss (HLOAs), and 16 young adults (YAs). All participants received cognitive testing and a complete audiologic evaluation including a subjective questionnaire about perceived hearing difficulty. Memory testing involved listening to or reading aloud a text passage then verbally recalling the information. Key findings revealed that objective hearing loss and subjective hearing loss were correlated and both were associated with a cognitive screening test. Potential clinical implications are discussed and include a need for more cross-professional collaboration in assessing older adults with hearing loss.

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