The relationship between loneliness and cognition in healthy older men and women: The role of cortisol

The purpose of this study is to examine whether the co-residence of spouses and children affects self-reported general health among older men and women in a rural area of Bangladesh. Binary logistic regression has been used to explore the impact of spouses and children on self-reported health, with particular attention to the gender of children and interactions with chronic disease. The data are from the Matlab Health and Socio-Economic Survey. A sample of 765 women and 979 men aged 60 or more years with at least one surviving child was available. The principal result is that for an older woman, optimum self-reported health is most likely when a spouse and at least one son and one daughter are present. Any deviation from this family pattern (either no spouse or children of only one sex) leads to a significantly increased risk of poor self-reported health. On the other hand, among older men there were no differences in self-reported health among the various spouse-child combinations. The relationship between a balanced gender distribution of children and optimum self-reported health among older women may explain the levelling out of fertility at roughly three children per women despite intensive family planning promotion in the area. Further reductions in fertility (an important policy concern) may depend on improving the substitutability of sons and daughters in the support of their elderly mothers.

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The portrayal of elderly men and women in Hungarian television news programmes

Ageing and Society ◽

10.1017/s0144686x20000227 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 1-19

Author(s):

Gábor Kovács ◽

Petra Aczél ◽

Tamás Bokor

Keyword(s):

Mass Media ◽

Elderly People ◽

Television News ◽

Age Groups ◽

Older Men ◽

Comparison Theory ◽

Men And Women ◽

Qualitative Variables ◽

Older Men And Women

Abstract Mass media research on the portrayal of older people has primarily focused on television series and advertisements. News programmes on television have received little attention. We argue that viewers perceive characters on the news as more direct and more accurate representations of social reality than fictional characters, and therefore portrayals on the news are more likely to be integrated in viewers’ stereotypes about elderly people or used as standards of comparison. In order to explore potential differences in the representation of senior men and women, we conducted a quantitative content analysis on a sample of 754 elderly people who appeared on the evening news programmes of four major Hungarian television channels with high viewership. Each character was coded in terms of 115 qualitative variables. Our results indicate that older men are portrayed significantly more often than women as affluent, elegant, knowledgeable, powerful and actively working. By contrast, women are more commonly shown as kind, family-oriented, in ordinary roles (e.g. as the ‘woman in the street’) and engaged in less-productive activities such as shopping. Based on previous research on the role of mass media in the socialisation process as well as social comparison theory, we discuss how these imbalances in the representation of older men and women may affect viewers of different age groups, genders and social status.

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Mean nocturnal respiratory rate predicts cardiovascular and all-cause mortality in community-dwelling older men and women

European Respiratory Journal ◽

10.1183/13993003.02175-2018 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 54 (1) ◽

pp. 1802175 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Mathias Baumert ◽

Dominik Linz ◽

Katie Stone ◽

R. Doug McEvoy ◽

Steve Cummings ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Osteoporotic Fractures ◽

Older Men ◽

Community Dwelling ◽

Sleep Study ◽

Men And Women ◽

All Cause Mortality ◽

The Relationship ◽

Older Men And Women

Respiratory frequency (fR) predicts in-hospital and short-term mortality in patients with a variety of pathophysiological conditions, but its predictive value for long-term cardiovascular and all-cause mortality in the general population is unknown. Here, we investigated the relationship between mean nocturnal fR and mortality in community-dwelling older men and women.We measured mean nocturnal fR during sleep from overnight polysomnography in 2686 men participating in the Osteoporotic Fractures in Men Study (MrOS) Sleep study and 406 women participating in the Study of Osteoporotic Fractures (SOF) to investigate the relationship between mean nocturnal fR and long-term cardiovascular and all-cause mortality.166 (6.1%) men in the MrOS cohort (8.9±2.6 years’ follow-up) and 46 (11.2%) women in the SOF cohort (6.4±1.6 years’ follow-up) died from cardiovascular disease. All-cause mortality was 51.2% and 26.1% during 13.7±3.7 and 6.4±1.6 years’ follow-up in the MrOS Sleep study and the SOF cohorts, respectively. Multivariable Cox regression analysis adjusted for significant covariates demonstrated that fR dichotomised at 16 breaths·min−1 was independently associated with cardiovascular mortality (MrOS: hazard ratio (HR) 1.57, 95% CI 1.14–2.15; p=0.005; SOF: HR 2.58, 95% CI 1.41–4.76; p=0.002) and all-cause mortality (MrOS: HR 1.18, 95% CI 1.04–1.32; p=0.007; SOF: HR 1.50, 95% CI 1.02–2.20; p=0.04).In community-dwelling older men and women, polysomnography-derived mean nocturnal fR ≥16 breaths·min−1 is an independent predictor of long-term cardiovascular and all-cause mortality. Whether nocturnal mean fR can be used as a risk marker warrants further prospective studies.

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