scholarly journals Tele-Healthcare in Research and Education: Age Differences in Access and Utilization of Healthcare Resources

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 1025-1025
Author(s):  
William Hills ◽  
Matthew Murphy ◽  
Karen Hills

Abstract Societal needs highlighted during the pandemic have led to significant changes in healthcare, including the rapid development and implementation of tele-care consumer options. This study examined video-based, virtual healthcare access and utilization before and during the pandemic. Participants included traditional college-aged students, middle-aged adults, and retirement-aged persons (n = 685); measures included access to physical and mental health services, consumer satisfaction with type of services accessed, and anticipated use of virtual healthcare following the pandemic. Results showed that approximately half of participants (49.2%) had experience with virtual healthcare, with most of these cases during the pandemic. Virtual healthcare was more often used for physical compared to mental healthcare services, with college-aged participants more likely to use mental healthcare services than adult and retirement-aged participants. Laptop computers were most widely used to access services, with smartphone use proportionally lower in retirement-aged participants (31.4%). Overall satisfaction with virtual services was high (Mdn = 5 on a 6-point Likert scale), but college-aged participants trended toward a lower satisfaction (Mdn = 4.25) than other age categories. These results support that virtual healthcare service development and access experienced significant growth during the pandemic. Age differences in the types of services, types of devices, and satisfaction with virtual services all suggest a similar theme for age-related considerations of life stage, life responsibilities, and comfort and familiarity with technology that must be addressed for virtual healthcare to reach its full potential and reach equitably across the lifespan.

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 50-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simone Eliane Schwank ◽  
Qiongjie Zhou ◽  
Yanling He ◽  
Ganesh Acharya

China's healthcare is improving together with rapid economic growth. Yet, mental healthcare is lagging behind. Prevalence of perinatal depression is high among women of the one-child generation, but access to qualified care is limited. Chinese healthcare professionals, policy makers and patients alike express concerns about insufficient knowledge among the public as well as healthcare providers regarding mental disorders. There appears to be a general lack of help-seeking behaviour for mental disorders owing to perceived risk of social stigmatisation. Social support through family and friends, use of online resources and community healthcare services are preferred, rather than seeking help from mental health specialists.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 999-999
Author(s):  
Matthew Murphy ◽  
William Hills ◽  
Karen Hills

Abstract Healthcare has undergone a significant transformation during the pandemic, with virtual services being rapidly developed and implemented to keep pace with societal needs. This study documented this change in healthcare by examining access and use of video-based, virtual service use before and during the pandemic. Participants for the study (n = 685) included three groups, including retirement-aged persons, middle-aged adults, and traditional college-aged students. Measures for the study included access to and utilization of physical and mental health services, satisfaction with services accessed, and anticipated access and use of virtual services following the pandemic. Results showed that most participants (94.2%) believed that virtual healthcare would persist after the pandemic; three-quarters of adults (75.2%) but only half of college-aged (52.8%) and retirement-aged (57.6%) participants anticipated using virtual healthcare in the future. Prior use and satisfaction with virtual healthcare services mediated anticipated future use for retirement-aged participants (p < .001), but only satisfaction with virtual healthcare was a marginal predictor for college-aged participants (p = .051), and neither were predictors for adult-aged participants. These results support that people believe virtual healthcare will persist after the end of the pandemic, but that there are age-related differences in who anticipates using these services in the future, and which factors will make the most difference in attracting clients. These differences can impact how healthcare providers market and develop further tele-health services to increase the likelihood of use by retirement-aged participants, and suggests that client satisfaction is a key mediator for different age groups.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 93-100
Author(s):  
Yoel Tabuni

In line with the rapid development of the times and the increasingly complex problems faced by the state, there has also been a development in government administration which has been marked by a shift in the paradigm of governance from Rule Governance. This situation makes the bureaucracy rigid, in an environment that is only limited to flowing the instructions or following instructions. The district government in an Asologaima District has the main task of carrying out part of the authority delegated by the district head in the fields of government, economy, and development, society, peace, and order as well as coordination.The method is sed is descriptive method. Bureaucrats as providers of public services must be able to provide quality services, the quality of service of bureaucrats to society is closely related to customer satisfaction or consumer satisfaction as the recipient of the service itself.


2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-7
Author(s):  
Linda J. Johnston ◽  
Norma Gonzalez-Rojano ◽  
Kevin J. Wilkinson ◽  
Baoshan Xing

Abstract Nanotechnology has developed rapidly in the last two decades with significant effort focused on the development of nano-enabled materials with new or improved properties that offer solutions for current world challenges. The commercialization of products containing engineered nanomaterials (ENM) has progressed much more rapidly than the development of practical approaches to ensure their safe and sustainable use. The lack of adequate detection and characterization techniques and reproducible and validated methods for toxicological studies have been identified as major limitations. The rapid development of ENM of increasing complexity and diversity and concerns over the adequacy of existing regulations also contribute to safety concerns with these materials. The full potential of nanotechnology can only be realized when feasible, cost-effective strategies to ensure a safe-by-design approach, effective risk assessment approaches and appropriate regulatory guidelines are in place.


2009 ◽  
Vol 25 (S1) ◽  
pp. 224-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sadasivan Sivalal

Objectives: Malaysia, as a rapidly developing country, has been facing tremendous pressures in its attempts to maximize scarce resources. Despite this problem, Malaysia has made great strides in developing its health services, and has successfully provided good access to the population to healthcare services, reduced the incidence of many communicable diseases, and improved life expectancies and other global indices of health care, some of which are comparable to that of developed countries.Methods: The Health Technology Assessment (HTA) Unit was set up in Malaysia in August 1995 in the Ministry of Health Malaysia and has since grown tremendously in size and resources. To date, forty-three in-depth assessments have been carried out, and the recommendations of these assessments were subsequently implemented. In addition, approximately 140 rapid assessment reports were produced in response to requests from policy and decision makers. HTA has been able to provide input into formulation of national and Ministry of Health Malaysia policies, and provide a basis for clinical practice guidelines development, input into purchasing decisions, regulation of drugs, as well as advertisements related to health.Results: A major challenge is sustainability of the program, to be able to have trained personnel competent to take on the demanding tasks of assessments and the sustained efforts that are required. In addition, there need to be constant efforts to create awareness of the utility of HTA so that its services are used and its full potential realized. The scope of services may also need to be expanded to include an early warning system.Conclusions: Malaysia has successfully implemented a health technology program that has had major impact on policy formulation and decision making at various levels. Challenges may be faced in sustaining and developing the program further.


2002 ◽  
Vol 80 (3) ◽  
pp. 180-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carl I Thompson ◽  
John W Munford ◽  
Edward H Buell ◽  
Robert J Karry ◽  
Charles T Lee ◽  
...  

Two studies compared the glucose responses of 9-day-old rats given subcutaneous insulin, either continuously or via daily injection, for 10 days. In Experiment 1, implanted pellets released a total of 0, 1.9, or 5.7 U insulin/kg the first 24 h. Injected doses were larger, 0 or 8 U/kg. Injections caused no deaths, but insulin-releasing pellets caused high mortality within 24 h. Pups surviving the pellets were normoglycemic by treatment day 8. In Experiment 2, pups received 0.184 U of insulin daily, approximately 8 U/kg at 9 days, via either injection or osmotic minipump. All pups survived. Injected pups were hypoglycemic 2 h postinjection through treatment day 10, whereas pups with insulin minipumps were normoglycemic by day 5. Insulin injections, but not minipumps, lowered plasma triglycerides on day 10. To examine age differences in response to insulin, additional pups and adults received daily injections of 0 or 8 U/kg for 10 days. All survived. Insulin lowered plasma glucose more in pups than in adults and reduced triglycerides in pups but not in adults. The rapid development of normoglycemia in pups with insulin minipumps, compared with pups injected daily with the same dose, suggests that continuous early insulin may produce insulin resistance.Key words: route of insulin administration, insulin resistance, mortality, plasma glucose, development.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin Treanore ◽  
Etya Amsalem

Abstract In the face of insect declines, identifying phases of the life cycle when insects are particularly vulnerable to mortality is critical to conservation efforts. For numerous annual insect groups, diapause is both a key adaptation that allows survival of inhospitable conditions and a physiologically demanding life stage that can result in high rates of mortality. As bees continue to garner attention as a group experiencing high rates of decline, improving our understanding of how annual bees prepare for diapause and identifying factors that reduce survival is imperative. Here, we studied factors affecting diapause survival length and their underlying mechanisms using an economically and ecologically important annual bee species, Bombus impatiens. We examined how age and mass upon diapause onset correlate with diapause survival length, and the mechanistic role of nutrient acquisition and oxidative stress post pupal eclosion in mediating these effects. Our findings show that both age and mass were strong predictors of diapause survival length. Heavier queens or queens in the age range of ~6–17 days survived longer in diapause. Mass gain was attributed to increases in lipid, protein and glycerol amounts following pupal eclosion, and the ability to deal with oxidative stress was significantly compromised in older pre-diapause queens. Our results demonstrate that age-related shifts in bee physiology and timing of nutrient acquisition may both be critical factors driving diapause survival.


2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kendra Leigh Seaman ◽  
Alexander P. Christensen ◽  
Katherine Senn ◽  
Jessica Cooper ◽  
Brittany Shane Cassidy

Trust is a key component of social interaction. Older adults, however, often exhibit excessive trust relative to younger adults. One explanation is that older adults may learn to trust differently than younger adults. Here, we examine how younger (N=33) and older adults (N=30) learn to trust over time. Participants completed a classic iterative trust game with three partners. Younger and older adults shared similar amounts but differed in how they shared money. Compared to younger adults, older adults invested more with untrustworthy partners and less with trustworthy partners. As a group, older adults displayed less learning than younger adults. However, computational modeling shows that this is because older adults are more likely to forget what they have learned over time. Model-based fMRI analyses revealed several age-related differences in neural processing. Younger adults showed prediction error signals in social processing areas while older adults showed over-recruitment of several cortical areas. Collectively, these findings suggest that older adults attend to and learn from social cues differently from younger adults.


2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 353-361 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gui-Yuan Xiao ◽  
Bin Peng ◽  
Ying Hu ◽  
Dou Qu ◽  
Min-Qing Lai ◽  
...  

With the objective of investigating the characteristics influencing high-risk sexual behaviours in elderly men (60–74 years of age) in Chongqing, China, a total of 1433 healthy elderly men with sexual intercourse frequencies of one to six times/month who were willing to participate in the questionnaires were studied at four hospitals. We measured serum testosterone levels and performed follow-ups every six months, with a total of 1128 elderly men followed up after two years. We also investigated socio-economic and demographic characteristics (age, education, income, location, marital status and number of marriages), types of sexual partners, age differences with fixed sexual partners, frequency of sexual intercourse, combined basic age-related diseases, sexually transmitted infections (STIs) education, elderly self-care ability and high-risk sexual behaviours (frequency of sexual intercourse and number of sexual partners) using questionnaires. We analysed the influencing factors of high-risk sexual behaviours in elderly men using a univariate analysis, multivariate logistic regression analysis, BP neural network prediction and cluster analysis. Finally, we found that serum total testosterone, age, types of sexual partners, age differences with fixed partners and frequency of sexual intercourse are five factors that influence high-risk sexual behaviours in elderly men.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Li Kuang ◽  
Yujia Zhu ◽  
Shuqi Li ◽  
Xuejin Yan ◽  
Han Yan ◽  
...  

With the rapid development of sensor acquisition technology, more and more data are collected, analyzed, and encapsulated into application services. However, most of applications are developed by untrusted third parties. Therefore, it has become an urgent problem to protect users’ privacy in data publication. Since the attacker may identify the user based on the combination of user’s quasi-identifiers and the fewer quasi-identifier fields result in a lower probability of privacy leaks, therefore, in this paper, we aim to investigate an optimal number of quasi-identifier fields under the constraint of trade-offs between service quality and privacy protection. We first propose modelling the service development process as a cooperative game between the data owner and consumers and employing the Stackelberg game model to determine the number of quasi-identifiers that are published to the data development organization. We then propose a way to identify when the new data should be learned, as well, a way to update the parameters involved in the model, so that the new strategy on quasi-identifier fields can be delivered. The experiment first analyses the validity of our proposed model and then compares it with the traditional privacy protection approach, and the experiment shows that the data loss of our model is less than that of the traditional k-anonymity especially when strong privacy protection is applied.


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