scholarly journals Towards a Gerontoludic Manifesto

2015 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 112-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bob De Schutter ◽  
Vero Vanden Abeele
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Research And Development ◽  
Digital Games ◽  
Older Age ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Physical Limitations ◽  
Game Industry

Digital games have become an important part of the technoscape, not only for youngsters, but for players of all ages. Older adults are a large, currently still largely untapped market for innovative game research and development. However, the current discourse on games and ageing can largely be categorized into two themes. The first theme refers to digital games framed as a way for older adults to improve certain skills. The useful, pragmatic qualities, rather than the fun, hedonic aspects of games are emphasized. The second theme identifies the various age-related constraints that prevent older adults from playing. It focuses on the cognitive and physical limitations of older adults. Underlying both themes is a reductionist perspective on ageing as merely a process of decline and debilitation. In this article, we present a “gerontoludic” manifesto. Firstly, games should not be marketed solely as having the purpose of dealing with or mitigating age-related decline and focus on positive aspects of older age (adagio 1: growth over decline). Secondly, age-related adjustments should never interfere with the actual gameplay of the game (adagio 2: playfulness over usefulness). Finally, game researchers and game industry should put more efforts in understanding what differentiates elderly players, rather than seeing them as united in their age-related impairments (adagio 3: heterogeneity over unification). As this manifesto is a first step that needs further abutment by a wider community, we welcome debate and additions from game designers and researchers to further this manifesto and to move beyond ageism in games.  

scholarly journals Neurometabolic Correlates of Reactive and Proactive Motor Inhibition in Young and Older Adults: Evidence from Multiple Regional 1H-MR Spectroscopy

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Akila Weerasekera ◽  
Oron Levin ◽  
Amanda Clauwaert ◽  
Kirstin-Friederike Heise ◽  
Lize Hermans ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Inhibitory Control ◽  
Inferior Frontal Gyrus ◽  
Proactive Inhibition ◽  
Older Age ◽  
Resonance Spectroscopy ◽  
Reactive Inhibition ◽  
Age Related ◽  
The Right ◽  
Age Range

Abstract Suboptimal inhibitory control is a major factor contributing to motor/cognitive deficits in older age and pathology. Here, we provide novel insights into the neurochemical biomarkers of inhibitory control in healthy young and older adults and highlight putative neurometabolic correlates of deficient inhibitory functions in normal aging. Age-related alterations in levels of glutamate–glutamine complex (Glx), N-acetylaspartate (NAA), choline (Cho), and myo-inositol (mIns) were assessed in the right inferior frontal gyrus (RIFG), pre-supplementary motor area (preSMA), bilateral sensorimotor cortex (SM1), bilateral striatum (STR), and occipital cortex (OCC) with proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H-MRS). Data were collected from 30 young (age range 18–34 years) and 29 older (age range 60–74 years) adults. Associations between age-related changes in the levels of these metabolites and performance measures or reactive/proactive inhibition were examined for each age group. Glx levels in the right striatum and preSMA were associated with more efficient proactive inhibition in young adults but were not predictive for reactive inhibition performance. Higher NAA/mIns ratios in the preSMA and RIFG and lower mIns levels in the OCC were associated with better deployment of proactive and reactive inhibition in older adults. Overall, these findings suggest that altered regional concentrations of NAA and mIns constitute potential biomarkers of suboptimal inhibitory control in aging.

scholarly journals Definitions of Frailty in Qualitative Research: A Qualitative Systematic Review

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Deborah A. Lekan ◽  
Susan K. Collins ◽  
Audai A. Hayajneh
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Older Adults ◽  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Objective Assessment ◽  
Subjective Assessment ◽  
Adverse Outcomes ◽  
Older Age ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Qualitative Systematic Review ◽  
Physical Limitations

The purpose of this qualitative systematic review was to examine how frailty was conceptually and operationally defined for participant inclusion in qualitative research focused on the lived experience of frailty in community-living frail older adults. Search of six electronic databases, 1994–2019, yielded 25 studies. Data collection involved extracting the definition of frailty from the study aim, background, literature review, methods, and sampling strategy in each research study. Quality appraisal indicated that 13 studies (52%) demonstrated potential researcher bias based on insufficient information about participant recruitment, sampling, and relationship between the researcher and participant. Content analysis and concept mapping were applied for data synthesis. Although frailty was generally defined as a multidimensional, biopsychosocial construct with loss of resilience and vulnerability to adverse outcomes, most studies defined the study population based on older age and physical impairments derived from subjective assessment by the researcher, a healthcare professional, or a family member. However, 13 studies (52%) used objective or performance-based quantitative measures to classify participant frailty. There was no consistency across studies in standardized measures or objective assessment of frailty. Synthesis of the findings yielded four themes: Time, Vulnerability, Loss, and Relationships. The predominance of older age and physical limitations as defining characteristics of frailty raises questions about whether participants were frail, since many older adults at advanced age and with physical limitations are not frail. Lack of clear criteria to classify frailty and reliance on subjective assessment introduces the risk for bias, threatens the validity and interpretation of findings, and hinders transferability of findings to other contexts. Clear frailty inclusion and exclusion criteria and a standardized approach in the reporting of how frailty is conceptually and operationally defined in study abstracts and the methodology used is necessary to facilitate dissemination and development of metasynthesis studies that aggregate qualitative research findings that can be used to inform future research and applications in clinical practice to improve healthcare.

scholarly journals Factors Contributing to Unexpected Retirement and Unemployment in Adults Over 50 Years Old in Ireland

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 233372141772270 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Schinkel-Ivy ◽  
Irene Mosca ◽  
Avril Mansfield
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Older Age ◽  
Older Individuals ◽  
Loss Of Function ◽  
Related Factors ◽  
Psychological Constructs ◽  
Frailty Status ◽  
Health Related ◽  
Physical Limitations ◽  
Status Data

Older adults are increasingly important to maintaining stable workforces. As such, factors contributing to early workforce exit must be identified. This study aimed to identify predictors of unexpected retirement and unemployment at older age, with respect to psychological constructs, resulting adverse behaviors, and health-related factors reflecting functional status. Data were extracted from The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA) to predict unexpected retirement and unemployment in older adults in Ireland. Increasing age, increasing number of impairments in activities of daily living, and frailty status of “pre-frail/frail” (relative to non-frail) increased the likelihood of unexpected retirement; while greater numbers of physical limitations and “pre-frail/frail” status significantly predicted unemployment at older age. Pre-frail/frail status or reduced physical capability for everyday tasks may adversely affect older individuals’ ability to obtain and/or maintain employment. These findings advance the current understanding of factors associated with unexpected retirement and unemployment at older ages. Findings may aid in identifying strategies to extend working life and to aid at-risk older adults, and may inform components of care on which to focus to minimize loss of function and mobility, and maintain independence, with aging.

scholarly journals Optimistic update bias increases in older age

2013 ◽  
Vol 44 (9) ◽  
pp. 2003-2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Chowdhury ◽  
T. Sharot ◽  
T. Wolfe ◽  
E. Düzel ◽  
R. J. Dolan
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Older Age ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Subjective Rating ◽  
Grey Matter Volume ◽  
Negative Events ◽  
Healthy Older Adults ◽  
Positivity Bias ◽  
Age Related

BackgroundHealthy older adults report greater well-being and life satisfaction than their younger counterparts. One potential explanation for this is enhanced optimism. We tested the influence of age on optimistic and pessimistic beliefs about the future and the associated structural neural correlates.MethodEighteen young and 18 healthy older adults performed a belief updating paradigm, measuring differences in updating beliefs for desirable and undesirable information about future negative events. These measures were related to regional brain volume, focusing on the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) because this region is strongly linked to a positivity bias in older age.ResultsWe demonstrate an age-related reduction in updating beliefs when older adults are faced with undesirable, but not desirable, information about negative events. This greater ‘update bias’ in older age persisted even after controlling for a variety of variables including subjective rating scales and poorer overall memory. A structural brain correlate of this greater ‘update bias’ was evident in greater grey matter volume in the dorsal ACC in older but not in young adults.ConclusionsWe show a greater update bias in healthy older age. The link between this bias and relative volume of the ACC suggests a shared mechanism with an age-related positivity bias. Older adults frequently have to make important decisions relating to personal, health and financial issues. Our findings have wider behavioural implications in these contexts because an enhanced optimistic update bias may skew such real-world decision making.

Age-related loss of resources and perceived old age in China

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Huijun Liu ◽  
Ru Yang ◽  
Zhixin Feng
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Old Age ◽  
Health Resources ◽  
Health Condition ◽  
Older Age ◽  
Role Transition ◽  
Related Factors ◽  
Five Dimensions ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
Age Related

Abstract Life expectancy in China has increased. This paper explores the age when older adults (aged 60 and above) consider themselves to be an ‘older person’ and how age-related loss of resources (five dimensions: early cumulative factors, decline and loss of health resources, reduction and loss of economic resources, weakening and loss of social support resources, and personal role transition and experiences of losing family members) could impact their perceived old age. Using two waves of data from the China Longitudinal Ageing Social Survey (CLASS) in 2014 and 2016 (6,244 participants in 2014 and 2,989 participants in both 2014 and 2016), we found that the mean perceived old age is around 70 years at baseline (2014). Higher level of educational attainment and occupational types (early cumulative factors), better health condition, receiving support from friends and taking care of grandchildren are significantly associated with the perception that old age begins at an older age at baseline, while being Han-Chinese, being an urban resident (early cumulative factors) and reporting better health condition have significant positive effects on the perception that old age begins at an older age in the later wave. Our findings suggest that the age standard of older adults should be adjusted dynamically in response to social development and longevity, and also highlight the importance of early cumulative factors in shaping the ageing process besides age-related factors.

scholarly journals Eavesdropping on autobiographical memory: A naturalistic observation study of older adults' memory sharing in daily conversations

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aubrey Anne Ladd Wank ◽  
Matthias R. Mehl ◽  
Jessica R. Andrews-Hanna ◽  
Angelina Jantina Polsinelli ◽  
Suzanne Moseley ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Real World ◽  
Smartphone Application ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Older Age ◽  
Laboratory Research ◽  
Autobiographical Memories ◽  
Observation Study ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Episodic Memories

The retrieval of autobiographical memories is an integral part of everyday social interactions. Prior laboratory research has revealed that older age is associated with a reduction in the retrieval of autobiographical episodic memories, and the ability to elaborate these memories with episodic details. However, how age-related reductions in episodic specificity unfold in everyday social contexts remains largely unknown. Also, constraints of the laboratory-based approach have limited our understanding of how autobiographical semantic memory is linked to older age. To address these gaps in knowledge, we used a smartphone application known as the Electronically Activated Recorder, or “EAR”, to unobtrusively capture real-world conversations over four days. In a sample of 102 cognitively normal older adults, we extracted instances where memories and future thoughts were shared by the participants, and we scored the shared episodic memories and future thoughts for their make-up of episodic and semantic detail. We found that older age was associated with a reduction in real-world sharing of autobiographical episodic and semantic memories. We also found that older age was linked to less episodically and semantically detailed descriptions of autobiographical episodic memories. Frequency and level of detail of shared future thoughts yielded weaker relationships with age, which may be related to the low frequency of future thoughts in general. Similar to laboratory research, there was no correlation between autobiographical episodic detail sharing and a standard episodic memory test. However, in contrast to laboratory studies, episodic detail production while sharing autobiographical episodic memories was weakly related to episodic detail production while describing future events, unrelated to working memory, and not different between men and women. Overall, our findings provide novel evidence of how older age relates to episodic specificity when autobiographical memories are assessed unobtrusively and objectively “in the wild”.

DOES NEUROCOGNITION CONTRIBUTE TO AGE-RELATED DEFICITS IN THE ONLINE NAVIGATION OF ELECTRONIC PATIENT HEALTH PORTALS?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anastasia Matchanova ◽  
Michelle A. Babicz ◽  
Victoria Kordovski ◽  
Savanna Tierney ◽  
Samina Rahman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Web Design ◽  
Older Age ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Patient Portal ◽  
Patient Portals ◽  
Mediation Analyses ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Patient Health

Objective: The internet serves an increasingly critical role in how older adults manage their personal health. Electronic patient portals, for example, provide a centralized platform for older adults to access lab results, manage prescriptions and appointments, and communicate with providers. This study examined whether neurocognition mediates the effect of older age on electronic patient portal navigation. Participants and Methods: Forty-nine younger (18-35 years) and thirty-five older adults (50-75 years) completed the Test of Online Health Records Navigation (TOHRN), which is an experimenter-controlled website on which participants were asked to log-in, review laboratory results, read provider messages, and schedule an appointment. Participants also completed a neuropsychological battery, self-report questionnaires, and measures of health literacy and functional capacity. Results: Mediation analyses revealed a significant indirect effect of older age on lower TOHRN accuracy, which was fully mediated by global neurocognition and the domains of executive functions, episodic memory, and processing speed, but not attention. An exploratory follow-up model testing the inverse mediation pathway demonstrated that TOHRN accuracy was also a significant partial mediator of the relationship between older age and poorer global neurocognition. Conclusions: Findings indicate a possible bidirectional mediating relationship between age-related difficulties with neurocognition and navigating electronic patient health portals. Future studies might examine the possible benefits of both structural (e.g., human factors web design enhancement) and individual (e.g., training and compensation) cognitive supports to improve the navigability of electronic patient health portals for older adults.

Location Negative Priming May Be Abolished in Older Age

2001 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 187-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Metzler
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Negative Priming ◽  
Educational Level ◽  
Older Age ◽  
Cognitive Inhibition ◽  
Middle Adulthood ◽  
Ageing Research ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Cognitive Failure ◽  
Considerable Problem

The present study highlights with the example of location negative priming (LNP) a considerable problem in ageing research, namely the lack of consistent replication of age-related effects on measures of cognitive inhibition. Only a few studies have investigated the effects of ageing on LNP with the overall conclusion that LNP remains largely intact in older adults. In contrast, the two experiments presented here demonstrated a significant abolition of LNP in older relative to younger participants. LNP was a robust effect over early and middle adulthood (19 years - 59 years) but declined from the age of 60 years onwards. Moreover, this effect could not be accounted for by psychometric variables that have been associated with impaired negative priming (dementia, depression, schizotypy, cognitive failure). Thus, the present data provide evidence that LNP can be severely diminished in older adults. It is suggested that discrepancies to previous studies might have arisen due to differences in the educational level of participants in different studies.

scholarly journals Age-Telling in Intergenerational First-encounter Talks between College Students and Older Adults in Taiwan: A Gerontological Sociolinguistic Study

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Chin-Hui Chen ◽  
Yu-Ting Hong ◽  
Yen-Ju Chen
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Older Adults ◽  
Older People ◽  
Conversation Analysis ◽  
Frequency Analysis ◽  
Older Age ◽  
Intergenerational Communication ◽  
Age Group ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Young Old

This study extends gerontological sociolinguistics by investigating how older Taiwanese adults disclosed their age and the relevant conversational sequences around their age-telling behaviours in first-encounter talks with college students. The 13-pair young-old conversational data were coded using Coupland, Coupland, Giles and Henwood’s (1991) six age-telling strategies, and 70 age-telling utterances were identified. Frequency analysis of the age-telling utterances indicated that the older participants mostly constructed their older-age identities by referring to age-related roles and to historical changes they had witnessed. Conversation analysis suggested that both of these age-telling strategies could endow older people with greater power by casting them in roles such as information-givers or proud grandparents, and ascribe positive qualities to their age group. However, the data raised concerns that age-telling conversations could also sometimes be disenfranchising and the younger interlocutors’ minimal responses to such talks were common. Wider implications of the findings for intergenerational communication are discussed in the conclusion.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document