Aging, frailty, and design of built environments

Before developing agriculture, herding or metallurgy, humans occupied most of the world. Multiple socioculturally-based responses supported their migration, including building shelters and constructing niches to limit environmental stressors. Sheltered settings provided social support and security during stressful times, along with opportunities for injured, aging, and frail members to survive. Modern built environments are designed for similar purposes, to support human growth, development, reproduction, and maintenance. However, extended survival in modern settings has costs. With age, muscle (sarcopenia) and bone loss (osteopenia, osteoporosis), along with somatic, physiological, and sensory dysfunction, reduce our physical capabilities, increase our frailty, and impede our abilities to interface with built and natural environments and manufactured artifacts. Thereby, increasing our dependence on built environments to maintain autonomy and quality of life.What follows is a conceptual review of how frailty may limit seniors within modern built environments. It suggests age-related frailty among seniors provides specific data for those designing environments for accessibility to all users. It is based in human ecological theory, and physiological and gerontological research showing senescent alterations, including losses of muscle, bone, and sensory perceptions, produce a frail phenotype with increasing age limiting our mobility, activity, use of space, and physical abilities. As an individual phenotype, frailty leads to age-related physical and performance declines. As a physiological assessment, frailty indices amalgamate individual measures of functional abilities into a single score. Such frailty indices increase with age and differ betwixt individuals and across groups. To design built environments that improve access, usability, and safety for aging and frail citizens, today’s seniors provide living samples and evidence for determining their future abilities, limitations, and design needs. Designing built environments to accommodate and improve the quality of human-environment interactions for frail seniors will improve usability and accessibility for most user groups.

A Methodological Note: An Introduction to Autoregressive Models

The autoregressive model is a useful tool to analyze longitudinal data. It is particularly suitable for gerontological research as autoregressive models can be used to establish the causal relationship within a single variable over time as well as the causal ordering between two or more variables (e.g., physical health and psychological well-being) over time through bivariate autoregressive cross-lagged or contemporaneous models. Specifically, bivariate autoregressive models can explore the cross-lagged effects between two variables over time to determine the proper causal ordering between these variables. The advantage of analyzing cross-lagged effects is to test for the strength of prediction between two variables controlling for each variable's previous time score as well as the autoregressive component of the model. Bivariate autoregressive contemporaneous models can also be used to determine causal ordering within the same time point when compared to cross-lagged effects. Since the technique uses structural equation modeling, models are also adjusted for measurement error. This paper will present an introduction to setting up models and a step-by-step approach to analyzing univariate simplex autoregressive models, bivariate autoregressive cross-lagged models, and bivariate autoregressive contemporaneous models.

Aging Across the Life Course: Research Collections Available from the National Archive of Computerized Data on Aging

The creation and maintenance of sustainable data archives can be challenging, but it offers clear advantages. Properly curated data can be used by multiple researchers, testing a variety of hypotheses, and increasing the return on investment to the expensive process of data collection. Having an internally managed archival system also provides greater control and autonomy in the equitable distribution of data resources. This process ensures all researchers will have full use of the data for original research, teaching, and new directions once the data leaves the control of the local investigator’s control. This poster reviews the advantages of having a local strategy geared toward the preservation and sharing of gerontological research data. Using the National Archive of Computerized Data on Aging (NACDA) as a working example, the poster offers an overview of collections at NACDA. Using our metadata tools and variable search database, NACDA can identify studies in its collections that examine aspects of aging and health among adults during their lifecourse. Many of the studies are longitudinal or repeat measure cross-sectional studies. We are also able to identify studies that focus on aging that are not maintained by NACDA but which are available to interested researchers. Using a strategy of archival preservation combined with a strong focus on productive research Innovation in Aging, NACDA has amassed data and metadata covering a wide array of studies worldwide that address the aging lifecourse. Because our collections are multinational, we share these data at no cost to interested users worldwide

Exploring the Concept of the Ethical Will as a Way to Leave a Legacy of Values: A Scoping Review

Ethical wills communicate a legacy of values through non-legal emotional and supportive instruction to others and are distinct from legal or living wills. Employed for centuries, little is known about how and why ethical wills are used. We conducted the first scoping review on ethical wills to survey the breadth of published information and identify how they are defined and utilized. We followed the Joanna Briggs Institute methodology for scoping reviews employing an a priori protocol and PRISMA-ScR reporting guidelines . We searched 14 databases in November 2019 and January 2021 without filtering publication date or type. Our final extraction form included frequently used terms describing content, purpose, and outcomes. Two reviewers independently screened 1,568 results. Final extraction included 51 documents from 1997-2020, which were primarily published in lay or peer-reviewed journals within law, estate and financial planning, and religion; only 6 research articles were identified. Most frequently, descriptors characterized ethical wills as a non-material legacy of values, beliefs, wisdom, and life lessons learned written to family or future generations. Ethical wills were utilized most to be remembered, address mortality, clarify life’s meaning, and communicate what matters most. They provided opportunity to learn about self, were considered a gift to both writer and recipient and fostered intergenerational interaction and transcendence. Our findings highlight interdisciplinary utilization and dearth of research on ethical wills. Gerontological research is needed to explore ways ethical wills can be used to enhance generativity and intentional living as individuals age and prepare for the end of life.

The GSA NIA R13 Diversity Mentoring and Career Development Workshop: what did we learn after 3 years?

The goal of the GSA NIA R13 Diversity Mentoring and Career Development Technical Assistance Workshop (GSA Diversity TAW) is to support, promote, and advance the training of diverse students in aging research. The program’s main aim is to increase the number of early career scientists who are historically underrepresented in gerontological research. Thus, from 2018 to 2020, more than 60 trainees and 16 faculty from diverse backgrounds participated in this unique gerontological training that included peer mentoring opportunities and engagements at the GSA Annual Meeting. The workshop curriculum included scientific presentations, networking, NIH grant preparation, career planning, and effective professional communication. Trainees and faculty were involved in the evaluation of the workshop, which included electronic surveys and focus groups that informed the design and curriculum of subsequent workshops. This paper will discuss the curricular design and objectives of the GSA Diversity TAW and present a summary of the trainees’ feedback results about the program and the iterative changes made based on that data.

Aging Into Disability: A Conceptual Challenge for Gerontology

One of the most fraught subjects facing a fast growing aging population is the subject of aging into disability. This paper examines the processes of aging into disability as a distinct challenge for not only older persons, but also for the field of gerontology, and public policy-makers. Disability in youth and in middle age has largely defined the disability rights agenda, and elders aging into disability have not been the subject of much attention from scholars in the field of disability. Surprisingly, however, scholars and policy-makers in gerontology have also by and large avoided the subject of older persons aging into disability—a complex process that involves impairment, environmental disablement, and changes in social relationships. This process accelerates with advancing age, and disproportionately affects women. Moreover, when older adults develop mobility limitations, experience falls, become hard of hearing, or experience other such impairments of age related disability, they do not think of themselves as aging into disability, or being disabled. This lack of disability identity may protect them from stigma and from low self-esteem. At the same time, it stands in the way of seeking accommodations and from developing a bond with other older adults who are aging into disability. This paper explores the dynamics of disability avoidance as an ideal that can harm older adults and their caregivers. It aims to bring disability more fully into the normal life-course, and to suggest lines of inquiry for gerontological research, to broaden the field, and to make service communities more inclusive .

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Gerontological Research Mentoring and Methodologies

With a rapid increase in our nation's diversity and in particular the diversity of the aging population, research focused on the well-being and quality of life for all older adults is imperative. Within GSA, The Minority Issue in Gerontology Advisory Panel is charged with providing support to the membership that ultimately will yield an increase in the quantity and quality of research related to minority aging issues. Therefore, understanding best practices for minority-focused gerontological research and gerontological education curriculum is warranted. The advancement of the field is predicated on the ability to have trained professionals with skills and competencies that effectively meet the needs of a diverse aging population. This symposium will include a presentation highlighting practical strategies for strengthening gerontology research by intentionally incorporating anti-racist methodological approaches. The second presentation will consist of recommendations on how to support, promote, and advance gerontology education in a manner that increases the diversity of those pursuing a research or an applied career in this area of study. Presenters will share an overview of the literature, findings from program implementation focus groups, and recommendations for tailoring strategies to fit your intended audience. This session will prove beneficial as we make strides to ensure that diversity, equity, and inclusion remain a core value and an inherent practice of all gerontology professionals.

Global Publishing Opportunities in Gerontology: A View From the Editor's Desk

Global aging has proceeded at an unprecedented and accelerating rate. The aging of the population creates both opportunities and challenges for elders, their families, and society in general. Importantly, there is substantial variation in the effects of and response to global aging both within and across nations depending, in part, on prevailing cultural expectations and values, political and economic imperatives, and social and demographic characteristics. Thus, while some regions and countries have responded with innovative policies and programs to better enable the growing cohort of older adults to remain active and engaged in the community, other regions and countries have struggled with their response or barely begun to plan for the rising population of elders. This symposium assembles editors at five leading gerontological journals to demonstrate the role that peer-reviewed scholarship can play in disseminating knowledge that informs gerontological research, policy, and practice internationally. Editors include: Kyungmin Kim, PhD, Research on Aging; Jessica Kelley, PhD, Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences; Edward Alan Miller, PhD, Journal of Aging & Social Policy; Julie Hicks Patrick, PhD, International Journal of Aging & Human Development; and Julie Robison, PhD, The Journal of Applied Gerontology. Each presenter will review the scope, content, and focus of their journals and the role and opportunities for international scholarship.

Creative Arts Interventions as a Way to Combat Ageism and Increase Student Interest in Gerontology

Despite the continuous, growing need for health professionals who are trained to work with older adults living with Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders (ADRD), research shows that recruitment and retention of gerontological health care professionals remains low. Ageism plays an important role in this resistance and continues to have societal impact, even proliferating in disturbing ways during the COVID-19 pandemic via stereotypes, discrimination, and framing in the media. Gerontologists in various health professional educational settings continue to address the need to infuse aging content in creative ways and increase the competency of all health professionals to combat ageism and understand the importance of specialized care for this population. Our gerontological research team has engaged students in various ways to increase interest in aging issues and ADRD. Current research projects involve the implementation of non-pharmacological, creative arts interventions, including Mason’s Music & Memory Initiative (M3I) and TimeSlips, both which have the potential to appeal to intergenerational partnerships and provide students with tools to communicate better with those living with ADRD. We examined attitudes about aging among undergraduate and graduate students (N=78) who have completed our training modules and/or participated in these two projects. The asynchronous trainings provide content on ADRD and the implementation of non-pharmacological, creative arts interventions. We examined students’ attitudes about aging and ADRD and analyzed their open-ended responses regarding their experiences with someone living with ADRD. Various levels of education, relationships with older adults, and life experience influenced their responses regarding their attitudes about aging.

Engaging Rural and Racial-Ethnic Populations in Gerontological Research

Older adults from racial/ethnic populations, as well as rural-dwelling older adults, are often at heightened risk for experiencing health disparities. Reasons for these disparities may include access issues, language barriers, distrust, lack of awareness, and of culturally appropriate materials. Racial/ethnic populations and rural-dwelling populations are also less likely to be included in research to help minimize the impact of these disparities. Shifting from reducing disparities to eliminating disparities will require attentiveness to designing programs and research that focus on increasing representation of racial/ethnic groups in research, integrating diverse populations (particularly rural and other marginalized groups) into the development of ideas and projects, and finally a commitment to culturally appropriate and inclusive approaches to research and education. Applying these strategies can provide guidance on how to best facilitate inclusive and equitable research, collaborative partnerships, and equitable healthcare for everyone, especially those from populations often underrepresented.