Aging Healthy - Part 3

Medicine Encyclopedia

Language about Aging - Designations For Older Adults, Vocabulary About Older Adults And Aging, Metaphoric Language, Proverbial Language - Slogans

Social phenomena and social practices often exist long before they receive an identifying label. The subsequent act of naming an activity is significant because it allows people to refer to it. The word ageism is a case in point. Until Robert N. Butler introduced the term in 1969, there was no uniform way to refer to the behaviors associated with the practice of ageism, even though the activity ha…

2 minute read

Language Comprehension

Language comprehension is an important aspect of day to day functioning in adulthood. Comprehension of written and spoken language relies on the ability to correctly process word and phrase meanings, sentence grammar, and discourse or text structure. Difficulties in any of these domains can produce comprehension problems. Age-related memory declines have been reported in many studies comparing you…

6 minute read

Language Disorders - Language Disorders In Older Adults, Language Deficits In Early Alzheimer's Disease And Other Progressive Conditions

Human communication and socialization to a large degree occur through language, which is a symbol system used to represent, convey, and interpret ideas, thoughts, and feelings. Typically one language user (a sender) arranges words or other vocabulary symbols (e.g., gestures, as used in sign language) to express particular intentions or ideas to at least one other language user (a receiver). While …

2 minute read

Latin America - Demographic Background, Literacy, Living Arrangements, Economic Activity And Retirement, Pension Policy

Although Latin American populations are still fairly young (8 percent were over age sixty in 2000), the countries are aging in a quietly rapid way that could soon overwhelm existing infrastructures. Even as they struggle to develop economically, Latin American populations are aging far faster than those in western Europe, Canada, or the United States, a consequence of past successes in fertility a…

less than 1 minute read

Learning - Classical Conditioning, Instrumental Conditioning

Learning is the process of forming associations that result in a relatively long-lasting change in the organism. Learning that involves relations between events is called associative learning, and the primary forms of associative learning are called classical and instrumental conditioning. Learning and memory are closely associated phenomena because memory occurs as a consequence of learning. Olde…

2 minute read

Leisure - Types Of Leisure Activities, The Portent Of Leisure

Leisure is one facet of the quest for meaning that continues throughout life. From earliest cognition to dying breath, meaningful engagement and self-validation appear to be enduring attractors. Two trends speak to the probable importance of leisure. During the course of the twentieth century, there was a vast expansion in access to leisure. At the same time, social demographic changes already app…

2 minute read

Life Course - Ktey Concepts And Distinctions, Contributions To Aging, Challenges And Developments In Conducting Life Course Research

C. Wright Mills described the task and promise of the sociological imagination as the ability to "grasp history and biography and the relations between the two." The life course perspective takes this task seriously, providing a theoretical framework, concepts, and analytical tools for examining how lives unfold in historical contexts. This perspective views aging as a life-long proc…

1 minute read

Life Cycle Theories of Savings and Consumption - Implications For Retirement Behavior, Implications For Income Adequacy, Implications For Aggregate Savings And Consumption Patterns

Economists have developed three major theories of consumption and saving behavior: (1) The life-cycle hypothesis (Modigliani and Brumberg, 1954; Modigliani and Ando, 1957; Ando and Modigliani, 1963); (2) the permanent income hypothesis (Friedman, 1957); and (3) the relative income hypothesis (Dusenberry, 1949). All three theories have their conceptual roots in the microeconomic theory of consum…

4 minute read

Life Expectancy

Life expectancy is a summary measure of the average number of additional years a group of people can expect to live at a given exact age. Life expectancy figures are derived from a life table. Life table methodology has been developed for human populations to determine average lengths of life, of healthy life, of married life, and of working life. Indeed, life tables have recently been used to det…

2 minute read

Life Review - A Brief History, End-of-life Review, Memoir As Life Review, Life Review As Oral History - Universality of the life review, Conclusion

Life review is a progressive return to consciousness of memories and unresolved past conflicts for reevaluation and resolution. It is a normal, developmental task of the later years, a private process that differs with each individual. This evaluative process is believed to occur universally in all persons in the final years of their lives, although they may not be totally aware of it and may in p…

3 minute read

Life-Span Development - Life-span Theory, Research Methods And Themes, Plasticity, Reserve Capacity, And Resiliency

Life-span developmental theory provides a framework for understanding human aging. The main purpose of theory in the study of aging is to provide a context for describing and explaining the regular transformations that occur with time to representative organisms living under representative conditions. Theories in general aid the process of articulating meaningful patterns from observations that wo…

2 minute read

Life-Span Extension - Myths About Life Extension, Scientific Analysis Of Longevity, Centenarians, Life-extension Strategies That Work

Opinions about life-span extension range from the optimistic, fanciful thinking of Ben Bova, a noted science fiction writer, who wrote: "The first immortal human beings are probably living among us today. You may be one of them." (Bova, p. 3), to the realistic views of Steve Austad, a respected researcher on the evolution of aging processes, who wrote: "In Westminster Abbey. .…

less than 1 minute read

Life-Span Theory of Control - Research about control striving and behavior

The evolutionary origin of control-related behavior lies in the universal strive to achieve outcomes in the environment by one's own activity. Control behavior should be distinguished from perceptions or beliefs about control. Perceived control exclusively addresses mental representations of the degree of control available to the individual. Control behavior, by contrast, encompasses behavi…

10 minute read

Literature and Aging - Redemptive Grandchildren, Animal Family Life, Orphans And Substitute Parents, Epic Adventures And Magical Transformations

Since the early 1970s, adult literature has been transformed, creating what Constance Rooke has called "a new paradigm of hope." Modern medicine has extended the life span while improving the later years. Editors, publishers, and authors have recognized that a sizable proportion of the reading and writing public is over sixty. A few writers, such as poet Virginia Adair and novelists …

2 minute read

Longevity: Social Aspects - Survival Curves, Rectangularization Of Mortality, Mortality By Cause, Longer Lives And Better Health, Factors Related To Mortality

The population of the United States enjoys one of the highest life expectancies in the world, and throughout the twentieth century the life expectancy of Americans increased remarkably. When the twentieth century began, U.S. newborns could expect to live an average of 47 years (see Figure 1). By 1960, that number had risen to 70 years, and it had increased to 76.7 years by the year 1998 (Anderson;…

1 minute read

Long-Term Care and Women - High Costs Of Long-term Care, The Challenges Of Caregiving, The Future

Many older persons today are healthier, better educated, and wealthier than earlier generations. Still, a significant number of older persons are economically and physically vulnerable—especially older women. Long-term care is, in essence, a women's issue. This is because it is predominantly women who need care and provide care. Women make up 75 percent of all nursing home residents …

1 minute read

Long-Term Care Around the Globe - History Of Long-term Care, Trends In Long-term Care, Funding Concerns, Residential Eldercare Versus Home Care

The rate of population aging across developed countries varies considerably. For example, in the year 2000, the percentage of the total population age sixty-five and older was higher in Japan (17.1 percent), Germany (16.4 percent), the United Kingdom (16 percent), and France (15.9 percent) than in Canada (12.8 percent), the United States (12.5 percent), Australia (12.1 percent), and New Zealand (1…

1 minute read

Long-Term Care Ethics - Ethical issues in long-term care decision-making

Long-term care decisions arise for elderly individuals and their families when the elder is no longer able to live independently. The loss of capacity for independent living is typically caused by changes in health that result in a decreased ability to care for oneself in the activities of daily living, such as cooking, eating, bathing, and toileting. These changes in health status can include dem…

10 minute read

Long-Term Care Financing - Informal Care, Medicaid, State And Local Funding, Medicare, Private Long-term Care Insurance

The financing of long-term care services comes from a patchwork of funds from the federal, state, and local levels, and from private dollars, primarily paid from the consumer's own pocket. According to data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), almost $115 billion dollars were spent on long-term care (not including Medicaid waiver expenditures) in 1997, with the majority …

less than 1 minute read

Long-Term Care Insurance - Why Long-term Care Is An Insurable Event, What Is Long-term Care Insurance?

The feasibility of private long-term care insurance is central to the public policy debate over financing long-term care. The failure of the private market, even with public subsidies, to insure a substantial portion of the population has a bearing on the public sector's role in financing long-term care. The larger the share of the population with adequate private insurance, the less li…

less than 1 minute read

Aging Lung

The main function of the respiratory system is to secure gas exchange: oxygen, which fuels metabolism, is transported from the ambient air (which contains 21 percent oxygen) to the pulmonary capillaries, and carbon dioxide is transported from the pulmonary capillaries to the external atmosphere. The oxygen-enriched blood reaches (via the pulmonary veins) the left side of the heart and the peripher…

11 minute read

Marriage and Remarriage

Throughout history, the formation of marriages has been primarily between young adults, and that remains true in the United States and other modern societies. In late twentieth-century America, however, marital union formation became spread through the adult life span to an unprecedented extent, the average age of those marrying around the end of the century being substantially higher than it was …

8 minute read

Medicaid - The Need For Medical Assistance, Medicare Coverage, Medicaid Coverage For Elderly Persons, Delivering Medicaid Services To Elderly Persons

Millions of elderly people in the United States have extensive health care needs and expenses, but many have limited incomes or savings to help them cover the cost of care. Virtually all elderly Americans have Medicare, the federal health insurance program for elderly and disabled Americans, to help pay medical bills. However, limits in the scope of benefits, coupled with financial obligations for…

less than 1 minute read

Medicalization of Aging

As a discipline and a "worldview," medicine has been one of the most important and powerful forces in the twentieth century. As a paradigm, the biomedical model focuses on individual organic pathology, physiological etiologies, and biomedical interventions. Turner (1987) delineates the medical model as one in which disease is interpreted regarded as a direct result of malfunctions wi…

12 minute read

Medicare - A Brief History And Overview, Changes In Payment Policies, Other Medicare Policies Affecting Health Care Delivery

When Medicare was established in 1965, many of its supporters believed that insuring persons age sixty-five and over was a precursor to a national system of health insurance. The Medicare program was thought to be just the first piece of legislation towards this end. But instead, Medicare has become the largest public program of health insurance, and universal health insurance is a reality only fo…

less than 1 minute read

Medigap - Medigap Insurance, Medicare Managed-care Plans, Employer-sponsored Policies, Medicaid

Since the enactment of Medicare in 1965, there has been a market for supplemental insurance designed to fill the gaps in the program's coverage. The possession of supplemental insurance is essential for most Medicare beneficiaries because there are a number of gaps in Medicare coverage, some of which can result in catastrophically high out-of-pocket costs. Under Part A (Hospital Insuranc…

1 minute read

Memory - Memory Stage Theory, Memory System Theory, Cognitive Resources, Deliberate Processing, Dementia: Age-related Memory Pathologies

Most people recognize that their memories are changing as they grow older. They have a harder time coming up with names; they have a harder time finding things they need; they have to rely more on external memory cues such as notes or calendars. In fact, research results support these perceptions. The bad news from this research is that memory declines are experienced throughout the adult life spa…

1 minute read

Drug Treatment Memory Dysfunction - Neuropathological Basis For Cognitive Disorders In Alzheimer's Disease, Pharmacological Therapy For Cognition

Memory deficits in the adult can develop from lesions that disrupt circuits that interconnect structures involved in encoding and retrieving recently acquired information, as well as from those involved in transferring information to long-term storage. The most important structure of this memory system is the hippocampalentorhinal complex. Other areas involved in memory processes include the amygd…

1 minute read

Everyday Memory - Laboratory Studies, Field Studies, The Importance Of Context

Everyday memory refers to memory operations that routinely occur in one's daily environment. Examples of everyday memory include remembering names, remembering plans for the day, recalling items that one needs to purchase at the grocery store, remembering to take medications, and remembering telephone numbers, directions, or recent newsworthy events. The hallmark of everyday memory and asso…

2 minute read

Memory Training

Research on the effectiveness of memory training in older adults is important for practical and theoretical reasons. Much of the applied research on this topic is motivated by the aim of trying to identify the techniques that are most effective for improving the memory of older adults. Memory training research also has importance for theories of aging because knowing the potentials and limits o…

8 minute read

Menopause - The Physiological Basis For Menopause, Sexuality During Menopause, Estrogen Replacement/hormonereplacement Therapy (hrt) And Androgen Replacement

Menopause is defined as a mature woman not having a period for one year. The average age of women entering menopause in North America is 51.2 years. Most women will spend more than a third of their lives in menopause. For many, this is a fulfilling time in their lives, as they are relieved from dealing with menstruation and fears of pregnancy; while for some it means dealing with a new set of symp…

1 minute read

Mental Health Services - Epidemiology Of Mental Disorders In Late Life, Older And Younger Adults Compared, Early- Vs. Late-onset Disorders

The mental health needs of older Americans are a matter of increasing attention, a fact reflected in the growing number of services available since 1975. Even so, the mental health needs of older adults are poorly understood, mental health services are fragmented, and existing services are underutilized. Consequently the older population is especially vulnerable to preventable outcomes: related ph…

1 minute read

Mental Status Examination

Almost everyone is familiar with the idea of going to the doctor for a physical examination for school, employment, a driver's license, or for summer camp. Such an examination includes measurement of pulse and blood pressure, listening to the heart and lungs through a stethoscope, tapping tendons to elicit neurological reflexes, and so on. Everyone may not be aware, however, that the doctor…

2 minute read

Middle Eastern Countries - Economic Conditions, Population, And Aging, Role Of Islam In Policies And Practices Related To Aging

The southern part of Asia, known as the Middle East, covers an area about the size of the United States and Mexico. The Middle Eastern countries are Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and Yemen. Although often discussed collectively, they are different in as many ways as they …

1 minute read

Midlife Crisis

One of the most intriguing puzzles of lifespan developmental psychology is the myth of a midlife crisis, a mental health crisis occurring in the midlife years. In 1965, Elliot Jacques proposed the midlife crisis as a normative crisis in early middle adulthood on the basis of a psychoanalytic approach to an awareness of death surfacing in early midlife (the mid-thirties). Although the notion of a m…

5 minute read

Mitochondria - Relationship Of Energy Functions To Cellular And Organismic Aging, Potential Role Of Dna Damage And Dna Mutations

Mitochondria are organelles found in the cytoplasm of all eukaryotic cells. They vary considerably in shape and size, but are all composed of four compartments: a smooth outer membrane, a convoluted inner membrane that forms recognizable structures called cristae, the intermembrane space, and the matrix. Mitochondria are the "powerhouses" of cells; their function is to convert energy…

2 minute read

Molecular Biology of Aging

Molecular biology can be loosely defined as the study of biology at the molecular level. However, the term is usually used in a more limited sense to mean the study of macromolecules such as proteins, DNA, and RNA, and their specific roles in living systems. This use of the term came into being in the 1960s, largely as the result of the elucidation of the structure of DNA in 1953, and the realizat…

4 minute read

Mortality - The Gompertz Equation And Its Relationship To Mortality, The Biology Of Life Span, Mortality In The Twentieth And Twenty-first Centuries

Genes are the ultimate time travelers. They transcend the bounds of time by hitching a ride in sexually reproducing species such as humans, but then discard the human body later in life as if it was a used car that had passed its warranty period. Once immortality became a fundamental property of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), at some time in the distant history of life on earth, the carriers of thes…

5 minute read

Multidisciplinary Team

Many seniors enjoy good health and independence well into their ninth and tenth decades. However, some develop illnesses and functional impairments that require intensive or prolonged health care and supportive services at home, in hospitals, or in long-term care facilities. Family, peers, friends, volunteers, and other caregivers provide assistance and support, and in Western countries most senio…

5 minute read

Multiple System Atrophy - Clinical Features, Ataxia, Autonomic Dysfunction, Treatment - Cognitive function, Natural history

Multiple system atrophy is a group of disorders that share common clinical features, which include Parkinsonism, problems with balance (ataxia), and dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system. It is a sporadic neurodegenerative disease of adult onset. Its cause remains unknown. Parkinsonism is a part of the constellation of symptoms, hence multiple system atrophy also falls within the rubric of d…

2 minute read

Mutation - Gross Chromosomal Alterations, Mutations Detected In Selectable Marker Genes, Mutations In Transgenic Mouse Reporter Genes

There is ample evidence that mutations are causally related to cancer, a prominent age-related disease. Since the 1950s the accumulation of spontaneous mutations in the DNA of organs and tissues has been hypothesized to underlie aging itself (e.g., Failla, 1958). What are mutations, and why are they there? First, it is necessary to distinguish DNA mutations from DNA damage. DNA damage consists of …

1 minute read

The National Institute on Aging/National Institutes of Health

The present challenge of research on aging is to maintain or even accelerate the trend of declining disability and disease rates in the context of the anticipated rise in the number of older people. Demographic projections show that the U.S. population will begin to age rapidly after 2011, the year the first baby boomers turn sixty-five. Between 2000 and the year 2030, the number of people over si…

8 minute read

Neurobiology

Although research initiatives on normal aging of the human brain are still in their infancy, experimental studies have revealed a discrete spectrum of structural, physiological, and neuropsychological alterations that accompany the senescent changes that occur in other organ systems. While neuronal atrophy is the most consistent and pervasive change associated with the aging process, investigation…

8 minute read

Neurochemistry - Neurochemistry Of Synaptic Transmission, Effects Of Age On The Neurochemistry Of Synapses, Functional Consequences Of Age-related Neurochemical Changes

None of the billions of nerve cells, or neurons, in the human brain functions alone. To process information, neurons must form circuits and must communicate with each other rapidly and with great precision. Within a neuron, the electrical impulses that carry information are propagated by rapid changes in membrane potential that arise from the controlled opening and closing of ion channels. These p…

less than 1 minute read

Neurodegenerative Diseases

Neurodegenerative diseases represent a diverse spectrum of chronic neurological disorders, of possible genetic etiology, that are associated with the progressive loss of motor, sensory, and perceptual functions and associated cognitive and behavioral deficits. These disorders are characterized by disease-selective profiles of adult-onset neuronal cell loss within areas of the cerebral cortex, basa…

11 minute read

Neuroendocrine System

A substantial volume of scientific evidence has been accumulated demonstrating that biological aging is associated with functional deficits at the cellular, tissue, organ, and system levels. Although several theories have been proposed to explain these changes, as well as the increased risk of disease with age, no single explanation has adequately accounted for the diversity of physiological chang…

6 minute read

Neuroplasticity - Mechanisms Of Plasticity, Plasticity, Memory, And Aging

Information in the brain is transmitted from neuron to neuron through specialized connections called synapses. A synapse between two neurons is made up of presynaptic and postsynaptic terminals, which are separated by a synaptic cleft. The presynaptic terminal is filled with small vesicles containing chemical neurotransmitters, and the postsynaptic terminal consists of receptors specific for these…

2 minute read

Neuropsychology - Experimental Neuropsychology, Clinical Neuropsychology, Age-related Neuropsychological Changes, Neuropsychological Diagnosis Of Dementias

Neuropsychology is a scientific field concerned with understanding relationships between the human brain, behavior, and mind, and applying this understanding to the assessment, clinical management, and rehabilitation of persons with neurological disease and injury. Mind includes both conscious (that of which the person is aware) and unconscious (that of which the person is unaware) mental contents…

1 minute read

Neurotransmitters - Acetylcholine, Dopamine, Gaba And Glutamate

The idea that nerve cells function as independent units and form a physical contact to facilitate intercellular communication was first proposed by neurobiologists at the turn of the twentieth century. This concept, termed the neuron theory of brain function, is based on the knowledge that the nervous system is not made up of a contiguous labyrinth of intertwining processes but instead represents …

3 minute read

Nursing Home Administration

The practice of nursing home administration has been embodied in five domains of practice developed in the 1980s by the National Association of Boards of Examiners for Long Term Care Administrators: (1) organizational management, (2) personnel, (3) financial management, (4) environmental management, and (5) resident care. These five domains are updated every five years. A license issued by a state…

2 minute read

Nursing Homes: Consumer Information - General Advice, Nursing Home Information, Using Information Wisely

Every year over 1.5 million people (of all ages) in the United States spend some time in a nursing home (McKnight's; Kassner and Bectel). Although many return home after a brief stay, others spend their last years as nursing home residents. Whether one plans to stay for a few weeks or a few years, choosing a nursing home is a difficult decision. Nursing homes vary in services provided, amen…

less than 1 minute read

Nursing Homes: History

In the twenty-first century, nursing homes have become a standard form of care for the most aged and incapacitated persons. Nearly 6 percent of older adults are sheltered in residential facilities that provide a wide range of care. Yet such institutions have not always existed; rather, their history and development reflect relatively recent demographic and political realities that shape the experi…

11 minute read

Nursing Homes: Special Care Units

A movement to establish dementia special care units (SCUs) began in the United States in the 1960s. The movement gained momentum, becoming widespread in 1980s and 1990s. This growth was fueled by the recognition that Alzheimer's disease and other progressive dementias represent a serious public health problem, and by the advocacy of the Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders Assoc…

11 minute read

Caloric Restriction Nutrition - Studies On Rats And Mice, Studies On Humans And Nonhuman Primates, Future Research Directions

The first work that linked caloric restriction to an extension of life span was published in 1935 by Clive McCay and his colleagues, nutritionists at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Their studies showed that restricting the food intake of rats soon after weaning increases their length of life. Since then, this finding has been confirmed many times in rats, mice, and hamsters. In most of th…

less than 1 minute read

Obesity Nutrition - Additional risks

Obesity refers to the presence of excess total body fat (i.e., increased adipose tissue, or increased adiposity). Obesity is assessed by many different methods, and its exact definition varies widely. The so-called gold standard for the measurement of adiposity (degree of fatness) is underwater weighing, in which a subject is placed in a tank of water with only the head above the water line. The a…

7 minute read

Occupational Therapy - Self-care, Productivity, Leisure, Summary

The primary focus of occupational therapy is enabling individuals to participate actively and meaningfully in their day to day lives. Occupation is defined as any meaningful activity a person may do throughout the course of a day, including taking care of one's self (self care), contributing to society through paid and unpaid work (productivity), and simply enjoying life (leisure). Individu…

less than 1 minute read

Older Americans Act - Development Of The Older Americans Act, Issues Under The Older Americans Act, Mission And Benefits

The Older Americans Act (OAA) is the principal piece of federal legislation designed to provide a range of community services to adults age sixty and above. The law was enacted in 1965, during a time when the federal government was inaugurating a broad range of domestic social policies. The overarching goal of the OAA—to promote the independence of older Americans— has remained large…

less than 1 minute read

The Oldest Old - Gender Issues, Health Status, The Aging Of The Oldest Old, Outlook For The Future

As many nations of the world experience aging populations, attention is increasingly turning to changes within the older population itself, especially changes in the age structure of this older population. As a general statement, over time the elderly population is likely to become older; such a phenomenon is important because there are likely to be important differences among age groups within th…

2 minute read

Osteoporosis - Consequences Of Osteoporosis, Risks, Diagnosis, Treatment - Conclusion

Osteoporosis is a bone disease that affects over ten million Americans and 1.4 million Canadians. Persons with this disease have low bone mass and structural deterioration of bone tissue. This causes the bone to become more fragile and An elderly woman with a Dowager's hump caused by osteoporosis. (Corbis photo by Lester V. Bergman.) more likely to fracture. Osteoporosis is often r…

1 minute read

Pain Management

Pain is an unpleasant sensation induced by a noxious stimulus, and is transmitted along special nerve pathways to the brain. Many older adults state that it is the experience of chronic pain, more than anything else, that alters their individual sense of themselves, making them finally "feel old." While many age-related conditions give rise to pain, the experience of pain itself is n…

5 minute read

Palliative Care

A report released by the Institute of Medicine's Committee on Care at the End of Life states that individuals often suffer needlessly at the end of life. According to this report, the organization of the health care delivery system in the United States impedes delivery of good end-of-life care, and, in addition, physicians and nurses lack the basic training necessary to provide good end-of-…

5 minute read

Panel Studies - Advantages, Challenges, Data Analysis - Examples of panel studies for the study of aging

A panel study is defined as a study that collects information on the same individuals at different points in time. The various data collections are often called waves. A panel study is therefore a longitudinal study; it differs from other studies that collect information over time, such as time series and cohort studies, in that it studies the same persons longitudinally. Major panel studies for s…

1 minute read

Parkinsonism - Clinical Syndromes, Clinical Features Of Parkinsonism, Neuroanatomical Considerations, Treatment - Prognosis

Parkinsonism is a term that describes a group of disorders in which patients present with varying combinations of tremor, muscle rigidity, slowed movements (bradykinesia), and postural disturbances, including falls. In addition to these signs (not all of which need to be present), patients with parkinsonism also exhibit other neurological symptoms. Parkinsonism needs to be distinguished from idiop…

3 minute read

Plan Types Pensions and Policy Approaches - Coverage Under Private Pension Plans, A Shift To Defined Contribution Plans, Federal Regulation, Major Issues Facing The Pension System

The U.S. retirement income system is analagous to a three-legged stool. The first leg is the public Social Security system, which covers virtually all workers and provides benefits based on lifetime earnings at sixty-five, and reduced benefits at sixty-two. The second leg consists of employer-provided supplementary pensions, which cover roughly half the workforce. These tax-subsidized plans are sp…

1 minute read

Perceived Health

Various criteria are used to assess a person's level of health. Objective measures can be noted and counted by a trained observer, while subjective measures of health depend exclusively on a person's self-evaluation. Objective measures include the presence of a disease or disorder, measuring of blood pressure, days spent in bed or in the hospital, or observation of the ability of the…

5 minute read

Personal Care

"Personal care" is one of several terms used to describe one-on-one assistance provided to individuals of any age who need help with daily living tasks on a long-term basis. The term can be used generically to describe assistance with daily living tasks regardless of the residential setting in which the care is provided, whether or not the provider of care and the care recipient are …

9 minute read

Pets - Benefits Of Animal Companionship, Costs Of Animal Companionship

Pet ownership and animal companionship have become increasingly prevalent in the United States. In 1996, there were 111.9 million cats and dogs in the United States, with these animals living in nearly 60 percent of American households. In addition, more than 4.5 million homes had pet birds and 6.3 percent of homes had pet fish. Less common pets, such as rabbits, ferrets, hamsters, gerbils, turtle…

less than 1 minute read

Physical Therapy for the Elderly - Assessment, Treatment, Conclusion - Interdisciplinary approach

Physical therapy has an important role in health care delivery, and is connected with maximizing function, preventing decline, decreasing pain, and treating physical illnesses. For elderly individuals, who often have decreased physical reserve, any medical illness can lead to decline. Inactivity and bedrest, a common consequence of illness, contributes to and intensifies muscle weakness, causing d…

less than 1 minute read

Physiological Changes

It is evident even from casual observation of physical activities, such as walking, that elderly people exhibit a deterioration of physiological processes. Moreover, the inability of athletes to continue peak performance when they reach their thirties or forties indicates that deterioration begins at a relatively young age and progresses in severity from that point on. Indeed, many studies have…

5 minute read

Organ Systems Physiological Changes: Cardiovascular - Heart Structure And Function At Rest, Reserve Capacity Of The Heart, Vascular Structure And Function At Rest

The cardiovascular system undergoes a large number of changes with advancing age, some of which occur in the apparent absence of disease; and many of which are either caused by, or exacerbated by, disease. Cardiovascular diseases comprise a group that accounts for nearly one-half of all deaths in the United States. The incidence of noncongenital cardiovascular maladies, e.g., congestive heart fail…

less than 1 minute read

Organ Systems Physiological Changes: Skeletal Muscle

Forty percent of the body mass is made up of some three hundred and fifty skeletal muscles with each muscle composed of hundreds of thousands of cells, termed fibers. Each fiber consists of overlapping thick and thin protein filaments organized longitudinally in repeating patterns. Muscle fibers have the unique capacity to utilize energy in the form of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) to force the thi…

6 minute read

Physiological Changes: Stem Cells - Embryonic Development And Mesengenesis, Adult Tissues, Bone Repair, Mesenchymal Stem Cell Numbers, Mesenchymal Stem Cells And Future Aging Therapies

The process of aging is controlled by a variety of cellular and molecular mechanisms. This process is a continuum of events that are initiated during embryonic development, are genetically determined, and continue throughout all of life. There is a genetic program that controls how and where arms and legs form in the embryo, how much these appendages grow after birth and how much bone will be lost…

less than 1 minute read

Pneumonia - Risk Factors For Pneumonia And Predictors Of Outcome, Diagnosis Of The Microbial Etiology Of The Pneumonia - Epidemiology, Prevention of pneumonia

Pneumonia is an infection involving the lungs. It may be caused by bacteria, viruses, or parasites. There are more than one hundred microbial causes of pneumonia. However, most cases of pneumonia are due to the following bacteria: Streptococcus pneumoniae, Haemophilus influenzae, Staphylococcus aureus, and Morayella (Branhamella) catarrhalis. Clinically, pneumonia is characterized by a variety o…

2 minute read

Population Aging - World's Oldest And Youngest Populations, Age Distribution Of A Population, Racial/ethnic Differences In Population Aging In The United States

There were 420 million people in the world age sixty-five and older as of the year 2000, according to United Nations estimates (United Nations, 1998). If they all lived together under one flag, they would represent the third largest nation in the world. As a fraction of the total world population, the older population accounts for 7 percent, but this percentage varies considerably from one part of…

1 minute read

Poverty - Half-full Or Half-empty?, Comparing Poverty Rates Across Life Stages, Differential Needs And Out-of-pocket Health Care Costs

In 1999, in the United States, 3.2 million people age sixty-five and over, representing 9.7 The suit and tie might hide the fact that this elderly man is homeless and lives in poverty. (Library of Congress) percent of the older population, were officially classified as poor, that is, their income (or that of their families) fell below the income threshold defined by the Census Bureau as t…

1 minute read

Pressure Ulcers

Skin ulcerations caused by pressure and/or shearing stress are known under a variety of names, including decubitus ulcers, pressure ulcers, pressure sores, and bedsores. They are caused by impaired blood flow (perfusion) through the affected area, which reduces tissue oxygenation. This process is termed ischemia and results in partial or total tissue death. It occurs when there is concentrated ex…

4 minute read

Primates - Diseases Of Aging And "normal" Aging, Advantages And Disadvantages Of Nonhuman Primates As Aging Models

Nonhuman primates provide valuable experimental models for many aspects of aging research. These include diseases of aging (such as diabetes, cardiovascular dysfunction, and osteoporosis), reproductive senescence, neurobiological aging and related cognitive decline, and interventions to alleviate age-related deterioration. The choice of species is dependent on the purpose of the investigation and …

less than 1 minute read

Everyday Problem Solving - Life-span Approach To Everyday Problem Solving, Social Context Of Everyday Problem Solving, Interventions Into Everyday Cognition

Adult performance in intellectually demanding real-life situations has received increasing attention in the cognitive and psychological research literatures since the 1970s. The ability of adults to solve cognitive problems encountered in daily life has frequently been referred to by several terms, including everyday problem solving, practical problem solving, everyday cognition, pragmatics of int…

1 minute read

Productive Aging - Definition, Some Controversy, Variables That Influence Productive Aging, Policy Considerations

In the formative years of gerontology as a field of study, considerable attention was paid to the frailties and limitations associated with the advancing years of older people. This attention to both the physical and psychosocial aspects of aging provided the essential foundation for an understanding of the challenges facing an aging society. Older adults were often viewed as a "deserving p…

2 minute read

Professional Organizations - Professional Organizations, U.s. Professional Associations, Canadian Professional Organizations, Professional Organizations In Other Nations

More than a thousand age-based organizations exist in the United States at the national, state, and local levels. A number of such groups have emerged in other countries, such as Canada, as well as at the international level. These organizations are nonprofit collective entities with the betterment of persons age sixty and older as their objective (Liebig). However, not all have a professional ori…

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Prolongevity - Early Prolongevity Writers, Scientific Prolongevity, Anti-longevity Literature, Conclusion

In the Western tradition, at least since the time of the ancient Greeks, physicians, philosophers, and lay practitioners have advocated diverse means to obtain a long and healthy life. Although they hardly formed a unified group, or advocated a single method or approach, the authors together voiced a recurring belief in the idea of prolongevity: that, following specific regimes and methods, indiv…

2 minute read

Psychiatric Disease in Relation to Physical Illness - Epidemiology, The Clinical Conundrum, The Global Burden Of Disease

Formerly, psychiatrists were termed alienists, as though they dealt with strange, alien phenomena that had nothing to do with the rest of us. People with psychiatric disease were either ignored, sometimes tolerated, but more often dealt with by incarceration in large institutions away from cities. The kind of mental illnesses found in these hospitals were the severe variety. Today we call them the…

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Psychotherapy - Depression, Anxiety Disorders, Dementia, Barriers To Treatment

Psychotherapy involves individual or group meetings with a therapist trained to use various techniques to treat psychopathology. Psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses, social workers, and counselors can provide psychotherapy interventions to older adults with psychiatric disorders. Review of the literature suggests that psychotherapy is an effective treatment intervention, either alone or in conjun…

1 minute read