Trajectories of vision in older people: the role of age and social position.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Whillans J
PROVIDER: S-EPMC4902844 | biostudies-other | 2016
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other
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Project description:ObjectiveWe describe changes in depressive symptoms and positive and negative social support from the spouse/partner in a representative sample of older people in England.MethodMen and women aged 50+ ( N = 7,171) from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing reported social support and depressive symptoms (Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale) on up to five occasions between 2002-2003 and 2010-2011. Parallel process latent growth models estimated their bidirectional associations, adjusted for gender, wealth, education, and limiting illness.ResultsIn age- and gender-adjusted models, positive spousal support decreased and negative support increased over time, especially among women. Greater increases over time in depressive symptoms were seen in those with lower positive support or higher negative support at baseline. More baseline depressive symptoms predicted greater declines in positive support and greater increases in negative support from the spouse.DiscussionImproving older couple's relationship quality may help reduce depressive symptoms.
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Project description:Objectives: Olfaction is an important correlate of later-life health, including cognition and mortality risk. Environmental enrichment protects against olfactory decline, yet little research considers the social context as a source of sensory enrichment or stimulation. This study examines how exposure to social complexity (i.e., diversity or novelty in social networks and activities) shapes later-life olfaction. Methods: Cross-sectional and longitudinal ordered logit models analyze data from 1,447 older adults interviewed at Rounds 1 and 2 of the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project. Results: Exposure to greater social complexity (larger social networks, greater network diversity) is associated with significantly better olfaction at baseline. Increases in network diversity and fewer network losses significantly protect against olfactory decline over time. Discussion: Findings highlight the social context as an important, yet relatively overlooked source of sensory enrichment, and underscore the need for biological applications to integrate social life dynamics into studies of health trajectories.
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Project description:BackgroundPsychological and social well-being are emerging as major determinants in preserving health in old age. We aimed to explore the association between these factors and the rate of decline in physical function over time in older adults.MethodsData were gathered from the Swedish National study on Aging and Care in Kungsholmen (SNAC-K). The study population consisted of 1,153 non-demented, community-dwelling men and women free from multimorbidity or impairments in basic or instrumental activities of daily living at baseline. They were followed over 12 years to capture the rate of decline in physical function, which was measured by combining data on walking speed, balance, and chair stands. The association between baseline psychological and social well-being and decline in physical function was estimated through linear mixed models, after multiple adjustments including personality and depressive symptoms.ResultsHigher levels of psychological (β = .007; p = .037) and social (β = .008; p = .043) well-being were significantly associated with a decreased rate of decline in physical function over the follow-up. There was a significant three-way interaction between psychological well-being*time*sex (female vs male) (β = .015; p = .047), showing that a slower decline in physical function was observed only among women and not in men. The association was strongest for individuals with high levels of both psychological and social well-being (β = .012; p = .019).ConclusionHigh levels of psychological and social well-being may slow down the age-related decline in physical function, which confirms the complexity of older adults' health, but also points towards new preventative strategies.
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Project description:Sports vision is a relatively new specialty. The objective is to provide ophthalmological and optometric care services for the care of vision in the sports field. An increasing number of athletes and coaches are trying to improve visual skills and they seek information on social media. The current excess of information has made it increasingly difficult to identify high quality articles. For this reason, alternative metrics are useful tools to identify publications that draw attention to society. This research aims to study the influence of social networks on the importance of vision in sport. Altmetric Explorer was used to perform a search using "sport", "vision" and "eye" as keywords. The 100 outcomes with the most attention were analyzed and correlated with the number of citations in the Web of Science (WoS) using the Spearman correlation coefficient. The 100 best Altmetric Attention Scores (AASs) were published in 67 journals and had a mean AAS value of 30.22 ± 62.37 The results were discussed mainly on Twitter, with a mean of 113.99 ± 43.86 tweets and retweets and a mean of 75.92 ± 79.92 readers in Mendeley. There was no correlation between AAS and WoS Cites for the top 100 outcomes and the correlation was low if we considered the total research results rather than the top 100. The citations are not related to the impact of scientific articles on social networks. Sports vision is a specialty with a growing interest in social media.
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