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:BackgroundThis study aimed to detect health trajectories after age 60, and to explore to what extent individual and social factors may contribute to healthier aging.MethodsTwelve-year health trajectories were identified in subjects from the Swedish National Study on Aging and Care in Kungsholmen (N=3108), integrating five indicators of disease, physical and cognitive function, and disability through nominal response models. Growth mixture models were applied to explore health trajectories in terms of rate and pattern of change. Baseline information about health-related behaviors and the social context was collected through standardized questionnaires. The strength of the associations was estimated using logistic regression, and their impact through population attributable fractions (PAF).ResultsThree trajectories were identified grouping 78%, 18%, and 4% of people with respectively increasing rates of health decline. Compared to the best trajectory, subjects in the middle and worst trajectories became functionally dependent 12.0 (95% CI: 11.4-12.6) and 12.1 (95% CI: 11.5-12.7) years earlier, respectively. Insufficient physical activity (OR: 3.38, 95% CI: 2.58-4.42), financial strain (OR: 2.76, 95% CI: 1.77-4.30), <12 years education (OR: 1.53, 95% CI: 1.14-2.04), low social connections (OR: 1.45, 95% CI: 1.09-1.94), low social participation (OR: 1.39, 95% CI: 1.06-1.83) and a body mass index ≥25 (OR: 1.34, 95% CI: 1.03-1.75) were associated with belonging to the middle/worst trajectories. The highest PAFs were observed for insufficient physical activity (27.1%), low education (19.3%) and low social participation (15.9%); a total PAF of 66.1% was obtained.ConclusionsAddressing the social determinants of health in its broadest sense, complementarily considering life-long factors belonging to the socioeconomic, psychosocial, and behavioral dimensions, should be central to any strategy aimed at fostering health in older age.
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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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