Gerontology Commons^™

Primetimes Newsletter, Winter 2014, Office Of Lifespan Studies

PrimeTimes Newsletter

PrimeTimes is the newsletter of the Office of Lifespan Studies in the College of Science at Coastal Carolina University.

Fact Sheet: Cohort Differences In Parental Survival, Maximiliane E. Szinovacz

Gerontology Institute Publications

Increases in longevity and especially increased survival into very old age have implications not only for individuals’ own life course but also for that of their families. For example, if parents survive into very old age they will have more opportunities not only to become grandparents but also great-grandparents and to experience these family roles for a longer time period (the so-called “beanpole family”). From their adult children’s perspective, longer survival of parents also can mean that needs for companionship arising from one parent’s widow(er)hood will be postponed into their adult children’s later years, possibly after the child’s retirement. Similarly, …

Fact Sheet: Cohort Differences In Parents’ Illness And Nursing Home Use, Maximiliane E. Szinovacz

Gerontology Institute Publications

Surviving parents of the war baby and baby boom cohorts are now reaching very old age. Given their increased longevity and postponement of morbidity into very old age (see Fact Sheets on parental mortality and care needs), it is essential to estimate whether and to what extent these parents will require informal or formal care. Such care is typically most burdensome and costly if it involves long-lasting illness prior to death. Furthermore, Medicare and especially Medicaid expenditures will depend on whether or not these parents require nursing home care. To obtain some estimates of the prevalence of long-lasting illness and …

Fact Sheet: Cohort Differences In Parental Care Needs, Maximiliane E. Szinovacz, Linda C. Lieber

Gerontology Institute Publications

There has been considerable concern about the availability of informal and especially family care when the baby boom cohorts reach old age (Ryan and Smith et al., 2012). However, as care needs typically arise in late old age (age 70 or later), a more immediate issue is the care burden faced by the baby boomer cohorts themselves as their parents now reach late old age. To assess the potential care burden faced by baby boom adult children one first needs to assess their parents’ care needs. Such assessment is also essential as research shows that parental care needs do not …

Ageism, Honesty, And Trust, Eric Schniter, Timothy W. Shields

ESI Publications

Age-based discrimination is considered undesirable, yet we know little about age stereotypes and their effects on honesty and trust. To investigate this aspect of ageism, we presented older adults (over age 50) and younger adults (under age 25) with incentivized belief elicitation tasks about anticipated interaction behaviors and then a series of same, different, and unknown-aged group interactions in a strategic-communication game. All adults shared consensual stereotypes about uncooperative younger adults and cooperative older adults that demonstrated “wisdom of crowds”. While the out-group was consistently stereotyped as relatively different and more dishonest and suspicious than observed to be, the in-group …

Tracing The Origins Of Success: Implications For Successful Aging, Nora M. Peterson, Peter Martin

French Language and Literature Papers

Purpose of the Study: This paper addresses the debate about the use of the term “successful aging” from a humanistic, rather than behavioral, perspective. It attempts to uncover what success, a term frequently associated with aging, is: how can it be defined and when did it first come into use? In this paper, we draw from a number of humanistic perspectives, including the historical and linguistic, in order to explore the evolution of the term “success.” We believe that words and concepts have deep implications for how concepts (such as aging) are culturally and historically perceived.

Design and Methods: We …

Primetimes Newsletter, Summer 2014, Office Of Lifespan Studies

PrimeTimes Newsletter

PrimeTimes is the newsletter of the Office of Lifespan Studies in the College of Science at Coastal Carolina University.

Social Networks, Decision Aids, And Patient Decisions Regarding Knee-Replacement Surgery, Francis G. Caro, Susanne Hoffmann, Alison Gottlieb, Iris Kesternich, Joachim Winter

Gerontology Institute Publications

Objective: Examine how information from social networks is associated with patient decisions in the presence of information from multiple professional sources including decision aids.

Methods: We conducted a stated-choice experiment in which respondents made recommendations for hypothetical patients about whether full knee-replacement surgery should be performed to treat knee osteoarthritis. In addition, we administered a background questionnaire in which we explicitly asked respondents about the experience of people in their social network with knee osteoarthritis and possible treatment options. We examined the manner in which respondents’ recommendations for vignette persons were associated with the experiences of members of …

Evaluation Of Lift Up Your Voice! Advocacy Training For Older Adults And Their Caregivers: Executive Summary, Alison Gottlieb, Nina M. Silverstein, Kelli Barton

Nina Silverstein

The Lift Up Your Voice! (LUYV) training, a component of Community Catalyst’s effort to support the Campaign for Better Care (CBC), is designed to mobilize grassroots advocacy structures of vulnerable older adults by directly engaging and empowering older adults and their caregivers. The goal of the evaluation is to assess the effectiveness LUYV in recruiting potential advocates, educating them about the health care reform, empowering them via advocacy skills training, and engaging them in state-based CBC activities.

Let’S Play: Understanding The Role And Significance Of Digital Gaming In Old Age, Julie A. Skalsky Brown

Theses and Dissertations--Gerontology

Despite a marked increase in the use of digital games among older persons, there is insufficient research that provides insight into the gaming experiences of this population. A major demographic shift within the senior gaming market has ushered in a new perspective on the use of digital games as a tool for physical and cognitive health, and improved socialization. It is proposed that individual notions of play, which are developed over the life course, influence digital game play engagement and interaction preferences, and contribute to well-being. This study explored how self-perceptions of play over the course of the senior gamer’s …

Older Adults’ Contributions To The Tsimane Forager-Farmer Economy, Eric Schniter

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

Portfolio of original photographs and an accompanying essay about the role of elders among the Tsimane, an indigenous group living in the Bolivian Amazon.

Massachusetts Healthy Aging Data Report: Community Profiles, Elizabeth Dugan, Frank Porell, Nina Silverstein, Ruth Palombo, Stacey Mann

Gerontology Institute Publications

The Massachusetts Healthy Aging Data Report: Community Profiles was created by researchers at the Gerontology Institute of the John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston and commissioned by the Tufts Health Plan Foundation.

In this report, we have created a custom profile of nearly 100 healthy aging indicators for every city and town in Massachusetts including the 16 neighborhoods of Boston (367 Community Profiles). Each Community Profile is designed to help community residents, agencies, providers, and governments understand the older adults who live in their cities and towns – their ages, …

An Investigation Into The Psychological Impact Of Informal Aged Care: The Lived Experience Of Older Female Informal Aged Carers, Emma Stein

Theses : Honours

It has been estimated that 196,000 (38%) informal carers in Australia are aged over 65 years, with the majority of these carers providing care to someone in their own age group. In particular, it is women who have been providing most informal care. Recognition of this has highlighted women’s needs for psychological support in their caregiving roles. However, research into women’s experiences of this phenomenon is scarce. The present study aimed to explore the lived experiences of women in this context, asking the question “what are the perceived psychological impacts of aged care on older women who are informal carers?” …

Making Space For Dying: Portraits Of Living With Dying, Elise Lark

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

In Making Space for Dying: Portraits of Living with Dying, I describe the everyday lived experience of dying and the care culture within freestanding, community-based, end-of-life residences (CBEOLR) utilizing portraiture and arts-based research. I craft four case studies into “portraits,” based on interviews, on-site visits, up-close observation, and field notes. In the person-centered portraits, I reveal the inner landscape of two terminally ill women, with data represented in poetry. In the place-centered portraits, I “map” the social topography of two CBEOLRs to illustrate how lives and care of the dying are emplaced, from the perspectives of community leaders, …