Group Of Elderly Participants Research Articles

Self‐Image of Aging: A Method for Health Promotion

In 2020, 15.25% of the Thai population will be over 60. The elderly are those who are considered to be retired and unemployed. Their physical and mental conditions are rapidly changing. They experience many health problems as the result of deteriorating health. Consequently, the health‐care team needs to focus on the elderly's perception of health, self‐image, and health care provided. Understanding the nature of aging will enhance the elderly's health, such that they will perform self‐care and live a more enjoyable life. The aim of this study was to investigate the health perceptions, self‐image and methods of health promotion provided to the elderly. Focus discussion groups consisting of participants over 60 years of age, were formed. One hundred and eight participants from four Aging Clubs of large cities were invited to participate. The participants came from Chiang Mai (n = 30), Phitsanulok (n = 21), Siriraj (n = 20), and the 43rd Health Center Aging Club (n = 37), a suburb near Bangkok.Results: The majority of participants perceived that ‘Health is composed of a good physical and mental condition’ and ‘physical strength and happy mind’. All participants identified three things that made them healthy: exercise, good food, and having hobbies. The participants practised what they believed. Exercise was seen as excellent medicine, and lack of disease was seen as good fortune. Several participants emphasized that having regular check‐ups, avoiding smoking, and avoiding drinking alcohol, as being healthy. Few of the elderly, in a group of > 70‐year‐olds, from the 43rd Health Center and the Phitsanulok group, mentioned traditional treatment as promoting health. Several participants from Chiang Mai saw fresh air and good ventilation as facilitating health. All participants preferred to meet each other and join in recreational activities at the club for the elderly. Interestingly, the 60–70‐year‐old age group from the Siriraj Aging Club believed life planning and a good sexual relationship were essential for good health. All participants revealed good relationships in their families. They used religious principles to keep their equilibrium and to help maintain their spiritual well‐being. Four major factors were identified as contributing to making the participants feel old: physical changes, declined functions, declined health, and emotional instability. Several participants said they felt old when they were told they were old. Other participants complained of feeling old when they were dependent. They said it caused them to lose their self‐respect.Conclusion: The study revealed that the different groups of elderly participants had a mutual concept of health. The life experiences of the elderly were based on their beliefs of helpful heath‐care practises. Thus, caregivers need to develop and apply effective and humanistic methods of health promotion for the elderly.

Measuring the impact of oral health in old age: a qualitative reaction to some quantitative views

Investigations into the oral health-related beliefs and behaviour of old people are complex and fraught with methodological difficulties. They have employed to a large extent structured interviews or questionnaires based on the Sickness Impact Profile to explain the impact of oral disorder in old age. However, despite sophisticated statistical techniques, the results have failed to explain much of the variance in the responses of the elderly subjects. This paper reviews the results of several investigations conducted in a structured and quantitative manner, and contrasts them with an alternative method of inductive investigation using a more qualitative interpretation of open-ended interviews. The alternative method of exploration with a small but intensely involved group of elderly participants revealed a view of oral health that reflects a willingness of elders to adapt constructively to changes in the mouth with advancing age. Moreover, the construction of a framework of oral health-related beliefs and behaviours that emerged from the qualitative analysis of open-ended interviews, has widened our understanding of the significance of the mouth in old age beyond the framework of biophysical, functional and disabling variables that dominated previous research on this field.

Negative affect relates to cross-sectional but not longitudinal symptom reporting: data from elderly adults.

To test hypotheses about the relationship between negative affect and symptom reports, symptom reports of 4 groups of elderly participants (N = 76; mean age = 73.5 years) were compared: those high on measures of both depression and anxiety, those high on one measure and low on the other, and those low on both measures. Symptom reports were obtained before and after 3 simultaneously given active inoculations (influenza; tetanus toxoid; and keyhole limpet hemocyanin, a neoantigen) and 3 similarly given placebo injections. Cross-sectional analyses replicated associations between negative affect and reports of elevated systemic (flulike) symptoms. Local symptoms (sore arm and redness at injection site) increased significantly from before to after active inoculations. Reports of systemic symptoms declined from before to after for both active and placebo inoculations regardless of affect groups. The results add to previous research showing that negative affect is related to cross-sectional symptom reporting but not to increases in symptom reporting from before to after a symptom-producing inoculation procedure.

The effects of videogame playing on the response selection processing of elderly adults.

Within an information processing framework, age-related declines in speeded responding are attributed to one or more stages of processing. It was the purpose of this experiment to demonstrate the potential reversibility of this decline in at least one processing stage, response selection. Two groups of elderly participants (57 to 83 years) were pretested on a two-choice reaction time (RT) task under two levels of spatial stimulus-response (S-R) compatibility, a task demand shown to affect response selection. Following the pretest, one group participated in 7 weeks of videogame play, whereas a second group did not. All participants were posttested on the same two-choice RT task. The results of the analysis of covariance revealed that those elderly individuals who played videogames were faster than the control participants under both levels of S-R compatibility. The effect of videogame play, however, was greater for low compatibility. These results are taken as support for a potential to improve response selection through videogame play.