Older people

Loneliness is defined as perceived social isolation. Previous research has identified several predictors of chronic loneliness, such as poor self-reported health and living alone. However, the predictors of daily fluctuations in transient experiences of loneliness have not been closely examined. For one week, 200 participants were asked to complete a daily diary survey about their social interactions and loneliness each night. Consistent with predictions, participants reported feeling lonelier on days with less time interacting with others and with poorer quality social interaction. The effect of time spent interacting with others on daily loneliness was stronger for participants higher in chronic loneliness. Supplemental analyses showed that participants felt less lonely on days of the weekend and that additional hours of interaction were more effective in reducing daily loneliness for older adults than younger adults. Examining this differential response in daily loneliness to interaction quality and quantity could inform future interventions.

Background: Opioid-related deaths remain a significant public health problem in the United States. Opioids cause approximately 75% of all drug-related deaths. Since 1999, nearly half a million Americans have died from opioid overdoses. In 2018, 9,290 people > 55 years old died from opioid overdoses in the United States. In Florida, more than 1,000 older adults died from opioids (as a cause of death) from 2014-2018. However, there is a dearth of research about the manner of deaths of older adults who used, misused, or abused opioids.
Methods: This secondary analysis utilized data from the Florida Drug and Law Enforcement (FDLE) agency between 2014 - 2018. A generalized linear model with a normal probability distribution was used to examine which social determinants or factors such as race, income, education level, percentage of people in poverty, and population density predicted opioid death rate in Florida. Chi-square statistics were used to determine the association between gender, race, and opioid-related deaths (ORD), and the relationship of the manner of death to the opioid drugs involved. The trend of opioid death rate was also analyzed by Florida county and through the data years 2014 to 2018.

The purpose of this exploratory-descriptive study was to compare the different living arrangements of older Thai adults on healthy aging and well-being in those attending the elderly school. The specific aims of this study were (1) to describe demographic characteristics, and (2) to identify differences between the outcomes the Thai Healthy Aging Instrument (HAI) and the Personal Wellbeing Index (PWI) in older Thai adults 60 years and older based on the types of living arrangements. The Convoy Model of Social Relations was used as a guide for understanding the multifactorial nature of the social connection (Kahn & Antonucci, 1980). A convenience sampling design was used to recruit 139 participants living in Tambon Hua Ngom, Chiang Rai province, Thailand, for at least a year.
The sample included adults age 60 years and older who read and spoke Thais and had been participated in the elderly school at least once a month for one year. Among the participants (N = 139), 30 lived alone, and 109 lived with others. The findings of this study indicated that there were no statistically significant relationships between demographic characteristics between those who lived alone and those living with others, except for marital status. The participants living alone were more likely to be widowers compared to those living with others (p < .05).

Data was provided by researchers of the Einstein Aging Study (EAS) of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Yeshiva University whom statistically analyzed data from the Bronx Aging Study cohort, concluding that participation in cognitive leisure activities and one physical activity, dancing, were associated with a reduced risk of dementia [1]. We explore data from a second (the EAS) cohort, utilizing Cox Proportional-Hazards and extended Cox regression [13]. Cognitive leisure activities in general, and particularly doing crossword puzzles, reading books, watching television, and emailing are associated with a reduced risk of dementia. Doing aerobics, learning computer programming, babysitting, dancing, jogging singing, and weight training are associated with an increased risk of dementia. Participation in cognitive leisure activities in general, and reading books in particular, remains highly significant even after adjustment for well-known risk factors [14] such as: age, cognitive status, depression, medical illnesses, gender, ethnicity, education and economic status.