Disaster and associated changes in physical and mental health in older residents

BACKGROUND: Long-term health consequences of disasters have not been studied extensively, one reason amongst others is that no pre-disaster observation is available. This study focuses on an aeroplane crash on an Amsterdam suburb. The ongoing Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam has one pre-disaster and several post-disaster observations, making it possible to study changes in health, taking pre-disaster health characteristics into account. METHODS: Three exposure groups are distinguished: those living within a radius of 1 km from the disaster (initial n=39), those living between a radius of 1 and 2 km from the disaster (initial n=56), and those living in the rest of the city of Amsterdam (initial n=508). Health measures include general health, health in comparison with age peers, functional limitations, disability and cognitive functioning. These measures are based on self-ratings, interviewer observations, or both. RESULTS: Older persons living closest to the disaster area are likely to experience health decline in the wake of a disaster, over and above the health decline that would occur normally with aging. The disaster-associated health decline is small, and most obvious in the ability to perform actions (such as mobility), but is not observed in either disability in daily functioning, nor in self-perceptions of health. Cognitive functioning even shows a short-term improvement. CONCLUSION: These findings suggest substantial resilience in older adults, despite their common health problem

Changes in admission to long-term care institutions in the Netherlands: comparing two cohorts over the period 1996–1999 and 2006–2009

Using data from two cohorts, we examine to what extent a decline in institutional care in the Netherlands is associated with changes in the need for care and/or societal factors. We compared older adults, aged 65–89, who were admitted to a long-term care (LTC) institution in the period 1996–1999 and 2006–2009. Using the Andersen model, we tested per block of predisposing, enabling and need factors, which factors were significant predictors of admission to institutional care. With a Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition regression, we decomposed the difference in admission to an LTC institution between the period 1996–1999 and 2006–2009 into a part that is due to differences in health needs and other factors such as effect of policy, social values, and technology. Between 1996 and 2006, the percentage of co-residing partners and income increased and the average level of loneliness decreased significantly. The prevalence of disability, chronic diseases, however, increased. Whereas the care by partners declined, the formal care by professionals increased. Although the observed decline in the admission rate to institutional care was relatively small across the 10 years (from5.3 %in 1996–1999 to 4.5 % in 2006–2009, a 15 % decrease), the probability of admission in 2006–2009 was relatively much lower when accounting for changes in the health and social conditions of the participants: the probability was 1.7–2.1 % point lower for adults in the period 2006–2009 compared to 1996–1999, a 32–40 % decrease. Our results show that the decline in the admission rate to LTC institutions is not the result of changes in need. The decline is suggested to be the combined effect of changes in policy, technological advances and changes in social norms

Does windowhood affect memory performance of older persons?

BACKGROUND: The loss of a spouse has been found to have a negative effect on physical and mental health and leads to increased mortality. Whether conjugal bereavement also affects memory functioning has largely been unexamined. The present study investigates the effect of widowhood on memory functioning in older persons. METHOD: The sample consisted of 474 married women and 690 married men aged 60-85 years in 1992, followed up in 1995 and 1998. During the study 135 (28%) of the women and 69 (10%) of the men lost their spouse. Linear regression analysis was used to examine whether widowed men and women differed from those who had not been widowed in rate of memory change over 6 years. Cross-domain latent-change models were subsequently used to evaluate the extent to which changes in memory are related to changes in other domains of functioning that may be affected by widowhood. RESULTS: Older adults who lost a spouse during follow-up showed a greater decline in memory over 6 years than those who remained married. A higher level of depressive symptoms at baseline was related to lower levels of memory functioning and a greater decline. Memory decline was unrelated to changes in depressive symptoms and physical health. CONCLUSIONS: Loss of the spouse is related to a greater decline in memory in older adults. The absence of an association with physical functioning and the weak association with mental functioning suggest that losing a spouse has an independent effect on memory functionin

The quality of data collection by an interview on the prevalence of elder mistreatment.

The aim of the present study was to investigate the quality of the interview process that was used to obtain data on the prevalence of elder mistreatment in order to improve the quality of this process in future research studies. Audiotapes of interviews with 143 victims of elder mistreatment were transcribed into verbatim protocols that were subsequently coded and analyzed. The results of the present study show that despite the fact that all interviewers were carefully selected, intensively trained, and supervised during the interview period, 4.2% of the questions were skipped, and in 4.4% of the interactions no usable answer was obtained. However, in all of these cases the interviewer did register an answer, the validity of which is questionable. Considerable differences were found between interviewers with respect to their performance and also between the various questions. Finally, suggestions are made to improve interviewer behavior

To what extent does the securitisation of asylum seekers contribute to Australia’s failure to meet its relevant international human rights obligations?

BACKGROUND: Although it is well established that late-life depression is associated with both systemic low-graded inflammation and cognitive impairment, the relation between inflammation and cognition in depressed older persons is still equivocal. The objective of this study is to examine the association between plasma Neutrophil Gelatinase-Associated Lipocalin (NGAL) concentrations and cognitive functioning in late-life depression, including the potentially moderating role of sex. METHODS: A total of 369 depressed older persons (>/=60 years) from The Netherlands study of Depression in Older persons (NESDO) were included. Four cognitive domains, i.e. verbal memory, processing speed, interference control and attention were assessed with three cognitive tests (Stroop test, Wais Digit span test, and Rey's verbal learning test). Multiple linear regression analyses were applied with the four cognitive domains as dependent variables adjusted for confounders. RESULTS: The association between NGAL levels and specific cognitive domains were sex-specific. In women, higher NGAL levels were associated with impaired verbal memory and lower processing speed. In men, higher NGAL levels were associated with worse interference control. Higher NGAL levels were not associated with attention. No sex-specific associations of either high sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP) or interleukin-6 (IL-6) with cognitive functioning were found. CONCLUSION: This study shows sex-specific association of NGAL with cognitive functioning in late-life depression

Association of Thyroid dysfunction with cognitive function an individual participant data analysis

IMPORTANCE In clinical guidelines, overt and subclinical thyroid dysfunction are mentioned as causal and treatable factors for cognitive decline. However, the scientific literature on these associations shows inconsistent findings.OBJECTIVE To assess cross-sectional and longitudinal associations of baseline thyroid dysfunction with cognitive function and dementia.DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS This multicohort individual participant data analysis assessed 114 267 person-years (median, 1.7-11.3 years) of follow-up for cognitive function and 525 222 person-years (median, 3.8-15.3 years) for dementia between 1989 and 2017. Analyses on cognitive function included 21 cohorts comprising 38 144 participants. Analyses on dementia included eight cohorts with a total of 2033 cases with dementia and 44 573 controls. Data analysis was performed from December 2016 to January 2021.EXPOSURES Thyroid function was classified as overt hyperthyroidism, subclinical hyperthyroidism, euthyroidism, subclinical hypothyroidism, and overt hypothyroidism based on uniform thyrotropin cutoff values and study-specific free thyroxine values.MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES The primary outcome was global cognitive function, mostly measured using the Mini-Mental State Examination. Executive function, memory, and dementia were secondary outcomes. Analyses were first performed at study level using multivariable linear regression and multivariable Cox regression, respectively. The studies were combined with restricted maximum likelihood meta-analysis. To overcome the use of different scales, results were transformed to standardized mean differences. For incident dementia, hazard ratios were calculated.RESULTS Among 74 565 total participants, 66 567 (89.3%) participants had normal thyroid function, 577 (0.8%) had overt hyperthyroidism, 2557 (3.4%) had subclinical hyperthyroidism, 4167 (5.6%) had subclinical hypothyroidism, and 697 (0.9%) had overt hypothyroidism. The study-specific median age at baseline varied from 57 to 93 years; 42 847 (57.5%) participants were women. Thyroid dysfunction was not associated with global cognitive function; the largest differences were observed between overt hypothyroidism and euthyroidism-cross-sectionally (-0.06 standardized mean difference in score; 95% CI, -0.20 to 0.08; P = .40) and longitudinally (0.11 standardized mean difference higher decline per year; 95% CI, -0.01 to 0.23; P = .09). No consistent associations were observed between thyroid dysfunction and executive function, memory, or risk of dementia.CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE In this individual participant data analysis of more than 74 000 adults, subclinical hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism were not associated with cognitive function, cognitive decline, or incident dementia. No rigorous conclusions can be drawn regarding the role of overt thyroid dysfunction in risk of dementia. These findings do not support the practice of screening for subclinical thyroid dysfunction in the context of cognitive decline in older adults as recommended in current guidelines.Molecular Epidemiolog

Sleep characteristics across the lifespan in 1.1 million people from the Netherlands, United Kingdom and United States: a systematic review and meta-analysis

How long does the average person sleep? Here, Kocevska et al. conducted a meta-analysis including over 1.1 million people to produce age- and sex-specific population reference charts for sleep duration and efficiency.We aimed to obtain reliable reference charts for sleep duration, estimate the prevalence of sleep complaints across the lifespan and identify risk indicators of poor sleep. Studies were identified through systematic literature search in Embase, Medline and Web of Science (9 August 2019) and through personal contacts. Eligible studies had to be published between 2000 and 2017 with data on sleep assessed with questionnaires including >= 100 participants from the general population. We assembled individual participant data from 200,358 people (aged 1-100 years, 55% female) from 36 studies from the Netherlands, 471,759 people (40-69 years, 55.5% female) from the United Kingdom and 409,617 people (>= 18 years, 55.8% female) from the United States. One in four people slept less than age-specific recommendations, but only 5.8% slept outside of the 'acceptable' sleep duration. Among teenagers, 51.5% reported total sleep times (TST) of less than the recommended 8-10 h and 18% report daytime sleepiness. In adults (>= 18 years), poor sleep quality (13.3%) and insomnia symptoms (9.6-19.4%) were more prevalent than short sleep duration (6.5% with TST = 9 h in bed, whereas poor sleep quality was more frequent in those spending = 41 years) reported sleeping shorter times or slightly less efficiently than men, whereas with actigraphy they were estimated to sleep longer and more efficiently than man. This study provides age- and sex-specific population reference charts for sleep duration and efficiency which can help guide personalized advice on sleep length and preventive practices.Pathophysiology, epidemiology and therapy of agein