The Ageing Experience: Perceived age discrimination and self-perceptions of ageing in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA)

An ageing population has important implications for wider aspects of society including our own perceptions of and attitudes to ageing. This thesis investigated how perceived age discrimination and self-perceptions of ageing may affect wellbeing at older ages. Using data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), Study 1 investigated the association between perceived age discrimination and socio-demographic characteristics in England. The results indicated that around a third of over 52 year olds in England reported perceptions of age discrimination. Perceived age discrimination was associated with older age, and it was associated with higher levels of education, lower levels of household wealth and lack of paid employment. The second study then went on to compare perceived age discrimination in everyday situations in England and the USA, using data from ELSA and the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). The results indicated that perceived age discrimination was higher in England in comparison with the USA (34.8% vs 29.1%). Study 3 revealed that self-perceived age predicted all-cause and cardiovascular mortality but not cancer mortality over a follow-up period of 99 months. The strength of the association was reduced once existing health problems, functional limitations and health behaviours were accounted for. There was some evidence to indicate that there was a bi-directional association between self-perceived age and functional capacity and emotional health (Study 4). In the fully-adjusted models, self-perceived age was associated with elevated depressive symptoms and limited ADLs four years later, but not with impaired mobility. Conversely, only impaired mobility was associated with self-perceived age four years later, once all covariates were accounted for. Key implications for future research and policy include addressing our own and societal attitudes towards ageing. The findings of this thesis indicate that there is scope to change this and that interventions may be possible

Boundaries of univalent Baker domains

Let $f$ be a transcendental entire function and let $U$ be a univalent Baker domain of $f$. We prove a new result about the boundary behaviour of conformal maps and use this to show that the non-escaping boundary points of $U$ form a set of harmonic measure zero with respect to $U$. This leads to a new sufficient condition for the escaping set of $f$ to be connected, and also a new general result on Eremenko's conjecture

Loneliness among under-represented older adults in the UK: a study of minority ethnic and LGBTQ+ populations

Issue Section: Late Breaking Poster Session IIIInternationally loneliness has been identified as a major public health problem. Although there is a substantial body of research about loneliness in older adults in the UK, there is a significant evidence gap reporting experiences of loneliness of older people from ethnic minorities and those who identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual and transgender (LGBT). These two groups, under-represented in UK gerontological research, are included in our recently funded project, Socially Inclusive Ageing across the Lifecourse. In this poster we explicitly focus upon the experiences of loneliness for older adults, aged 50+, from the LGBTQ+ and minority ethnic communities. Using wave 9 data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS/Understanding Society) we measured loneliness using the three-item UCLA scale with a score of 6+ out of 9 defining loneliness. Of our total sample of 16,805 who completed the loneliness measure, 1.5% of respondents identified as LGB and 5.4% as Asian, 2.9% as black and 1.5% as other or mixed ethnicity. Overall, 21.7% of the population aged 50+ were lonely. Participants from a black, Asian or other ethnic minority reported higher loneliness than white respondents: 25.8%, 29.6%, 31.0% and 21.0% respectively. Respondents identifying as gay or lesbian (29.1%) or as bisexual (35.2%) reported greater loneliness in comparison to those who identified as heterosexual (21.3%). Our study is novel and timely in demonstrating the higher prevalence of loneliness in two under-represented groups of older adults with the potential consequences this may have for their health and wellbeing in later life

Social health in people with dementia and their carers. Preliminary findings from the IDEAL program

Issue Section: SESSION 4070 (SYMPOSIUM)WHO defines health as a state of complete physical, mental, and social wellbeing. There is an extensive literature examining physical and mental health in later life and, typically, measures of healthy ageing focus upon physical and/or mental health. In the IDEAL dementia research programme we investigated social health outcomes because of their importance in understanding the experience of ‘living well’ for people with dementia. Using data from the IDEAL cohort study, we examined the prevalence and predictors of social isolation in 1,052 people with mild-to-moderate dementia and 928 caregivers who were followed up at 12 and 24 months. Social isolation was assessed using the six-item Lubben Social Network Scale where a score of less than 12 suggests participants are at risk of social isolation. Linear mixed models showed that both people with dementia and caregivers experienced increased social isolation across the two-year period. At baseline 29% of people with dementia were categorised as being socially isolated compared with 14% of caregivers. For both people with dementia and caregivers, loneliness and depression were associated with greater social isolation whilst increased cultural engagement mitigated the impact of social isolation. For people with dementia cognition, the number of green and blue spaces nearby and higher trust in the local community were also important factors. Interventions aimed at increasing cultural engagement and interaction with blue and green spaces may go some way to reducing social isolation

Is the relationship between subjective age, depressive symptoms and activities of daily living bidirectional?

International Longevity Centre–UK (ILC-UK) and University College London

The iterated minimum modulus and conjectures of Baker and Eremenko

In transcendental dynamics significant progress has been made by studying points whose iterates escape to infinity at least as fast as iterates of the maximum modulus. Here we take the novel approach of studying points whose iterates escape at least as fast as iterates of the minimum modulus, and obtain new results related to Eremenko's conjecture and Baker's conjecture, and the rate of escape in Baker domains. To do this we prove a result of wider interest concerning the existence of points that escape to infinity under the iteration of a positive continuous function

The lateral and ventromedial prefrontal cortex work as a dynamic integrated system:evidence from FMRI connectivity analysis

Recent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) investigations of the interaction between cognition and reward processing have found that the lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) areas are preferentially activated to both increasing cognitive demand and reward level. Conversely, ventromedial PFC (VMPFC) areas show decreased activation to the same conditions, indicating a possible reciprocal relationship between cognitive and emotional processing regions. We report an fMRI study of a rewarded working memory task, in which we further explore how the relationship between reward and cognitive processing is mediated. We not only assess the integrity of reciprocal neural connections between the lateral PFC and VMPFC brain regions in different experimental contexts but also test whether additional cortical and subcortical regions influence this relationship. Psychophysiological interaction analyses were used as a measure of functional connectivity in order to characterize the influence of both cognitive and motivational variables on connectivity between the lateral PFC and the VMPFC. Psychophysiological interactions revealed negative functional connectivity between the lateral PFC and the VMPFC in the context of high memory load, and high memory load in tandem with a highly motivating context, but not in the context of reward alone. Physiophysiological interactions further indicated that the dorsal anterior cingulate and the caudate nucleus modulate this pathway. These findings provide evidence for a dynamic interplay between lateral PFC and VMPFC regions and are consistent with an emotional gating role for the VMPFC during cognitively demanding tasks. Our findings also support neuropsychological theories of mood disorders, which have long emphasized a dysfunctional relationship between emotion/motivational and cognitive processes in depression

The role of subjective social status in living well for carers of people with dementia: findings from the Improving the experience of Dementia and Enhancing Active Life (IDEAL) programme

YesWe investigated how carers of people with dementia evaluate their standing in their community and wider society, and if this is related to ‘living well’. We used baseline data from the Improving the experience of Dementia and Enhancing Active Life programme and found that carers rated their standing in society higher than in their local community. Higher evaluations of both were associated with enhanced life satisfaction, well-being and quality of life. Initiatives that increase support or engagement in the community or wider society may help to increase carers’ perceptions of their social status, enhancing their ability to ‘live well’.The IDEAL study was funded jointly by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) through grant ES/L001853/2. The ESRC is part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). ‘Improving the experience of Dementia and Enhancing Active Life: a longitudinal perspective on living well with dementia. The IDEAL-2 study’ was funded by the Alzheimer’s Society, grant number 348, AS-PR2-16-001

Older adults’ experiences of loneliness over the lifecourse: an exploratory study using the BBC loneliness experiment

Copyright © 2022 The Author(s). Purpose: To explore older adults’ experiences of loneliness across the lifecourse and the relationship with current loneliness. Methods: Our sample is 6,708 people aged 65 years and older, resident in the UK, who participated in the BBC Loneliness Experiment in spring 2018. Loneliness was assessed using the 3 item UCLA Loneliness Scale, using a threshold score of 6+ to define loneliness. Participants were asked if they had experienced loneliness in 5 life-stages ranging from childhood to old age and, if so, at which stage had they experienced loneliness most intensely. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to estimate the odds ratios of experiencing loneliness in relation to previous experiences of loneliness and key covariates. Findings: 41% of participants reported current feelings of loneliness and were more likely than those who did not to spend time alone, have poorer self-rated health, be unmarried, have fewer financial resources, and lower levels of neighbourhood trust. 71% reported they had experienced loneliness at some previous stage in their life, with 26% experiencing it in childhood (5-15 years and 39% as a young adult (16-24 years). Having had three or more prior life stage experiences of loneliness was an independent risk factor for current loneliness. Conclusion: We highlight the potential importance of examining older adults’ experience of loneliness within a lifecourse perspective. We suggest a research agenda that examines the importance of the number and timing of previous loneliness experiences and investigates the strategies used to cope with loneliness across the lifecourse as a pathway to developing more effective and personalised loneliness interventions.Wellcome Trust [Funder reference: 209625/Z/17/Z]