Mastering Life: Exploring the Physical Health of Older Masters Athletes and Chess Players

The population of older adults is continuing to grow in Canada, due to the proportion of increase in life expectancy and decrease in fertility rate. Unfortunately, a large segment of these older adults are living longer, but with multiple chronic diseases as well as sustaining moderate to severe injury. As a result, unhealthy older adults are at an increased risk for disability, longer hospital stay and rehabilitation, physical dependency, as well as death. Interestingly, participation in various activities have been advocated to improve the well-being of older adults namely sport and chess. Furthermore, some studies have proposed Masters sport participants as the ideal model of successful aging. To investigate this notion, this thesis aimed to examine the rates of injury and prevalence of chronic diseases among Masters Athletes and competitive chess players in comparison to normative data from the Canadian Community Health Survey

Developing a Scale to Examine Aging-Related Assets Developed Through Sport in Older Adults

Background: Participation in sport continues to rise among older adults. Interestingly, sport is proposed as an avenue to continue development, particularly in psychosocial outcomes, across the lifespan. However, a significant limitation in this area is the lack of an appropriate measure to explore the development of psychosocial outcomes (i.e., assets) in older adults. Objective: The overarching purpose of this dissertation was to create a quantitative assessment tool to measure psychosocial assets in older adults. Methods: To achieve this aim, a mixed-method, sequential research design was applied, where the initial phases in the study helped inform and guide subsequent phases (i.e., development of the assessment tool). Study One included a scoping review that summarized our knowledge on sport and older adults since the first World Masters Games. This step was important in understanding how older athletes have been studied in prior research. Study Two, focused on examining the sport experiences and psychosocial development of older rowing athletes. Responses from eight athletes were analyzed to help confirm previous findings on psychosocial assets, report any novel assets, and examine general sport experiences in rowing. The final study used information gathered from previous studies as well as knowledge in the area of psychosocial development to create a preliminary instrument, “Psychosocial Assets Scale (PAS)”, to measure psychosocial assets in older adults. Results: The scoping review indicated most studies examined physiological outcomes with little exploration in areas such as psychosocial outcomes. Additionally, most studies did not report data on sociodemographic variables. Results from Study Two suggested sport experiences and psychosocial development of assets varies across individuals. In addition, findings indicated some negative sport experiences, which could alter development of assets. Lastly, the creation of the PAS showed emergence of nine factors: wellbeing, contribution, social support, drive/challenge, integrity, health habits, supportive family relationships, perceived safety, and desire to learn/continued learning. Conclusion: Collectively, this dissertation led to the creation of a preliminary scale to measure psychosocial assets in older adults. While the scale created in this dissertation requires further validation, the PAS allows researchers to advance in this area with implications for research, policy developers, sport advocates, and the broader societ

Masters or pawns? Examining injury and chronic disease in male Masters Athletes and chess players compared to population norms from the Canadian Community Health Survey

Abstract Background Identifying the optimal type and amount of activity for the maintenance of function in older adults has proved challenging. On the one hand, Masters Athletes have been proposed as the ideal model of successful aging but most of this research has focused on physical functioning. On the other hand, the importance of cognitive engagement has been emphasized, which may be more strongly related to activities such as playing chess. The current study aimed to compare physical health outcomes (i.e., prevalence of physical injury and chronic disease) among older athletes and chess players. Masters Athletes and chess players were recruited from track and field and chess competitions within the province of Ontario. In addition to these primary groups, moderately active and inactive older adults from Canadian Community Health Survey were also included for comparison. Results Masters Athletes had significantly higher rates of injury with the lowest rates of chronic disease, compared to all other activity groups. In contrast, chess players reported lower rates of injury compared to Masters Athletes as well as lower prevalence of chronic diseases compared to the moderately active and inactive groups. The normative groups reported the lowest rate of injury, but increased prevalence of chronic diseases compared to Masters Athletes and chess players. Conclusions Findings from this study indicate that both athletic and cognitive engagement may be positively related to the physical health of older adults, since Masters Athletes and chess players reported a lower prevalence of chronic disease. Importantly, the results expand our current understanding of health by providing evidence for physical health outcomes associated with an activity that is primarily associated with cognitive health