“Citizens Too”: Safety Setting Collaboration Among Older Adults with Memory Concerns

Background: Aging increased the risks of cognitive impairment and depression. Then, these conditions can lead to poor quality of life by reducing one’s ability to perform activities of daily living. Recently, it is established that physical activity can decrease the cognitive decline and the risk of depression in older adults. Moreover, regular physical activity can improve physical and mental functions in populations of all ages. However, level and speed of cognitive decline occurs varies greatly among individual especially the difference between middle-aged and older adults. Objective: This study aimed to focus on the comparison of physical activity, cognitive function and depression between older and middle-aged adults, which has never been done before. Moreover, the associations of physical activity with cognitive impairment and depression were also investigated in older and middle-aged adults. The information in this study will provide an understanding regarding the design of physical activity program for different age groups. Methods: All participants were divided into two groups of 50 middle-aged adults and 50 older adults. The assessments of physical activity, cognitive function, and level of depression were conducted for all participants. Results: The total level of physical activity and cognitive function in older adults was decreased when compared with middle-aged ones. Moreover, each work and transportation domain of physical activity in older adults also was decreased when compared with that in middle-aged ones. However, the leisure domain of physical activity in older adults was increased via a decreasing depression level. In addition, the level of physical activity associated with both cognitive function and depression and depression alone in middle-aged and older adults, respectively. Conclusion: We suggested that total level of physical activity in older adults can increase via stimulating work and transportation activities in physical activity program. Moreover, the level of physical activity associated with both cognitive function and depression and depression alone in middle-aged and older adults, respectively.

Although research has demonstrated a grey divide where older adults are less involved and skilled with digital media than younger adults, by treating them as a homogenous group, it has overlooked differences in their digital skills and media use. Based on 41 in-depth interviews with older adults (aged 65+ years) in East York, Toronto, we developed a typology that moves beyond seeing older adults as Non-Users to include Reluctants, Apprehensives, Basic Users, Go-Getters, and Savvy Users. We find a nonlinear association between older adults’ skill levels and online engagement, as many East York older adults are not letting their skill levels dictate their online involvement. They engage in a wide range of online activities despite having limited skills, and some are eager to learn as they go. Older adults often compared their digital media use with their peers and to more tech-adept younger generations, and these comparisons influenced their attitudes toward digital media. Their narratives of mastery included both a positive sense that they can stay connected and learn new skills and a negative sense that digital media might overwhelm them or waste their time. We draw conclusions for public policy based on our findings on how digital media intersect with the lives of East York older adults.

Understanding differentiated internet use in older adults: A study of informational, social, and instrumental online activities

The World Health Organization has promoted age-friendly city (AFC) projects in response to the aging population. Taiwan has also promoted AFC policies. This study was conducted in Taitung County, where 15.37% of the population is older adults in Taiwan. The aim was to understand the perceptions of older adults and service providers with regard to the current status of AFC policies to influence future policies. The participants of this study were older adults and service providers in various regions of Taitung. Quantitative questionnaires were completed by older adults and qualitative interviews were held with focus groups. The older adults were the most satisfied with the AFC domains of “respect and social inclusion” and “community and health services”, and the least satisfied with “transportation” and “civic participation and employment”. Homogeneity existed between the older adults’ satisfaction levels in different regions and the service providers’ opinions; however, there were notable differences between them. Both economic development and the ethnicity of groups in different regions are influential factors that determine the success of government policies. In promoting AFC policies, local governments should consider their applicability based on local conditions and resources to meet the needs of the aging population in rural areas.

With the rapid pace of population aging, the health issues of the older adult have garnered widespread attention. Social participation plays a pivotal role in the health of the older adult. This study aims to explore the impact of social participation on the health status of the older adult. Using a binary logistic regression model, this study analyzes the influence of social participation methods on the health status of older adult individuals in China based on cross-sectional data from the "China Comprehensive Social Survey" in 2021. The study sample comprises individuals aged 60 to 99 years. It was found that participation in physical activities [P<0.001, OR = 1.907], social and recreational activities [P<0.001, OR = 1.387], and online activities [P<0.001, OR = 1.808] were significantly positively correlated with the health status of the older adult. The health of older adults is influenced by a combination of physical activities, social and recreational activities, and online activities. Good health is closely associated with high levels of physical activity. Engaging in physical exercise promotes physiological health, while participating in social and recreational activities has a significant impact on cognitive and depressive states. Additionally, involvement in online activities helps alleviate feelings of loneliness and enhances overall well-being. 1)Promote the development of physical activities for the older adult: Create an integrated environment for physical exercise. 2)Expand the social circle of the older adult: Construct diverse and structured communities to enhance well-being. 3)Develop online activities for the older adult: Facilitate their integration into the digital age. 4)Foster interdisciplinary collaboration for older adult health: Build partnerships across various domains to promote older adult health.

The aim of this study was to examine the associations between age, chronic pain, cognitive function, and pain sensitivity by comparing older and younger adults. The study included 30 older adults with chronic pain, 31 older adults without pain, 26 young adults with chronic pain, and 31 young adults without pain. Cognitive functions were assessed using the Mini-Mental State Examination, Stroop Test, and Clock Drawing Test. Pressure pain thresholds (PPT) were measured in the trapezius, deltoid, and tibialis anterior regions using an algometer. Significant differences were observed in most cognitive functions and PPTs between the groups, particularly between older adults with and without chronic pain, and young adults with and without chronic pain. Generally, moderate to strong negative correlations were found between pain sensitivity and cognitive performance in older adults with chronic pain. In contrast, young adults with chronic pain showed weaker and fewer correlations between pain sensitivity and cognitive function. Chronic pain has a more significant negative impact on cognitive function in older adults, who also exhibit stronger associations between pain sensitivity and cognitive decline. In contrast, younger adults with chronic pain demonstrate weaker correlations, potentially due to adaptive coping mechanisms. These findings highlight the need for age-specific interventions targeting both pain and cognitive decline in older populations.

BackgroundIncreasingly researchers are partnering with citizens and communities in research; less is known about research impacts of this engagement. EMBOLDEN is an evidence-informed, mobility-promoting intervention for older adults co-designed by a 26-person Strategic Guiding Council (SGC) of health/social service providers and older adult citizens. This study evaluated research partners’ perceptions of engagement strategies, the engagement context, strengths, areas for improvement, as well as the impacts of the guiding council on older-adult identified priority areas.MethodsThis study was guided by developmental evaluation, working in partnership with four older adult SGC members who helped to set evaluation priorities, decide methods, and adapt patient-centred evaluation tools. Data sources included a questionnaire, focus groups and document analysis of meeting notes from 16 SGC meetings that took place between December 2019 and February 2022. A thematic approach to analysis guided the coding of focus group transcripts and SGC meeting notes. Convergent mixed methods guided the integration and presentation of qualitative and quantitative data sources in a joint display of evaluation results.ResultsOf 26 SGC members, nine completed the evaluation squestionnaire, and five participated in focus groups. Around two thirds of the SGC commonly attended each meeting. EMBOLDEN’s SGC was structured to include a diverse group (across gender, ethnicity and discipline) of older adults and service providers, which was perceived as a strength. Engagement processes were perceived as inclusive and well-facilitated, which stimulated discussion at meetings. Advantages and disadvantages of engaging with the SGC virtually, as compared to in-person (as was the case for the first 3 SGC meetings) were also discussed. Impacts of the SGC were identified across preparatory, execution phase and translational stages of research. Impacts of SGC involvement on members were also described.ConclusionOlder adult research partners played an important role designing, implementing, and evaluating co-design approaches in this study. Older adults and service providers can make important contributions to the design, delivery and sharing results of health research through their lived expertise and connections to community. This project contributes to the growing field of citizen and community engagement in research by offering a participatory approach to engagement evaluation that considers diversity, satisfaction, and impact.

Background: There is a strong link between healthy behaviours and climate friendly behaviours, and using these synergies to promote the need for lifestyle changes would profit both agendas but they must be well adapted to the specific needs of target groups and take their perspectives into account. Approach: Climate change is associated with extreme temperatures and weather events that affect health, and it should be high on the agenda of integrated care as older people are especially vulnerable to these changes, especially when living with chronic conditions or suffering from social isolation. To address these risks they are often told to stay inside and to not exert themselves. However, these recommendations often run counter to the need of exercise and healthy living to manage their chronic conditions, stay active and connected. The KliMate proof of concept project uses a participatory approach to develop information and teaching formats to increase climate and health literacy among older adults to ensure that they keep active and healthy while coping with the effects of climate change. To achieve this KliMate uses a living lab approach, which ensures the regular involvement of up to 30 people aged 65 and over, climate cafés, research walks, diary studies and co-design workshops to ensure whatever is developed is useful and acceptable for older people. Results: Results are currently being finalised and will be available at the conference. The first climate café took place in mid-April 2024 with nine older people to identify and cluster factors influencing everyday mobility into the areas of weather influences, motivation, safety, terrain and infrastructure. The first Living Lab activities (diary study, research walks) were conducted from May to October 2024. The diary studies recorded different aspects of exercise and weather over three weeks using small tasks and questions, while the research walks with older residents explored two distinct neighbourhoods in Vienna to identify the resources available to them to address their social and health needs, as well as their adaptive behaviours. These walks and the interviews after the diary study identified several topics not considered by the researchers or documented in the literature so far, such as the reluctance to join clubs are group activities in old age, the shame associated with body image which hinders some to go swimming or frequent public spaces for physical activity, but also reinforced the struggle with motivation and the importance of friends and family to keep active and connected. Implications: The participatory approach has already added insights, which could probably not have been gathered otherwise. This project underlines the importance of using several participatory methods to ensure that many different inputs can be gathered. The continuous involvement of older adults in the development of initiatives for climate-friendly health promotion for older adults will ensure that the information and media used are targeted to their needs. Co-design workshops in 2025 will now focus on co-developing different formats to support older people to make healthier choices in spite of changing climate conditions.

The storytelling lens in human-computer interaction has primarily focused on personas, design fiction, and other stories crafted by designers, yet informal personal narratives from everyday people have not been considered meaningful data, such as storytelling from older adults. Storytelling may provide a clear path to conceptualize how technologies such as social robots can support the lives of older or disabled individuals. To explore this, we engaged 28 older adults in a year-long co-design process, examining informal stories told by older adults as a means of generating and expressing technology ideas and needs. This paper presents an analysis of participants’ stories around their prior experience with technology, stories shaped by social context, and speculative scenarios for the future of social robots. From this analysis, we present suggestions for social robot design, considerations of older adults’ values around technology design, and promotion of participant stories as sources for design knowledge and shifting perspectives of older adults and technology.

BackgroundDespite rising internet use in Canada, older adults continue to face significant barriers in adopting and using digital technologies. Digital literacy among older adults extends beyond technical proficiency, encompassing adaptation to new technologies, overcoming age-related limitations, and addressing socioeconomic disparities. Limited digital skills hinder social participation, access to essential services, and engagement with eHealth technologies, exacerbating disparities in health outcomes.ObjectiveThis scoping review aimed to identify key barriers to digital literacy among older adults, synthesizing evidence from existing literature to provide a comprehensive understanding of the challenges older adults face in adopting and utilizing digital technologies.MethodsA systematic search was conducted across the Ovid MEDLINE, PubMed, Web of Science, and EBSCOhost databases to identify studies published in the past 10 years that examined digital literacy barriers among older adults. Data extraction captured population characteristics, study context, research methods, and outcomes, which were thematically analyzed to identify overarching categories and themes.ResultsA total of 22 studies met the inclusion criteria. Most studies used a qualitative design (n=16, 72.72%), with the remaining studies comprising 3 quantitative studies (13.63%) and 3 reviews (13.63%). Seven primary barriers to digital literacy among older adults were identified: (1) health barriers, (2) support networks, (3) convenience and ease of use, (4) knowledge and information, (5) perception barriers, (6) resource barriers, and (7) barriers for special populations. Within these themes, 18 associated categories provided a more detailed understanding of the challenges older adults face in adopting and using digital technologies.ConclusionsThese findings demonstrate that digital literacy challenges among older adults are shaped by interacting individual, social, and contextual factors rather than isolated skill deficits. Barriers often co-occur, with health-related limitations, access to support, technology design, and resource constraints jointly influencing digital engagement. This review highlights the need for integrated and inclusive digital literacy strategies that address compounded barriers and reflect the diverse circumstances of older adults. Future research should focus on establishing consistent definitions of digital literacy, evaluating the long-term impact of digital inclusion initiatives, and addressing the needs of subpopulations experiencing heightened or intersecting barriers.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to explore the lived experiences of the constraints of older adult family caregivers with chronic diseases in caring for and accessing health services during the COVID-19 pandemic.Design/methodology/approachThis study used the descriptive phenomenology qualitative method. The sampling method was purposive sampling involving 16 older adult family caregivers.FindingsThe results of this study showed three themes such as difficulties in health services in hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic (complaints of services provided by doctors, older adult treatment control problems and difficulty getting to hospital health facilities); difficulties accompanying taking older adult medicine (older adult non-compliance response to taking medication and older adult medicine assistance); and psychosocial complaints caring for and accompanying the older adult (negative emotions for the older adult, difficulty interacting with the older adult and the economic burden of caring for the older adult).Practical implicationsBarriers to family caregivers in caring for older adults with chronic diseases can help health-care service providers understand and support families caring for and assisting older adults, which may contribute to the quality of life and care for both family caregivers and older adults.Originality/valueThis study showed that Indonesian family caregivers faced difficulties caring for and living with older adults with chronic diseases during the pandemic. Family caregivers’ experiences are essential when developing an intervention to support and manage health care for older adults with chronic illnesses.

As autistic people get older, they may suffer increasingly with poor health and as a result may transition to residential care. Very little is known about the support needs of older autistic adults in general, or their specific needs within residential care services. As such, it is impossible to determine whether existing residential services are meeting the needs of older autistic adults. A first step to resolving this issue is to determine what are the priority topics for research and practice in this area. A multidisciplinary expert group was formed, and three meetings were held in 2018. Group members included older autistic adults, the immediate family members of older autistic adults (siblings and children), service providers, clinicians, and researchers based in the United Kingdom. Their aim was to progress the research and practice agenda in residential care for older autistic adults by identifying priority topics for research and recommendations for practice and policy. Ten key topics were identified, including supporting transitions to residential care, training for staff, and supporting physical health. This article summarizes the discussions around these topics and highlights areas for future research and practice development. Lay Summary Why is this topic important? We know very little about the support needs of older autistic adults, or their specific needs if they have to enter residential care. We do not know whether existing residential services are providing autism-appropriate support. What is the purpose of this article? To identify priority topics for future research and practice development relating to older autistic adults in residential care. What did the researchers do? We formed an expert group, including older autistic people, family members, service providers, clinicians, and researchers, to discuss how residential care is run now and what research and recommendations are needed to adjust residential care to meet autistic needs. What did the expert group recommend? We identified 10 topics, where important adjustments for the needs of autistic older people may need to be made in existing residential care. These are as follows: managing transitions into residential care; autism training for residential care staff; recognizing and respecting autistic differences and understanding autistic well-being; supporting physical health; the sensory environment and sensory processing; design principles; creating community and belonging; autonomy and choice; advocacy; and evaluating care quality. We hope that identifying these 10 priority topics will act as a starting point for researchers to pursue these important questions. What are potential weaknesses in these recommendations? Although we included representatives from many areas of the autism community, we were not able to directly include any autistic people currently living in residential care, although we hope that through this work their experiences will be centered in future research. In addition, we did not include the direct perspectives of autistic adults with high support needs (e.g., intellectual disability and communication difficulties) although these perspectives were conveyed by proxy representatives such as siblings and specialist service providers. How will these recommendations help autistic adults now or in the future? We believe these insights can guide further research with residential care service providers, determining how to provide for the increasing number of older autistic people living in residential care homes. The well-being of these residents must be equivalent to the standard for their nonautistic peer group.

Technological advancements have become widespread, and their implementation into products of everyday use is accelerating. Technology has the potential to improve the lives of older adults by increasing their safety, security, and independence in daily life. However, too often older adults' capabilities and limitations are not considered in the design of current and future technologies. In 1990, the National Research Council identified the importance of human factors in the design of technology for an aging population. The goal of this chapter is to review research on aging and technology since that report to determine the contributions of human factors research to issues of aging and technology design. In this chapter we address the extent to which older adults use new technologies, factors to consider in the adoption of technology (e.g., attitudes), the influence of technology design on older adults' performance (e.g., design of input devices), and ways to optimize training for older adults in using new technologies (e.g., age-specific instructional designs). We then review emerging areas of research that may direct the focus of human factors research in the next decade. These areas of research include ubiquitous computing (e.g., home monitoring systems), health care technologies (e.g., telehealth), robotics (e.g., Nursebot), and automated systems (e.g., cruise control). Finally, we consider opportunities and challenges to human factors research as the field continues to address the questions of optimizing technology for older adult users.

This study investigates what older adults want from social robots. Older adults are often presented with social robots designed based on developers’ assumptions that only vaguely address their actual needs. By lacking an understanding of older adults’ opinions of what technology should or could do for them–and what it should not do–we risk users of robots not finding them useful. Social and humanistic research on the robotization of care argues that it is important to prioritize user needs in technology design and implementation. Following this urgent call, we investigate older adults’ experiences of and approach to social robots in their everyday lives. This is done empirically through a qualitative analysis of data collected from six group interviews on care robots with health care service users, informal caregivers (relatives), and professional caregivers (healthcare workers). Through this “Need-Driven-Innovation” study we argue that, to secure a functional and valuable technology-fit for the user, it is crucial to take older adults’ wishes, fears, and desires about technology into account when implementing robots. It is also crucial to consider their wider networks of care, as the people in these networks also often interact with the assistive technology service users receive. Our study shows that more qualitative knowledge on the social aspect of human-robot interaction is needed to support future robot development and use in the health and care field and advocates for the crucial importance of strengthening the position of user-centered qualitative research in the field of social robotics.

Healthy aging may be accompanied by cognitive decline that includes diminished attentional control, an executive function that allows us to focus our attention while inhibiting distractors. Previous studies have demonstrated that background music can enhance some executive functions in both young and older adults. According to the Arousal-Mood Theory, the beneficial influence of background music on cognitive performance would be related to its ability to increase the arousal level of the listeners and to improve their mood. Consequently, stimulating and pleasant music might enhance attentional control. Therefore, the aims of this study were (1) to determine if the influence of background music, and more specifically its arousal level, might improve attentional control in older adults and (2) whether this effect is similar across older and young adults. Older and young adults performed a visuo-spatial flanker task during three auditory conditions: stimulating music, relaxing music, and silence. Participants had to indicate as fast and as accurately as possible the direction of a central arrow, which was flanked by congruent or incongruent arrows. As expected, reaction times were slower for the incongruent compared to congruent trials. Interestingly, this difference was significantly greater under the relaxing music condition compared to other auditory conditions. This effect was the same across both age groups. In conclusion, relaxing music seems to interfere with visuo-spatial attentional control compared to stimulating music and silence, regardless of age.