Association between handgrip strength,walking, age-related illnesses and cognitive status in a sample of Portuguese centenarians

Background

Centenarians are a growing population in Europe and present significant variability in motor and cognitive functions. The aim of our study was to characterize health status, as well as cognitive and motor functions in a group of Portuguese centenarians. In addition, our study also aimed at analyzing the relationship between cognitive functions and the burden of diseases affecting the elderly.

Methods

Fifty-two centenarians were evaluated using the Mini-Mental State Examination, short version. Walking-related parameters (velocity and time spent in the 3 m walk test), grip strength and number of age-related illnesses were also measured. The relationship between cognitive scores and time spent in the three metre walk test, velocity, grip strength and number of diseases was analysed.

Results

Cognitive scores showed a positive correlation with both handgrip strength and time spent in the three metre walk. In contrast, no association was found between cognitive scores and the presence/absence of disease, walking velocity or number of diseases present.

Conclusions

These results suggest that in centenarians, cognitive functions may be related with motor functions.

     

欧洲大城市物流管理制度现代化的困境

基于过去五六年间与大都市运输管理机构的合作,以及参与法国国家级研究项目"城市货物"和"欧洲最佳城市货运解决方案研究网络"的经验,就欧洲大城市的物流的现状,归纳出三个核心特征:⑴货物运输很大程度上与城市内部结构没有关联;⑵城市物流政策基本无效;⑶城市物流服务增长缓慢、供不应求。这三个观点尽管看起来带有较强的批判性,但却如实地反映了城市物流产业的现状。实际上,出于减少环境影响与提高服务质量的考量,业内也有努力使城市物流行业更加高效灵活,但变革却是缓慢的,并且似乎没有哪一方愿意先行一步。一方面,城市政府希望企业开展新的物流业务以满足顾客及零售商与日俱增的需求,同时又要有利于环境发展;另一方面,由于开拓新业务往往是低盈利高风险,物流行业倾向于等待政府启动相关补贴政策后再作行动。除了城市物流的现状趋势外,文章在结论部分也提出了一些解决方案。     

From conflict to cohesion: Involving stakeholders in policy research

The transitional period in South Africa, coupled with the general societal context of uncertainly, poses several challenges to policy researchers. While policies which address the inequities of apartheid are urgently needed, the time and resources available for policy formulation are limited. These policies often have to accommodate the views of a range of stakeholders who, at best, have had little prior contact with one another or, at worst, are openly hostile. This article describes our experience as health policy researchers in employing research techniques to partially address these problems. The article makes use of examples from several large studies which were conducted over the past 5 years. All of the studies evaluated primary health care services in disadvantaged communities and were unusual in the extent to which they involved community representatives and health authorities at local, regional and national levels in the formulation of recommendations. The first section of the article describes the process we follow in achieving participation, the second highlights the advantages of this approach and the last section describes the difficulties associated with the approach. We conclude by emphasizing the facilitatory role which may be played by independent researchers in times of transition.     

A passion for respect: On understanding the role of human needs and morality

In the present paper, we stress the importance of the concept respect in a wide variety of social settings and provide a working definition of this concept by emphasizing how respect relates to the act of communicating full recognition to other people on the dimensions of belongingness and morality. Subsequently, in two separate parts, we discuss why respect is so desired and valued. The first part looks at respect as a means to fulfil important human social concerns (“respect as a means to an end”). The second part looks at the potential moral underpinnings of respect and thus interprets “respect as an end in itself.” Finally, it is suggested that both reasons to value respect explain respect effects as a function of the working selfconcept that is salient (i.e., pragmatic versus idealistic self). Laetitia B. Mulder is Assistant Professor of Social Psychology at Tilburg University. Her research interests are social decision making, sanctions and rewards, moral norms, compliance, and norm internalization.     

Parametric multi-attribute utility functions for optimal profit under risk constraints

We provide an economic interpretation of the practice consisting in incorporating risk measures as constraints in an expected prospect maximization problem. For what we call the infimum of expectations class of risk measures, we show that if the decision maker (DM) maximizes the expectation of a random prospect under constraint that the risk measure is bounded above, he then behaves as a “generalized expected utility maximizer” in the following sense. The DM exhibits ambiguity with respect to a family of utility functions defined on a larger set of decisions than the original one; he adopts pessimism and performs first a minimization of expected utility over this family, then performs a maximization over a new decisions set. This economic behaviour is called “maxmin under risk” and studied by Maccheroni (Econ Theory 19:823–831, 2002). As an application, we make the link between an expected prospect maximization problem, subject to conditional value-at-risk being less than a threshold value, and a non-expected utility economic formulation involving “loss aversion”-type utility functions.     

Health Status,Living Arrangements,and Service Use at 100: Findings From the Oporto Centenarian Study

ABSTRACT

This paper describes the sociodemographic characteristics, health status, and service use of centenarians living in the community and centenarians residing in an elder care facility/nursing home and examines their main differences. Participants were 140 centenarians from the population-based Oporto Centenarian Study (M_age = 101.2; SD = 1.6). Main findings revealed that the majority of the centenarians lived at home with their family members (57.9%). Increased health care needs, living alone, and family caregiving constraints were the most common reasons for entering a nursing home. Community-dwelling centenarians were cared for mostly by their children and were less dependent and in better cognitive health than those who resided in a nursing home. Differences were found in the pattern of health service use according to the centenarians’ residence, ability to pay medical expenses, and dependency level. Findings highlight the need for an accurate assessment of caregiving support systems, particularly family intergenerational duties, and of the factors constraining the access and use of health and social services. Policy makers may be guided by the insights gained from this research and work toward improvement of support options and removal of barriers to service access.     

Promoting resilience and emotional well-being of transgender young people: research at the intersections of gender and sexuality

Within lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) research there is increasing health-related scholarship on trans lives, with a growing awareness of the impact of health inequalities on trans well-being. The aim of the paper is to provide greater understanding of transgender young people’s views of what is needed to promote their emotional well-being and resilience by undertaking specific analysis of data collected as part of wider research with young people (n?=?97). The study utilised participatory qualitative methods with a cross sectional design generating data via a focus group with trans youth (n?=?5), followed by thematic analysis. Findings suggest that both individual and collective capacities or resources enable and sustain resilience and well-being for trans young people. The adversity trans youth face is present in school, the community and in healthcare, but they are able to find places where they feel safe and connected to others. Practitioners, teachers and school nurses are well positioned to facilitate structural change in alliance with trans youth to promote resilience. Research results were utilised to inform health improvement, commissioning and service delivery.     

Identifying factors for poorer educational outcomes that may be exacerbated by COVID-19: A systematic review focussing on at-risk school children and adolescents

School closures across Australia in response to COVID-19 have persisted since 2020, with rising mental health problems in children and adolescents, alongside rising negative family health and socioeconomic outcomes. Further, some children and young people who were already experiencing disadvantage pre-pandemic may be at heightened risk of poorer educational outcomes. Therefore, the aim of this study was to conduct a systematic review of the literature to identify the factors for poorer educational outcomes that may be exacerbated by COVID-19 amongst disadvantaged school students. Key development stages of disadvantage were identified: young children who started school behind, older students already at risk of disengagement from school and children and young people who have had contact with the child protection system. Five databases were systematically searched, across two search periods. A total of 69 Australian, peer-reviewed articles, published in 2005–2021, examining risk factors for poor educational outcomes for children attending school met the inclusion criteria and were included in final analyses. Our findings provide evidence of key risk factors that make these populations susceptible to worsening outcomes resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, and of the critical importance of ongoing research to guide policy and practice support for these at-risk groups.