Purpose: Of all Canadian and American men who live to age 75 years, about half can expect to live to age 85. Our objective is to examine how clinical diagnoses made before age 75 relate to a man's survival to age 85 years. Design and Methods: Since 1948, a cohort of 3,983 young men (mean age of 31 years at entry) has been followed with routine…

Purpose of the Study: Studies show that loneliness is a major risk factor for health issues in later life. Although research suggests that religious involvement can protect against loneliness, explanations for this general pattern are underdeveloped and undertested. In this paper, we propose and test a theoretical model, which suggests that social…

Purpose: To develop and validate criterion-referenced fitness standards for older adults that predict the level of capacity needed for maintaining physical independence into later life. The proposed standards were developed for use with a previously validated test battery for older adults--the Senior Fitness Test (Rikli, R. E., & Jones, C. J.…

Purpose: To examine the 1-year prevalence and risk of emergency department (ED) use and ambulatory care-sensitive (ACS) ED use by nursing home (NH) residents with different levels of severity of cognitive impairment (CI). Design and Methods: We used multinomial logistic regression to estimate the effect of CI severity on the odds of any ED visit…

Purpose of the Study: To examine the longitudinal associations between 3 dimensions of religious involvement--religious attendance, use of religious media, and private religious activities--and 3 domains of functional status--limitations in basic activities of daily living (ADL), instrumental activities of daily living (IADL), and mobility in…

Adults over the age of 65 years account for 60% of all hospital admissions and experience consequential negative outcomes directly related to hospitalization. Negative outcomes include falls, delirium, loss in ability to perform basic activities of daily living, and new walking dependence. New walking dependence, defined as the loss in ability to…

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act attempts to address prevailing deficiencies in long-term care (LTC) financing through the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Act, a national voluntary LTC insurance program administered by the Federal government. The CLASS Act is intended to supplement rather than supplant…

Purpose of the study: This study examines urban-rural differences in end-of-life (EOL) quality of care provided to nursing home (NH) residents. Data and Methods: We constructed 3 risk-adjusted EOL quality measures (QMs) for long-term decedent residents: in-hospital death, hospice referral before death, and presence of severe pain. We used…

Purpose: The aim of this study was to examine whether older people are prepared to engage in appropriate falls prevention strategies after discharge from hospital. Design and Methods: We used a semi-structured interview to survey older patients about to be discharged from hospital and examined their knowledge regarding falls prevention strategies…

Purpose To assess the effects of an interdisciplinary intervention on the trajectories of functional recovery among older patients with hip fracture during 2 years after hospitalization. Design and Methods In a randomized controlled trial with 24-month follow-up, 162 patients [greater than or equal to]60 years were enrolled after hip-fracture…

Purpose: To estimate the frequency of use of pressure-redistributing support surfaces (PRSS) among hip fracture patients and to determine whether higher pressure ulcer risk is associated with greater PRSS use. Design and Methods: Patients (n = 658) aged [greater than or equal] 65 years who had surgery for hip fracture were examined by research…

Purpose: To explore the nature of men's experiences of osteoporosis by developing an understanding of men's explanatory models. Design and Methods: This descriptive study invited community-residing male osteoporosis patients aged 50+ to participate in interviews about osteoporosis. Participants were recruited from a hospital-affiliated bone…

Purpose: Minnesota's Nursing Facility Performance-Based Incentive Payment Program (PIPP) supports provider-initiated projects aimed at improving care quality and efficiency. PIPP moves beyond conventional pay for performance. It seeks to promote implementation of evidence-based practices, encourage innovation and risk taking, foster collaboration…

Purpose: This study identifies risk factors, including incident disability, for the use of assistive devices (ADs) among older people. Design and Methods: Three waves of data from the National Long-Term Care Survey (NLTCS) are used to examine whether upper and lower body disability lead to use of ADs (both number of devices used and number of…

Purpose of the Study: This study examines health-risk behaviors among "Baby Boomer" caregivers and non-caregivers. Design and Methods: Data from the 2009 California Health Interview Survey of the state's non-institutionalized population provided individual-level, caregiving, and health behavior characteristics for 5,688 informal…