Search results for "Ageing"
showing 10 items of 609 documents
Predictive diagnostics and personalized medicine for the prevention of chronic degenerative diseases
2010
Abstract Progressive increase of mean age and life expectancy in both industrialized and emerging societies parallels an increment of chronic degenerative diseases (CDD) such as cancer, cardiovascular, autoimmune or neurodegenerative diseases among the elderly. CDD are of complex diagnosis, difficult to treat and absorbing an increasing proportion in the health care budgets worldwide. However, recent development in modern medicine especially in genetics, proteomics, and informatics is leading to the discovery of biomarkers associated with different CDD that can be used as indicator of disease’s risk in healthy subjects. Therefore, predictive medicine is merging and medical doctors may for t…
Healthy ageing: From a myth to a reality
2016
The dream of living long and healthy has accompanied man since the beginning of time. The present remarkable increased life expectancy is most probably the result of better living conditions, medical progress, and better health care organization. Dramatic demographic changes occur not only in industrialised countries, but primarily affect the least developed part of the world. This extraordinary success of humanity brings with it many challenges to build a future with healthy seniors. The recently released World report on ageing and health, one of the most important WHO documents in recent years, confirms the crucial importance of the maintenance of functional ability throughout life.
Physical Activity and Nutrition INfluences in Ageing: Current Findings from the PANINI Project
2019
Background: The ageing of the population is a global challenge and the period of life spent in good health, although increasing, is not keeping pace with lifespan. Consequently, understanding the important factors that contribute to healthy ageing and validating interventions and influencing policy to promote healthy ageing are vital research priorities.Method: The PANINI project is a collaboration of 20 partners across Europe examining the influence of physical activity and nutrition in ageing. Methods utilised encompass the biological to the social, from genetics to the influence of social context. For example, epigenetic, immunological, and psychological assessments, and nutritional and …
Life-space mobility and active ageing
2019
This chapter highlights research on the concepts of life-space mobility and active ageing. With age, the life-space of older people becomes more restricted and they spend more and more time in or around their home, a situation that increases the risk of social isolation, physical inactivity, and poor quality of life. Optimal mobility is the result of a good balance between the environmental demands and affordances, on the one hand, and the personal resources and capacity of the individual, on the other hand. This chapter describes a new tool developed by the authors and their colleagues to assess active ageing at the level of the individual, rather than at the policy level. This chapter dis…
Dual sensory loss and social participation in older Europeans
2013
The purpose of the study was to describe the prevalence of hearing difficulties, vision difficulties and dual sensory difficulties in 11 European countries, and to study whether sensory difficulties are associated with social inactivity in older Europeans. This cross-sectional study is based on the 2004 data collection of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe comprising 27,536 men and women aged 50 years and older. Hearing and vision difficulties, as well as participation in seven different social activities were assessed using a structured computer-assisted personal interview. Logistic regression models were used for analyses. Altogether, 5.9 % of the participants reported …
Centenarian Offspring as a Model of Successful Ageing
2019
The rapid increase in global average life expectancy, observed during the last years, due to improvements in sanitation and medical care, pushes the scientific community to understand the basis of the ageing process. In particular, in order to improve the life quality of elderly people, current ageing research is focused on the identification of biological mechanisms involved in successful ageing, a complex process influenced by several factors, including genetic, environment, and lifestyle. Centenarians, i.e., subjects who have reached ten or more decades of life, escaping the common age-related diseases, are the leading exponent of successful ageing. However, the rarity of such exponents,…
The Program of Health Volunteer Promoters for OlderAdults: The Well-Being of the Volunteers at Leisure Time
2018
The study of ageing processes has gained increased attention in recent years, partly due to the growth of this population group (United Nations, World population prospects: The 2015 revision. New York: United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. https://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/publications/files/key_findings_wpp_2015.pdf. Accessed 25 Sep 2016, 2015). Research into this area has focused on older adult well-being (Au et al, Clinical Gerontologist 38:203–210, 2015) and the identification of factors having an influence on well-being at this stage of the life cycle (Carstensen, Current Directions in Psychological Science 4:151–156, 1995). These lines of research have emphasized the con…
“Positive biology”: the centenarian lesson
2012
Abstract The extraordinary increase of the elderly in developed countries underscore the importance of studies on ageing and longevity and the need for the prompt spread of knowledge about ageing in order to satisfactorily decrease the medical, economic and social problems associated to advancing years, because of the increased number of individuals not autonomous and affected by invalidating pathologies. Centenarians are equipped to reach the extreme limits of human life span and, most importantly, to show relatively good health, being able to perform their routine daily life and to escape fatal age-related diseases. Thus, they are the best example of extreme longevity, representing select…
Understanding ageing: Biomedical and bioengineering approaches, the immunologic view
2008
Abstract During the past century, humans have gained more years of average life expectancy than in the last 10,000 years; we are now living in a rapidly ageing world. The sharp rise in life expectancy, coupled to a steady decline in birth rates in all developed countries, has led to an unprecedented demographic revolution characterized by an explosive growth in the number and proportion of older people. Ageing is a complex process that negatively impacts the development of the immune system and its ability to function. Progressive changes in the T and B cell systems over the life span have a major impact on the capacity to respond to immune challenge. These cumulative age-associated changes…
EFFECTS OF SOCIAL ISOLATION ON MENTAL HEALTH DURING COVID-19 IN THE CONTEXT OF AGEING
2021
The COVID-19 pandemic brought significant changes to the usual rhythm of life. Reduced opportunities to meet with family members and friends in a situation of heightened stress leads to increased feelings of loneliness and social isolation, as well as increases the risk of mental health problems. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the effect of social contacts on the changes in psychoemotional states in the elderly population in Latvia during the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis draws upon quantitative data collected by the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe within Wave 8 in Latvia (n=1207). Measurements of the frequency of social contacts were used to c…