Verbally agitated behaviours are among the behavioural symptoms of dementia most commonly encountered in long-term care facilities. These behaviours may be related to unmet needs that cannot be expressed adequately because of cognitive impairment. The objective of this preliminary study is to assess an intervention, based on the needs of social attention, sensory stimulation, and comfort, for managing verbally agitated behaviours in long-term care demented patients. A multiple baseline case study design was used, with two participants.

The purpose of this study was to provide an empirical measure of bedroom personalization and a descriptive characterization of the types of items included in a personalized space. The study compared the extent of personalization in three types of bedrooms, varying as to their homelike quality (private-homelike, private-institutional, and ward-institutional). A measure of the relative degree of personalization was obtained by recording the number of personal items for each room and dividing the number of items per room by each room's available vertical and horizontal surface area. The degree of personalization was found to be significantly greater in private-homelike rooms than in private-institutional or ward-institutional rooms. This study provides the first demonstration that personalization of a resident's bedroom can be quantified and opens the way for studies of factors contributing to the effect (e.g., facility regulations, family, and staff attitudes) and empirical studies of presumed consequences (e.g., resident satisfaction and improved functioning).

Age-related macular degeneration (ARMD) is a frequent cause of vision loss among people over age of 60. It is an aging process involving a progressive degradation of the central retina. It does not induce total blindness, since it does not affect the peripheral vision. Nonetheless, it makes difficult to read, drive, and perform all daily activities requiring fine details perception. Low-vision care consists in inducing an eccentric fixation so that relevant visual targets impact an unaffected retinal locus. It is necessary but not sufficient to enhance visual extraction. The present work aims to draw the attention of low-vision professionals to the necessity of developing new re-education tools. Beyond the perceptual re-education linked to an optimization of visual information extraction, a cognitive re-education should also be provided in order to enhance the interpretation processes. Indeed, the spatial-frequency properties of the visual world no longer match patient perceptual habits. The visually impaired person has to learn again to use these new sensory data in an optimal way. Contextual information can be a precious help in this learning process. An experimental study involving young people provides elements for another method of low-vision care, in terms of visual cognitive re-education.

This article presents the results of a study into stereotyping by managers of their older workers and the influence of these stereotypes on the inclination of managers to keep their older workers in employment. The data for the study were gathered among 796 managers. Through principal components analysis, 15 opinions about older workers were reduced to three dimensions of stereotypes. The first dimension deals with the productivity of older staff; the other two dimensions have to do with their reliability and their adaptability. These stereotypical ideas about older workers influence managers' attitudes toward the retirement of their employees. The analyses show that, besides organizational factors, psychological mechanisms also explain why people view older workers through stereotypes. Managers who are older and in more frequent contact with older employees tend to hold more positive views.

Implementing generationally appropriate activities for persons with dementia is a challenging task. Horticulture therapy (HT) addresses this challenge through the use of plants to facilitate holistic outcomes. Utilizing the model of environmental press, the current study sought to analyse adult day service (ADS) participants' responses to HT as compared to traditional activities.

HT activities were conducted once a week for a half an hour at four different ADS programs over the course of 9 weeks. Observational data were collected during HT and traditional ADS activities using a modified dementia care mapping (DCM) technique. Observers coded predominant behavioural and affectual responses for each participant.

HT activities facilitated higher levels of productive engagement and positive affect and lower levels of non-engagement than did traditional ADS activities. Therefore, HT offers dementia-care staff a viable activity alternative that is well received by clients and inclusive of all interested persons, despite cognitive limitations.

The purpose of this feminist narrative study was to examine the experiences of women in four different health professions (nursing, medicine, physiotherapy, and social work) who provided care to elderly relatives. Although caring is a central and common feature of the personal and professional lives of many women (Baines, Evans, & Neysmith, 1991; Baines, 2004), the separation of professional, paid caregiving from family, unpaid caregiving among health care providers is problematic. Study findings suggest that female health professionals who assume familial responsibilities continually negotiate the boundaries between their professional and personal caring work. Despite the use of a variety of strategies for managing their double-duty caregiving demands, many women experienced a dramatic blurring or erosion of these boundaries, resulting in feelings of isolation, tension, and extreme physical and mental exhaustion. These findings suggest that women who are double-duty caregivers, especially those with limited time, finances, or other tangible supports, may experience poor health, which warrants further study.

Drawing from the health belief model, cues to action have been theorized to influence health behaviours; however, few studies have examined these constructs explicitly. This study investigated the relationship between information cues to action and exercise self-care. It was hypothesized that reading about illness information, knowing about services, and consulting with others about one's illness triggers exercise self-care. The sample consisted of 879 chronically ill adults aged 50 and over, drawn from the Vancouver North Shore Self-Care Study. It was found that the odds of exercising almost doubled for readers of information about illness (compared to non-readers), after controlling for socio-demographic factors, illness context, and illness efficacy. Furthermore, knowledge of services and consultations were shown to increase the odds of exercise self-care. These findings provide support for the salience of cues to action as a pivotal theoretical construct. The implications of these findings for health promotion programs targeting persons with chronic illnesses are discussed.

The present study was conducted to expand research showing that older adults' expectations that they will recall particular medication instructions do not coincide with their actual ability to do so. Seventy-one younger-old adults (M = 68.10 years, range = 57–74) and 62 older-old adults (M = 80.31 years, range = 75–89) made judgements about the likelihood of their recalling medication instructions and about their confidence in their recall. The results indicate that older-old adults recall fewer instructions than do younger-old adults and that both groups overestimate their ability to recall the instructions. This research suggests that problems remembering to take medication may be due, in part, to older adults' overestimating the ease with which they will remember medication instructions.

While there is growing evidence of the increasing use of medicines by the elderly, research undertaken to critically examine differences among types of medicine users in this population is limited. Using population data, we examine the influence of social, demographic, and health-related factors on likelihood of being a non-user, a user of non-prescribed medicines only, or a user of prescription medicines only. We find some evidence of the rational use of drugs (i.e., those who are in better health are more likely to be non-users or to use non-prescribed medicines than those who are in poor health) and of rational explanations for reported use (i.e., being female is associated with less likelihood of non-use or exclusive use of non-prescription medicines than being male). Further analysis of the medicine-use patterns and decisions of elderly men and of those of elderly persons who are widowed or separated/divorced is warranted.

The purpose of this exploratory, phenomenological-hermeneutic study was to explore the experience of non-problem gambling by older adults. Twelve older gamblers were identified as non-problem gamblers using two gambling screens and participated in in-depth interviews about their experience of gambling. Two major themes emerged from the interviews: the attractions of gambling and methods to keep gambling in control. Older persons sought out gambling for a variety of reasons: social contact, the food and the excitement, chances to give to charity, chances to have an inexpensive holiday, and the need for a safe way to be “bad”. Participants also described a number of cognitive and behavioural strategies to keep their gambling from becoming a problem. The results of this small exploratory study suggest that gambling is a popular form of social entertainment for older persons, although the main attractions of gambling have little or nothing to do with gambling itself. Older persons also appear to possess numerous strategies to keep gambling from becoming a problem.

Warfarin dosing for thromboprophylaxis in post-operative patients is time-consuming. Warfarin-dosing nomograms can be used in post-operative arthroplasty patients, but warfarin requirements are lower in frail older people. We modified an existing post-arthroplasty nomogram to a frail-friendly version and evaluated its performance in a frail elderly post-orthopaedic surgery on a geriatric rehabilitation ward to determine if it would improve quality indicators for oral anticoagulation. On a geriatric rehabilitation unit, post-operative orthopaedic patients were assigned to either physician-adjusted warfarin dosing or the nursing-administered nomogram. The proportion of days within target INR values was significantly higher in the nomogram group (77%, 95% CI 74% to 81%) compared to the physician-adjusted group (53%, 95% CI 46% to 60%), with no major bleeding or thromboembolic complications. The number of warfarin-related telephone calls to physicians was significantly reduced by tenfold. Use of a frail-friendly nomogram improved quality and efficiency of patient care on a geriatric rehabilitation unit.

This book by Barry McPherson is the fourth edition of Canada's first textbook on aging. Aging as a Social Process is a comprehensive text that elucidates and links the physiological, psychological, and social domains of aging within the context of what are known as individual and population aging. As the title implies, the book focuses primarily on the social processes of aging embedded in the micro-, meso-, and macro-level environments. It therefore balances individual-level experiences and social-structural forces connected to the causes and consequences of aging. It has been updated and expanded to reflect the increasing diversity in aging and the aged and the concomitant growth in research. This is captured through the integration of theory, research, and policy, from multiple perspectives and methodologies, applied to a wider range of substantive issues than in previous editions of the text. For instance, Aboriginal people and aging, homelessness, dating and sexuality, gay and lesbian relationships, end-of-life care, home care, and older drivers are but a few of the topics added or significantly supplemented in this new edition. In particular, I found the inclusion of a chapter dealing with individual and population health a needed and welcome addition. A life-course perspective on these topics that embraces the multiplicity of experience as individuals move through life stages, exposed to different historical and cultural contexts and facing and creating different life choices and chances, connects the material presented in this text.