The effect of age on the ability of B lymphocytes and thymus cells from donors of various ages to be capable of producing an anti-idiotype-blocked, hapten-augmentable PFC was studied by adoptive cell transfer techniques. Lethally irradiated mice were reconstituted with syngeneic B lymphocytes and thymus cells from donors of various ages. Recipients were immunized with trinitrophenylated bovine gamma globulin (TNP-BGG) one or seven days after cell transfer. Splenic IgG anti-TNP plaque-forming cell (PFC) responses were assayed in the absence and presence of hapten for anti-idiotype (Id)-blocked, hapten-augmentable PFC, 14 days after immunization. It was found that the B lymphocyte population from 2 month old donors together with thymus cells from donors of various ages (2 to 19 months) were incapable of reconstituting mice to produce anti-Id-blocked, hapten-augmentable PFC. Similar results were obtained when mice were reconstituted with thymus cells from 2-month-old donors together with B cells from donors of various ages (2 to 14 months). In contrast, mice reconstituted with B cells plus thymus cells from the same 8-month or older donors produced a significantly high percentage of anti-Id-block, hapten augmentable PFC. Mice reconstituted with B cells from 8 months or older donors plus thymus cells from donors of various ages (8 to 19) months also produced a significantly high percentage of hapten-augmentable PFC. Experiments with B cells and thymus cells from 2-or 8-month old donors parked in lethally irradiated 2-or 8-months old recipients for 7 days revealed that neither lymphocytes from old donors or old recipients were capable of inducing the appearance of anti-Id-blocked, hapten-augmentable PFC in the lymphocyte population from 2-month-old donors. Thus, the results of this study indicate syner-gistic co-operation between B lymphocytes and thymus cells from old donors for the production of auto-anti-idiotypic antibody regulation with age. This production of auto-anti-Id antibody with age seems not to be an induced maturation event but perhaps an intrinsic property unique to lymphocytes from old donors.

This paper describes a preliminary assessment of a departmental approach to palliative care for the dying older person. Forty patients who died in the Extended Care Wing of a teaching hospital were studied using the Palliative Care Assessment Record. Twenty-five were studied retrospectively while fifteen were followed prospectively. The results suggest that there may be subgroups of the terminally ill elderly, such as those with respiratory illnesses, requiring distinct care approaches. Suggestions are outlined regarding a more comprehensive assessment protocol to study this and related care issues.

A mental status questionnaire (MSQ) developed tor use in surveys of the non-institutionalized elderly has been validated against clinical assessment. The MSQ identities moderate and severe cognitive impairment in the elderly. However, using the suggested scoring subjects with mild impairment cannot be separated from normals.

The test is short, acceptable and reproducible and rate for false-positives and false-negatives fall well within acceptable limits for use in estimating the prevalence of dementia in the non-institutionalized elderly population.

Much literature supports the idea that problem-solving performance declines with aging. There are two important constraints on this generalization. The tasks that have been explored are for the most part novel ones. Literature is cited that argues that older people take longer to show improvement on such tasks. A second problem is that young control groups are more highly practiced at cognitive tasks generally. Thus age effects are confounded with skill effects. Recent work in semantically rich domains (those requiring a large knowledge base for skilled performance) show minimal effects of aging on problem-solving.

Sentence intelligibility as a function of reverberation time and the presence or absence of a pause was measured in three age groups by means of the Kent State Speech Discrimination Test. Young, middle aged, and old subjects listened to sentences recorded with approximately zero, one or three seconds reverberation time and with half containing a meaningful pause. In a second study, a different group of participants listened to an undistorted recording of the test to provide some information on the standardization of the Kent State Speech Discrimination Test across age groups. All subjects, who were prescreened for audiological normal hearing, were tested for recognition of one key word in each sentence immediately following presentation. Reverberation of three seconds reduced intelligibility for all groups. Age differences which occurred at the longest reverberation time disappeared when a pause was inserted. However, only pauses before a key word were effective. Unmasking of reverberation was suggested as a possible factor in the pause position effect. Practical applications of results are also discussed.

A kin selection model is offered as a feasible alternative to existing formulations of the evolutionary origins of later-life frailty. An assumption made was that reproductive patterns among early human kind were of a polygynous nature, reflecting a compromise of optimal reproductive strategies between males and females. Two general characteristics of polygyny are a delayed reproductive onset for males and an accumulation of wives by older males. The model proposes that paternal frailty occasions the demise of paternal assets to male heirs, which translates into an earlier reproductive onset for those heirs. Quantification of the model demonstrates its potentiality to account for the spread of genes for frailty through kin selection.

This study uses data from the 1975 Retirement Survey to analyze the factors underlying the residential mobility of the elderly in Canada. Two theoretical perpectives are considered, one emphasizing questions of community integration as a constraint on migration and the other focusing on the economic aspects of migration. We find more support for the integration perspective, at least if home ownership and married status are used as measures of integration. While economic questions can act as push factors (difficulty of upkeep or expensive taxes), income as such can both facilitate movement and be a measure of community integration.

Community support services represent an important resource for older persons. Their significance will grow as the older population increases in size in the North American Region. It is essential for the well-being of society that an adequate array of services for older persons be developed. Community support services must be provided in sensitive and personalized ways—and must respect the dignity and integrity of older persons. Community support services promote the independence of older persons; they prevent or defer recourse to more expensive and less personally desirable forms of caring services, such as nursing homes and geriatric services. Therefore, community support services may be said to have supportive, preventive and rehabilitative functions and to play an integrative role in terms of family and community life.

At the outset it should be stated, with training in the social sciences, (in sociology) and experience as a gerontology researcher which has been exclusively university based I have a commitment to a social science research perspective. While much of what will be said may well apply to biological and medical research, that is left to those experts to determine.

The following paper is presented from a Canadian and an Ontario point of view. In our country we have a tendency either to accept both the American and British ways of doing things or to take a position somewhere in between. For example, one can find advocates for either leaving out or keeping the “e” in ag(e)ing. On the other hand, after much wrangling, we have neither accepted the British specialty of geriatric medicine nor what appears to have become the American position not to have such a specialty but finally have opted for geriatrics becoming a subspecialty of internal medicine. It is questionable sometimes whether we are picking the best or worst of both worlds or what can in fact be labelled as essentially Canadian.