As community services replace institutional beds, clients must be ensured ready access to nursing home care when truly required. This study explores predictors of waiting time for nursing home admission in a typical voluntary single-entry system in Saskatchewan. The study examined a district-wide cohort of 777 clients awaiting a first nursing home admission over two years in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Median waiting time was 107 days. In multivariate time-to-event analysis, independently assessed priority status predicted a three times greater rate of admission. Living alone, living in seniors housing attached to a nursing home, and being ambulatory only with assistance also shortened waiting time. Co-operation problems increased waiting time. The study shows that in a voluntary single-entry system, admission is not solely by priority status.

The purpose of this paper is to report research findings from a study of the nature of the relationship between informal and formal care of the elderly. There are several explanations for the link between informal and formal care: the task specific model, the compensatory model, the substitution model, the supplementary model, and the complementary model (which combines both the compensatory and supplementary functions of formal care). These explanations were evaluated using data from the 1985 General Social Survey for those aged 65 and older who have functional disabilities. Data were analysed using logistic regression analysis. The findings show support for the complementary function of formal care. The data indicate that formal care compensates for the absence of a spouse or child and, in a minority of cases, supplements work of the spouse or child caregiver for personal care tasks and to a lesser extent housework. Of these two, the compensatory effect of formal care appears to be more prevalent than the supplemental effect.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the phenomenon of spousal caregiving following the institutionalization of elderly husbands. Theoretically, the study was informed by the interpretive perspective in sociology and the concept of career. Methodologically, the study employed a longitudinal and prospective design and combined quantitative and qualitative approaches. The data were drawn from a larger study designed to explore the transition to quasi-widowhood. This article reports on one aspect of spousal caregiving following the admission of husbands to a long term care setting, i.e. the performance of tasks. In this study, wives carried out a substantial number and wide variety of tasks related to personal, instrumental, relational and recreational care. They viewed visiting as their most important task but also highly valued providing companionship, love and support, doing little things for their husbands and monitoring their health and well-being. Typically, wives carried out tasks they viewed as falling within their domain of responsibility. Task performance occurred within a context of meaning that served to explain, in part, their continued involvement in caregiving following the admission of husbands to a long term care setting. Implications of this study point to the need for collaboration in caregiving between wives and staff, to support and enhance the quality of care provided by elderly wives who are coping with the institutionalization of their husbands.

Available research supports the therapeutic usefulness of cognitive therapy for depressed older adults. Few studies have addressed the issue of response prediction. This research investigates the associations between several pre-intervention characteristics of subjects and therapy outcomes in the context of a group intervention. The characteristics under study were severity of depressive symptommatology, endogenous depression profile, subjective health status, perceived social support, and frequency of cognitive depressive symptoms representing a negative view of oneself. A more severe depressive symptomatology and a more negative health perception were associated with a less favourable outcome of therapy. Although the majority of endogenous patients benefitted from the intervention, only a minority reached the level of symptom remission at the end of treatment. A more pronounced cluster of symptoms characterized by negative thoughts about oneself tended to be associated with a worse outcome. Perceived social support was unrelated to therapy outcome.

A review of the literature shows that only a weak connection exists between objective memory tests and self-evaluation memory questionnaires. The object of the present study was to explore which of the mnemonic, affective or psychosocial factors influence subjective evaluation of the memory function. This study is composed of a self-evaluation memory questionnaire, an ecologic-type objective memory evaluation, two affective state measures, anxiety and depression, and an inventory of life events. Sixty elderly persons took part in the study. They were divided into two groups, with attribution to a group depending on whether or not they considered themselves to have problems with memory Results supported the hypothesis that subjective and objective evaluations of memory comprise different components. Contrary to an objective test, self-evaluation of memory is strongly related to affect rather than being a perfect representation of actual mnemonic ability and this in spite of the ecological character of the memory test.

This study examined the relationship between attachment styles and subjective well-being in late adulthood. Seventy-six elderly adults (mean age = 67.9 years) completed the Relationship Questionnaire (a measure of attachment styles), the MUNSH (a measure of subjective well-being) and ratings of perceived health and marital status. Results indicated that both health and attachment style produced significant main effects, but no interaction, on well-being. Specifically, healthy individuals were happier than unhealthy ones; participants with secure and dismissive attachment styles were significantly happier than those classified as fearful. The distribution of attachment style classification across secure, preoccupied, fearful, and dismissive styles showed differences compared to previous research with younger adults.

The purpose of this exploratory study was to develop, based on the ethnographic method, a research approach aimed at understanding the experience of widowhood as well as the coping strategies used by elderly men and women facing this experience. Ethnographic interviews were conducted at informants' homes, using a semi-structured format developed from a conceptual framework based on a stress and coping model. Interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Data were coded by two independent raters according to the study's conceptual framework and categories generated from the data. Results illustrate that personal factors such as biographical history, centrality of the spouse in personal life and self-efficacy influence the meanings of widowhood and the use of coping strategies; also, contextual factors, namely normative standards and cultural values, seem to have a differential influence on the meanings of widowhood and the coping strategies of widows and widowers. As a coping strategy, seeking social support is related to qualitative characteristics of social resources, more specifically reciprocity and reliability. The research approach developed in this project provides a means to better understand the contextual factors which might explain the great variability of mental health responses of elderly widows and widowers as well as elderly's responses to other stressors in their daily life.

Previous papers in this series noted a positive association between aluminum water concentrations and a measure of mental impairment, and a negative association between fluoride concentrations and the same measure of mental impairment. The results obtained were qualitatively similar to the corresponding associations obtained from death certificate data that list Alzheimer's disease as the underlying cause of death. In addition, the results were also qualitatively similar to the results obtained in a number of other studies carried out at different times, in different areas and using different outcome measures for the measure of mental impairment. The present study concerns the role of iron concentrations and specifically, whether when taking iron concentrations into account, the previously noted associations involving aluminum are maintained. The results show that this seems to be the case and also suggest that iron can compete with aluminum, and can both increase or decrease the likelihood of showing signs of mental impairment. The results do not indicate consistently that by modifying the methods of water purification, using iron instead of aluminum, the treated water will be less biotoxic, although there could be instances, particularly when the aluminum concentrations are relatively high, when the use of iron compounds is beneficial.

Post-traumatic stress disorder refers to the aftermath of highly traumatic events involving death, serious injury, or threat to one's physical integrity in circumstances out of the ordinary, such as war, natural disasters, rape, or torture. Four chapters of this book specifically address post-traumatic stress disorder, as a late-onset or reactivated condition, in World War II veterans and older adults who survived a natural disaster. These contributions, from American and Dutch researchers, bring first-hand information on the prevalence and course of the disorder and they constitute the originality of the book. Two chapters, on the maltreatment of older adults and on the stressful impact of ordinary negative events on older adults, expand the coverage of stress in late adulthood. Starting and finishing with a discussion of general issues in stress and post-traumatic stress research, the book also contains two chapters of a more general nature on the effects of age on physiological responses to stress in both laboratory animals and human beings. Contributions providing a theoretical context for integration and drawing the therapeutic implications of the research findings would have been useful. Still, this book constitutes a unique source of information and a basic reading, given the paucity of research in the area of post-traumatic stress disorder in older adults.

This work is essentially based on a previous study which the author completed for the Quebec Department of Tourism Fish and Game. It identifies the tendencies which influence the supply and demand of recreational services offered to seniors. This work of nine well-structured chapters focusses on Quebec but does not ignore the main Canadian, American, or even European research in this area. The first three chapters take the reader into the heart of the problem: the study of leisure. Chapters 4 to 8 deal respectively with physical, sociocultural educational, social and tourism activities. The last chapter deals with the impact of leisure on the quality of life and the use of social-sanitary services. We learn that recreational activities contribute largely to the well-being of seniors. As part of the general conclusion, the tendencies that most influence the organization of recreation services are synthetically reviewed and summarized.