نشریه سالمندشناسی
سال ششم شماره 2 (پیاپی 21، تابستان 1400)

Hopefulness and happiness can affect the quality of life of people, especially the elderly. Since positivist psychology creates a wide range of strategies to increase happiness, hopefulness, and other positive emotions, so considering the importance of aging and the psychological issues of the elderly, the aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of positive psychology of happiness and hopefulness of elderly people in elderly care centers.

This study was an experimental study in which the study population consisted of all the elderly people in elderly care centers. Among the elderly care centers in Shiraz, 60 people were selected by cluster random sampling and replaced in two experimental (30) and control (30) groups. The experimental group received 8 sessions of 120 minutes for 2 months based on positive psychology training and the control group did not receive any training during this period. The Oxford Happiness and Schnyder Hope Questionnaire was used to collect data. After the meetings, post-test and follow-up were performed 1 month later. For data analysis, SPSS version 21 was used. 

The results showed that the mean and standard deviation of happiness and hopefulness respectively (33.43±4.36) - (42.93 ±3.12), (46.36 ± 3.78) - (51.66 ± 1.98) there was a statistically significant difference in the experimental group before and after the study (P <0.05). However, no significant change was observed in the control group. Also, the comparison of the mean and standard deviation of happiness and hopefulness between the two groups of test and control after the study and follow-up had a statistically significant difference (P <0.05).

Findings of this study showed that positive psychology can promote happiness and hopefuness in the elderly.

Care provision for Alzheimer's patients is associated with many challenges. Caregivers face high levels of care burden which leads to their reduced quality of life. Therefore, the current paper aims to investigate the relationship between care burden, care preparedness and the quality of life in the home caregivers of the elderly with the Alzheimer's disease.

This was a descriptive analysis research on 150 caregivers visiting Iran Alzheimer's Association, selected through simple random sampling and the table of random numbers. The instruments used in the study consisted of a care burden standard questionnaire, care preparedness questionnaire and caregivers’ quality of life questionnaire. Data was analyzed using SPSS V25 and statistical tests including independent t-test, one-way ANOVA, Pearson’s correlation and simultaneous multiple regression analysis, with a significance level of 0.05.

According to the descriptive findings, the mean score (standard deviation) was calculated to be 17.31 (6.05) for the variable care preparedness, 28.62 (7.66) for care burden and 28.23 (2.48) for caregivers' quality of life. The results showed significant direct relationships between the age of caregivers and care burden, and also between the care preparedness and caregivers' quality of life. Moreover, there were significant negative relationships between care preparedness and care burden, and also between care burden and caregivers’ quality of life (p-value < 0.05).

Care preparedness is a predictor of care burden. An increase in care preparedness reduces caregivers' burden. Moreover, care preparedness and care burden are significant predictors of caregivers' quality of life. An increase in care preparedness causes an increase in caregivers’ quality of life and an increase in care burden reduces caregivers’ quality of life.

World Health Organization has proposed age-friendly cities as an urban development approach. Likewise, the spatial distribution of urban facilities can be considered an important issue among urban planners.

In 2019, a sample of 770 elderly people was selected by the multi-stage sampling method. Data collection was accomplished using a standard questionnaire of the World Health Organization. Spatial inequalities of age-friendly indicators were calculated according to the Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) using version 22 of SPSS software.

The results showed that the city of Tehran has an average score of 2.07 out of a maximum score of 4 in the index of the age-friendly city. The “outdoor spaces and buildings” (2.33) and the “housing” (1.31) sub-indexes had the highest and lowest average among the components of an elderly-friendly city, respectively. According to the TOPSIS, Lavizan district (score 2.13) and Mehrabad district (score 1.90) was ranked as the best and worst elderly-friendly district from the elderly point of view, respectively.

Spatial inequality in the indicators of age-friendly is evidently intimidating the quality of older adults’ life. Therefore, it is necessary to pay close attention to the spatial distribution of urban features compatible with later life, especially in the southern areas of Tehran.

A significant part of the complications of type 2 diabetes can be reduced through proper education and lifestyle changes. The use of image-based educational materials is one of the ways to provide clear and understandable information to illiterate or low literate people. Therefore, this study was conducted to compare the effect of education using pictographs and lectures on the lifestyle of diabetic elderly referred to Rafsanjan Diabetes Clinic.

In this quasi-experimental study, 105 elderly people referring to Rafsanjan Diabetes Clinic were selected through convenience sampling and randomly assigned to three groups of 35 people. In one group, lifestyle trainings were presented using pictographs and in the other group, trainings were presented through lectures. The control group received routine training. Data were collected using a Health-Promoting Lifestyle Questionnaire before and three months after the intervention. Data were analyzed using SPSS v.18 and statistical tests such as independent samples t test. Paired t test, chi square and ANOVA.

Based on the results, the mean lifestyle scores of patients in the intervention groups 1 and 2 improved significantly after the intervention (P = 0.001), while the means of total lifestyle score in the two intervention groups were not significantly different (P = 0.105).

Education using pictographs improved the lifestyle of diabetic elderly to the extent of lecturing, so this method is recommended for educating illiterate or low literate elderly.

Aging and obesity associated with it, is a key factor in the etiology and progression of some chronic diseases. However, the majority of published data suggests that regular exercise training improves the health markers in older people and has considerable efficacy counteracting the aging process and associated diseases. Therefore, the present study conducted to compare the effect of three different type of exercise training training on the insulin resistance and lipid profile indices in obesity elderly Women.

Forty eight obese elderly women with BMI ≥30 voluntarily selected with convenience sampling method and were assigned into four groups of control (n=12, age: 62.24±4.84), aerobic (n=12, age: 60.51±4.62), resistance (n=12, age: 58.91±3.83) and concurrent exercise training (n=12, age: 60.77±5.05) for eight weeks. At baseline and after eight weeks, body compoeition indices and venous blood samples were evaluated from all subjects. Data were analyzed by paired t-test and one-way analysis of variance tests and performed by SPSS software version 24 at significance level p<0.05.

The results indicated that all three exercise training methods significantly improved the indicators of body composition (weight, body fat percent and waist circumference), lipid profile (total colestrol, TG, LDL-C, HDL-C) and insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) in elderly obese women (p<0.05) after eight week training. In addition, comparison of training methods showed that there was a significant difference between the combined group with the other two training methods in weight and body fat percentage and between the combined group and the resistance group in the BMI index, which indicated a further decrease in these indicators in this training method (p<0.05). However, the comparison of other markers between training groups was not significant (p>0.05).

According to results from this study it can be concluded that independent of abundant timprovement in weight and body fat percentage in the combined exercise group, all three methods of exercise training can improve and reduce the risk factors of chronic diseases in obese elderly women.

The phenomenon of aging in the world is one of the biggest changes in the 21st century. Accordingly, we must have a broad and comprehensive assessment with a preventive approach to our community to determine more effective macro priorities and policies. The aim of this study was the validity and reliability of HUI3 comprehensive health assessment tool in Iranian elderly for comprehensive health assessment.

This study was a descriptive-analytical study. 400 elderly people over 60 years old were selected by cluster sampling method from 6 health centers and two nursing homes in Sabzevar, Iran between May and August 1397 and were included in the study to determine the validity and reliability of the instrument.Data were collected through demographic information questionnaires, HUI3 and SF-36 through interviews. To determine the validity of the instrument, content validity index and criterion validity were used simultaneously, and to determine reliability, the internal stability method with Cronbach's alpha number report and the inter-evaluators reliability method with in-class correlation coefficient report were used. Data were analyzed using SPSS-v24 software.

The mean age of participants in the study was 71.3 years. Among them, 45.8% (183 people) were men and 54.3% (217 people) were women. The calculated instrument CVI for all instrument items was 0.82. The correlation coefficient between the scores of HUI3 instrument with SF-36 as the standard instrument was 0.87. The intra-class correlation coefficient performed by different presenters was 0.93 and Cronbach's alpha for all items was 0.80.

The reliability and validity of the Persian version of the HUI3 Comprehensive Health Assessment Questionnaire is appropriate and acceptable, so this questionnaire can be used to assess the health status of Iranian elderly.

Frailty is a prevalent aging syndrome that causes adverse health outcomes in the elderly. Socioeconomic status and chronic illness may increase the risk of frailty syndrome. The aim of this study was to Prevalence of Frailty and Related Factors in the Elderly Referred to the Emergency Department of Ardabil Medical Education Centers in 2020.

In this descriptive cross-sectional study, 505 elderly people referred to the emergency department were selected by the available sampling method. frailty syndrome was assessed using the five criteria of Fried Which included: 1) unintentional weight loss, 2) exhaustion, 3) slow walking, 4) physical activity, and 5) weakness. Chronic diseases were assessed self-report. Polypharmacy considered the use of 5 or more drugs. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics including mean, standard deviation, and inferential including analysis of variance, independent t-test, chi-square and linear regression using SPSS 22 statistical software.

The mean age of participants was 70/91±7/49. 255 (50.5%) were male, 318 (63%) were married and 271 (53.7%) were illiterate. 204 (40.4%) of the elderly who referred to the emergency department were frailty and 161 (78.9) elderly people with frailty had hypertension. The variables of age, education, family composition, heart disease, hypertension, hospitalization, and fall were predictors of frailty syndrome in the elderly referred to the emergency department.

By identification of frailty syndrome and appropriate intervention based on predictive factors such as age, education, family composition, heart disease, hypertension, hospitalization, polypharmacy and fall can reduce the adverse health outcome of frailty syndrome

So far, studies have been conducted to investigate the effect of exercise elderly people, Evaluation of the components of balance and the disorders of these components and its effects on the type of balance training provided to the elderly have received less attention. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to compare two types of specific and comprehensive balance exercises at home on balance indices in elderly men.

Forty healthy young elderly people between the ages of 60 and 75 were randomly divided into one of three groups: specific training (13 people), comprehensive training  (14 people) and control group (13 people). Evaluation of balance component disorder was measured by BEStest from participants in all three groups. In specific Group One balance exercises were presented based on the assessment of disorder in balance components. The exercises presented to the comprehensive group were without regard to the evaluation of individuals. Timed Up and Go Test, Single leg stance test and Activities Specific Balance Confidence Scale were measured before and after training and after one month of follow-up from all participants. Data were analyzed using Repeated measures analysis of variance at a significance level of P = 0.05 by SPSS software.

The results showed that specific and comprehensive balance training programs can have positive effects on the pre-test-post-test stages in Timed Up and Go Test (P = 0.001), Single leg stance test (P = 0.001) and Activities Specific Balance Confidence Scale (P = 0.001). Also, follow-up of the results after one month from the end of the research in the post-test-follow-up phase in three balance indices showed significant and positive effects.

The final results of the present study showed that both specific and comprehensive exercises at home can have positive and lasting effects on improving balance indices in healthy elderly men.