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The current paper uses comparable data to present an overview of home-based long-term care (LTC) for persons over 65 years of age in Europe. It aims to provide new insights to aid discussions on LTC policy convergence in three areas: the need for services, the extent to which these needs are met and the means employed to do so. It uses data from wave 6 (2015) of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). Four summary indicators are charted: (i) the care need: how many people need care; (ii) the care gap: the extent to which stated needs remain unmet; (iii) the care mix: how overall provision is divided into formal, informal or a mix of both; and (iv) care satisfaction based on stated preferences by recipients. Heterogeneity at individual level is explained by probit analyses, examining how individual factors (age, severity of need, gender, social networks, prosperity and others) combine with country group and country effects. Scatter plots are used to relate differences among countries to systemic variables, such as public expenditures. The key conclusions are that: (i) Once needs are defined in comparable terms, there remains a surprisingly large number of people across Europe whose needs are not addressed at all, what we call the care gap, especially among the younger group aged 65–80; this is evident everywhere and is not limited to any one type of system or group of countries; (ii) formal and informal care are both significant for the stability of an LTC provision system and for the well-being of care recipients; and (iii) recipients of care are especially sceptical about formal care, as they reward principally informal carers with whom they have personal relationships. The overwhelming finding is that the heterogeneity defies easy generalisations, whether these relate to individual characteristics or systemic effects. This (unexplained) heterogeneity is a challenge for researchers to explain, but it could also represent an untapped resource for policymakers to exploit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When engaging in a task, individuals may prioritize the task's results (i.e., the outcome), or they may focus on the task in and of itself (i.e., the process). Previous conceptualizations of outcome and process orientations have focused on population- and context-specific motives rather than people's general proclivity toward these orientations across diverse tasks. Using a context-generalized outcome and process measure, we examined whether older adults (Mage = 72.8) and younger adults (Mage = 18.0) varied in their outcome and process orientations, and explored how these differences were related to temporal focus. The results indicated that, compared to their younger counterparts, older adults were more process oriented, and focused more on the present. Meanwhile, younger adults were more outcome oriented and focused more on the past and the future compared to older adults. Mediation analyses further revealed that older adults were more present focused due to their heightened process orientation, while younger adults were more past and future focused due to their outcome orientation. The implications of these findings in applied settings such as the workplace, health promotion, and business are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prospective memory (PM) plays a crucial role in daily autonomy. Metamemory and emotional valence have both been shown to influence PM performance in younger and older adults. However, when considered together, the relationship between emotional valence, metamemory, and PM has not been examined yet, especially whether metamemory PM representations develop with task experience (i.e., before versus after performing a task). We collected data from 25 younger and 19 older adults using an event-based PM task with emotional cues (positive, negative, or neutral). Results revealed that younger adults' predictions underestimated performance for neutral and negative cues. After performing the task, they showed more accurate representations for neutral cues, indicating that they monitored their representations. Older adults' predictions overestimated performance for negative PM cues, and they did not modify representations after performing the task. Thus, we do not find evidence that older adults are able to coherently monitor their PM representations. These findings highlight the importance of understanding PM representations, especially in older adults, as they may lead to less strategy use and more impaired PM performance in negative everyday situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aging research indicates that there is increased sedentary behaviour and insufficient physical activity levels across the older adult population. There is a growing body of evidence that suggests that pet ownership can have beneficial physical and mental health effects. Data were drawn from the Northern Ireland Cohort for the Longitudinal Study of Ageing (NICOLA). This questionnaire measured general social demographics such as gender, age, and marital status while also examining elements of physical activity, lifestyle factors (drinking status, smoking status), and education. Two items from the short form International Physical Activity Questionnaire recorded moderate and vigorous activity. Respondents were asked if they owned a pet (Yes/No). The results are based on a secondary data analysis. An ordinal logistic regression revealed that an increase in moderate activity days was associated with pet ownership with an odds ratio of 0.111 (95% CI, −0.036 to 0.337), Wald χ2 (1) 15.013, p < 0.001. An increase in vigorous activity days was associated with pet ownership with an odds ratio of 0.039 (95% CI, 0.004 to 0.342), Wald χ2 (1) 8.952, p = 0.003). Amongst older adults in Northern Ireland, those with a pet were more likely to engage in regular physical activity. This study was based on a small specific sample of the population and showed differences in physical activity levels between pet owners and non-pet owners. Additionally, the study showed that physical activity is extremely low among the older adult population, therefore further investigation is warranted on the reasons for these low levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Cardiovascular disease and dementia represent two health problems that may be causally connected. Studies have shown patients with dementia to have reduced cardiovascular health measures, where patients with dementia also have reduced electrophysiological brain activity as measured by event-related potentials (ERP's). Few studies have attempted to correlate the two: cardiovascular health and ERP brain activity. The objective of this study is to determine if there are ERP differences between patients with lower versus higher measures of cardiovascular risk. Methods: For 180 patients ages 53 (16) years, Audio P300 ERP amplitudes and latencies (speeds) were measured upon initial patient visit alongside other clinical evaluations. Cardiovascular risk was categorized into good versus poor levels for blood pressure resting and stressed, E/A Ratio, atherosclerosis, and carotid intima-media thickness. Results: Groups with good levels had lower latencies (faster P300′s) and higher amplitudes than those with poor levels across all cardiovascular risk measures, significant to p < 0.05 for most parameters. While both cardiovascular health and P300 metrics decline with age, poor blood pressure and plaque was seen to affect P300 performance across all age groups in this study. Conclusion: These data suggest correlation between brain activity, as measured by the P300, and five standard measures of cardiovascular health and this correlation may begin at an early age. While further explorations are warranted, these results could have implications on the management of preventative medicine by bringing preventative cardiology and brain health together. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]