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Patients with rheumatic disease have a high prevalence of metabolic syndrome. The purpose of this study was to investigate temporal changes in metabolic syndrome indices and to identify factors influencing metabolic syndrome development. A prospective cohort study design was adopted. The study participants were 68 outpatients with a rheumatic disease at an outpatient clinic of a university hospital. Data on demographics, health-related characteristics, steroid use, serum C-reactive protein levels, and metabolic syndrome indices were collected between December 2017 and March 2021. Temporal changes in body mass indices, serum triglyceride, and cholesterol levels were significant. Body mass indices, diastolic blood pressure, serum triglyceride, high-density lipoprotein, and fasting blood glucose levels at time of diagnosis were found to influence metabolic syndrome development. Temporal changes in serum triglyceride, cholesterol, and fasting blood glucose levels were significantly influenced by inflammatory status. The findings demonstrate the importance of controlling inflammatory activities in the context of inhibiting the progression of metabolic syndrome and rheumatic diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study compares older adult learning in Korean and Japanese sample populations, paying special attention to learning after age 70. Surveys with nearly identical questionnaires were conducted in the Bundang Senior Welfare Center in Korea (N = 549, mean age 73.6 years) and at Osaka Prefecture Senior College in Japan (N = 1,491, 787, mean age = 67.4, 69.5 years). The main results are as follows: (a) in terms of learning needs, selected ratios of topics of “life review” and “communication with other seniors” increased as respondents increased in age from their 60s to 70s in both countries; (b) attitudes toward learning and social activities changed from “Novelty” to “Continuity” to “Disengagement” as respondents increased in age in both countries; and (c) the threshold age to old age was identified at around 75 years, not 70 years, particularly in Korean data. These results suggest that old age is a diverse period, and that creating ways to facilitate learning after age 70 is an urgent issue in the field of educational gerontology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: To examine the presence of symptom clusters and synergistic effects of symptom clusters on quality of life in rheumatoid arthritis patients. Background: Rheumatoid arthritis patients frequently experience multiple concurrent symptoms of pain, fatigue, and depression. Design A nonexperimental, cross‐sectional correlation design. Methods: The study participants were 179 rheumatoid arthritis patients. Data were collected between August and December 2016. A hypothetical model was developed based on the Theory of Unpleasant Symptoms Model: physiological antecedents included disease activity and obesity; symptoms of pain, fatigue, and depression were hypothesized as being clustered, and quality of life was taken as the outcome variable. Results: Disease activity had significant direct effects on pain, fatigue, and depression and indirect effects on fatigue and depression, whereas obesity had a significant direct effect on fatigue alone. Three symptom clusters, namely, pain fatigue, fatigue depression, and pain‐fatigue depression were identified and found to have significant synergistic effects on quality of life. Conclusions: Our findings support the importance of managing clusters of symptoms simultaneously, that is, collective symptom management. Inter‐cluster dynamics between symptoms should be considered when nurses develop symptom management strategies or self‐management programs to improve the quality of life of rheumatoid arthritis patients. SUMMARY STATEMENTS: What is known about this topic? A symptom cluster is a stable group of different symptoms that co‐occur in association with a specific disease.Rheumatoid arthritis patients frequently experience multiple concurrent symptoms of pain, fatigue, and depression. What this paper adds? The most common and distressing rheumatoid arthritis symptoms of pain, fatigue, and depression were found to co‐occur and to be interrelated, which are the two major criteria of symptom clusters.Three symptom clusters, namely, pain fatigue, fatigue depression, and pain‐fatigue depression, were identified and found to have significant synergistic effects on quality of life. The implications of this paper: Our findings support the importance of managing clusters of symptoms simultaneously, that is, collective symptom management.The complicated intercluster dynamics demonstrated between symptoms in the present study should be considered when nurses develop effective symptom management strategies or self‐management intervention programs to improve the quality of life of rheumatoid arthritis patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]