In four detailed "yesterday" interviews, old people (n = 132) were studied to identify their day-to-day mental and physical symptoms. Previous reports have described the nature, frequency, and severity of the symptoms reported. This paper describes the actions taken by old people to alleviate discomfort from their symptoms. Some action was taken to treat four fifths of the complaints but virtually none of the symptoms were reported to health care professionals. Among the authors' findings are that about 20 per cent of the drug doses taken by the interviewees could not be identified and the remaining 80 per cent were divided equally between prescription drugs and over-the-counter medications. It is evident that there is a world of day-to-day health experiences and practices of which health care professionals are unaware. Sensitive questioning is needed to elicit information about that world from elderly patients, who in turn are often in considerable need of health education from professional sources.
Age mix as an aspect of the suprapersonal environment is examined in terms of its effects on the lifestyles and well-being of older people. A large national data set is analyzed, indicating small but highly stable relationships between high perceived neighborhood age concentration and activity participation, activity satisfaction, friends, interaction, friends' satisfaction, and morale. Preference for high age density was seen to be associated with low socioeconomic status in two large data sets. While under most conditions, a minority of older people prefer associating or living only with those of a similar age, a number of positive functions of age homogeneity are evident for those who choose or prefer this style of living. The findings contribute to theory in person-environment relations by showing the salience of the aggregate person characteristics of the environment. Two instances of an interaction effect between age mix and age-mix preference in determining well-being affirm the importance of person-environment congruence. Lawton's environmental docility hypothesis receives some mild support in the association between preference for age homogeneity and several deprived statuses.
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