System models for resilience in gerontology: application to the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

The care needs for aging adults are increasing burdens on health systems around the world. Efforts minimizing risk to improve quality of life and aging have proven moderately successful, but acute shocks and chronic stressors to an individual’s systemic physical and cognitive functions may accelerate their inevitable degradations. A framework for resilience to the challenges associated with aging is required to complement on-going risk reduction policies, programs and interventions. Studies measuring resilience among the elderly at the individual level have not produced a standard methodology. Moreover, resilience measurements need to incorporate external structural and system-level factors that determine the resources that adults can access while recovering from aging-related adversities. We use the National Academies of Science conceptualization of resilience for natural disasters to frame resilience for aging adults. This enables development of a generalized theory of resilience for different individual and structural contexts and populations, including a specific application to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Risk Factors for COVID-19 Morbidity and Mortality in Institutionalised Elderly People

“…There are very few high-quality studies on the involvement and the real impact of COVID-19 in nursing homes [ 26 ]. Scientific societies have elaborated multiple recommendations regarding the management of the pandemic in nursing homes [ 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 ]. The scarce number of studies on this subject include reports of series of cases focused on the lethality of the virus, the need for early diagnosis of suspicious cases, and early implementation of preventive measures to avoid the introduction and spread of the virus in nursing homes [ 32 ], as well as the role of asymptomatic and presymptomatic residents [ 33 , 34 , 35 ].…”

Precarious Aging: COVID-19 Risk, Resilience and Response

“…A resilience and aging model also provides a dynamic approach to understanding responses and adaptations to the COVID-19 crisis (Klasa et al 2021b). A crucial phase of the resilience process is the underlying motivation and energy needed for accessing and activating resources embedded in the individual, family, community and system and broader socio-political environments (including governance systems) (Clark et al 2011;Richardson 2002;Wister et al 2016Wister et al , 2020.…”

Technological interventions to reduce loneliness and social isolation among community-living older adults: A scoping review

“…At the conceptual level, technological approaches to loneliness and social isolation can be understood from a resilience model of aging. Resilience has been defined in a number of ways (Cosco et al, 2019;Wister & Cosco, 2020), but is commonly defined as the ability to adapt and thrive when faced with one or more adversities (Klasa et al, 2021;Wister et al, 2016). According to Infurna (2021:808) there are six core elements of resilience: "(1) exposure to risk or adversity, (2) the response or manifestation of positive adaptation despite encountering risk or adversity, (3) individual variations surrounding the response to risk or adversity, (4) protective factors that predict positive adaptation, (5) resilience is a dynamic process that requires a methodology to match this notion (e.g., use of contemporary methods of analysis and longitudinal data), and ( 6) resilience is a multidimensional construct."…”