Family History and Adaptation among Centenarians and Octogenarians

Abstract

Background: The purpose of this study was to analyze various ‘family history’ variables (i.e. childhood health, financial situation while growing up, living with grandparents before age 17, and number of children) among participants of the Georgia Centenarian Study. Objective: To determine whether family history variables predict critical outcome areas such as cognitive functioning, activities of daily living, mental health, and economic dependence. Methods: A total of 318 older adults (236 centenarians and 82 octogenarians) were assessed with regard to their mental status, ADL (activities of daily living) functioning, depression, family history, loneliness, and perceived economic status. Results: Analyses indicated that the number of children significantly predicted the ability to engage in activities of daily living and loneliness. In essence, the more children, the higher the activities of the daily living score and the lower the loneliness scores. In addition, childhood health significantly predicted loneliness. The poorer one’s health in childhood, the higher the loneliness scores. Conclusion: The results of this study confirm the importance of distal family history variables on present-day functioning.

Editorial

“…Cognitive competence was associated uniquely with the use of medical and care-giving services, while aspects of personality also produced unique effects on types and amount of care-giving used. Notably, economic dependency was not related to distal variables (the nature of which is not described in this paper, but might be inferred to be similar to those covered by Hensley et al [12] . As with the Margrett et al [11] paper, cognition plays a central role in reduced reliance on care and medical services.…”

“…One examines the relationship between family history and developmental outcomes [12] . Initial results suggested that the number of children one had was positively linked to reduced limitations in daily living activities; however, controlling for personality eliminated this effect.…”

Brain pathologies in extreme old age

“…Patients who came to autopsy from UK-ADC, Nun Study (Wolf, et al, 1999), and GCS (Poon, et al, 2007) cohorts were the basis for the study. Details of UK-ADC, Nun Study, and GCS recruitment have been described elsewhere (Arnold, et al, 2010, Gosche, et al, 2002, Hensley, et al, 2010, Nelson, et al, 2007, Poon, et al, 1992, Riley, et al, 2002, Schmitt, et al, 2001). Mental status testing (Schmitt, et al, 2000) employed cognitive instruments that included the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE; (Davey, et al, 2013, Folstein, et al, 1975)).…”

Understanding Centenarians' Psychosocial Dynamics and Their Contributions to Health and Quality of Life

“…Several distal influences were found to impact the health of centenarians from the Georgia Centenarian Study [ 47 ]. The data show that the number of children significantly predicted centenarian's ability to engage in activities of daily living ( β = .14, P < .05) and loneliness ( β = −.23, P < .05).…”