Health promotion for the oldest of old people

Abstract

To foster optimal living, the health, illness, function and motivation as well as age of older adults must be considered. They should be encouraged to pursue physical, social and intellectual activity, which can enable them to have active and fulfilling lives.

An Observational Study on the Factors of Successful Aging in a Sample of Nonagenarian Patients in a Rehabilitation Hospital Complex

“…On the other hand, older age seems also to be associated with higher self-rated successful aging, despite worse physical and cognitive functioning (Jeste et al 2013). Our results are consistent with those who state that people can live longer with chronic illnesses while maintaining functional and high quality of life (Pascucci et al 2012). In fact, even though our nonagenarians felt pain, they were more satisfied with their health and reported better quality of life in the physical domain than the younger patients with similar acute or chronic illnesses.…”

“…Public health policies are concerned with how to keep older people living independently with a good quality of life (Jeste et al 2013), which often worsens in old age: the oldest have more complaints than the youngest (Thomé et al 2004); pain negatively affects their quality of life (Jakobsson et al 2004); oral diseases are a public health problem, frequently neglected in older people (Fuentes-García et al 2012) who experience more chronic diseases of greater severity, take more medications and are hospitalized for longer periods than younger people (Pascucci et al 2012). Aging males, in particular, have the risk of developing gender-specific urological diseases and may run a higher risk of cardiovascular complications than women (Lunenfeld 2002).…”

Strategies to improve engagement of ‘hard to reach’ older people in research on health promotion: a systematic review

“…On an individual level, poor health was a barrier reported in all studies [4, 5, 25, 26]. Similarly, feeling too tired stopped people from taking part [4, 5] or resulted in participants only undertaking a shorter version of the assessment [4].…”

“…Similarly, feeling too tired stopped people from taking part [4, 5] or resulted in participants only undertaking a shorter version of the assessment [4]. Family members did not always seem to share subjects’ commitment to participate in research [26].…”

“…The oldest old (people aged 80 years and over), older people living in deprived areas and older people from black and minority ethnic groups (BME) have more health problems and health care disparities compared to the general older population [3, 4]. The oldest old is the fastest growing age group in the population [5, 6], making them an important target for health interventions. Furthermore, this group is a diverse section of the population, ranging from relatively healthy, independently living individuals to very frail individuals with multiple diseases, poor physical functioning and cognitive problems, presenting unique challenges for undertaking research on health promotion [7], and thus they are often excluded from studies [8, 9].…”